But I won’t anymore, she’s too scary.

That night I had a vivid dream.

I was asleep in the hedgerow and felt a bit peckish. It was dark but I scuttled out because I fancied a worm. Hang on a minute, I thought (in my dream), why am I scuttling? And why do I fancy a worm so much?

And also, by the way, why am I in a hedgerow and not in my bed?

There was a massive beating of wings and a giant owl landed in the hedge above me. It winked at me with one of its huge goggly eyes. I said, “What are you winking at, Beaky?”

And it said, “I’m winking at you, Talloooooolah.”

I said, “Why are you winking at me? Haven’t you got anything better to do?”

And the owl said, “I’m winking at you because I’m going to eat you.”

And I said, “Oh yeah and how are you going to do that?”

The owl flew down and put its claws on the back of my head. “First I’m going to let you run off for a bit. Then when you think you’ve got away, I’ll come and put my claws on you again. And so on.”

I said, “Why would you do that?”

The owl said, “Because I can. Because it’s a laugh. A little game I call The Taming of the Shrew.”

The owl handed me a mirror. I looked in it and saw I had dark beady eyes and a pointy nose. I was covered in fur.

I looked behind me. I had a tail.

And I realized I was holding the mirror with four claws.

I was a shrew.

The fire escape of desire

WHEN I GOT TO Dother Hall on Wednesday, there was no sign of the Tree Sisters. That was funny. Normally they’re bounding around, waiting for me. Perhaps there had been another roof incident and they’d been rushed to hospital with tarpaulin trauma.

The bell went for assembly. They still hadn’t turned up, so I sat next to Tilly and said, “Have you seen the Tree Sisters this morning?”

She said, “No, but there was some kerfuffle in their dorm last night. We heard shouting and crashing. We were going to go and see what had happened, but Dr. Lightowler shouted at us to go back to bed.”

I said, “Were they at breakfast?”

She shook her head. I saved three seats next to me and kept looking round, but they didn’t appear. What was going on?

Then Dr. Lightowler came onto the stage. I slumped down in my seat. Even for her she looked very owly. And serious. I was really worried now. What on earth had happened? Were the Tree Sisters in some sort of trouble?

Dr. Lightowler began in her thin, rasping voice. “A great deal of the work we achieve here relies on the common sense and trustworthiness of the people involved. You expect to be treated like mature adults striving to make good in a career that is one of the most difficult in the world. We, the staff, work tirelessly to help you, even though in some cases it is a pointless and hopeless task.” And she looked directly my way.