“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t you just stamp on the rest of them?”

“Well, they have teeth.”

“Not much they can do with them though, really, is there?” said Angry. “Bite your feet, maybe, but then you are wearing big boots, which is where the trouble started to begin with, if I’m not mistaken.”

Dozy looked at his boots, and back at the eyeballs.

“Are you suggesting—?”

“I am.”

“They squish,” said Dozy. “It made my tummy feel funny.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“I suppose you’re right. I think I’m almost over it already.”

“There you are, then,” said Angry.

Slowly, deliberately, meaningfully, the dwarfs and Dan advanced on the eyeballs. The eyeballs eyeballed each other. They may not have had ears, but they could see perfectly well, and what they saw was trouble advancing on them in big boots. As one, the eyeballs turned tail and headed back in the direction from which they’d come. Dan and the dwarfs watched them as they scarpered into the shadows.

“See?” said Angry. “How hard was that?”

“Not very,” said Dozy.

“Bet you feel a bit silly now, don’t you?”

“A bit,” Dozy admitted.

“Where did all those eyeballs come from anyway?” asked Jolly.

“Well,” said Dozy, “there were all these pictures of a bloke with big ears and teeth—a bit vampirish he was—and I said that the eyes seemed to follow you around the room, and the next minute the eyes were following us around the room. Very unsettling it was, so—”

“Uh,” said Mumbles. He tapped Dozy on the arm.

“Not now,” said Dozy. “I’m explaining. Anyway—”

Mumbles tapped him on the arm again.

“Really,” said Dozy, turning to give Mumbles a piece of his mind, “you have to learn some . . .”

What Mumbles had to learn was destined to remain undiscovered. Organ music was coming from somewhere nearby, and a shape was emerging from the murk. It was hunched, and wore a long, dark coat. The parts of it that were not covered by the coat were very pale. They included its hands, which had long fingers ending in even longer nails. Its head was entirely bald, and its ears were big and pointed like those of a bat. Its two front teeth, to reference the famous song,⁴¹ were not the kind that anyone would want for Christmas. They extended over its lower lip and resembled the fangs of a snake. As for its eyes, when last Dan and the dwarfs had seen them they’d been running along on two little feet and brandishing teeth of their own. They looked more at home in that awful face, and considerably more threatening.

“Oh,” said Dozy.

He had seen many horrible things in his time. He had seen demons. He had seen Hell itself. He had even, due to an unlocked bathroom door, seen Jolly without any pants on. But he believed that he had never seen, and never would see, anything more terrifying than the figure standing before him.