Little People

by Tom Holt

  Mercifully, about half of the house guests pushed off that day, which eased the tension around the house to a certain small degree. We were still lumbered with Cousin Valerie, Auntie Chris, Uncle Pat and Psycho Jack, Mum’s unlovely half-brother; it was nevertheless a blessing, like seeing off the boils and the locusts and only having the plague of frogs to contend with. By the time we were through with the waving-goodbye ceremonies for the ones we were managing to get shot of it was lunchtime. I was able to hide in my room until 4 p.m. on the pretext of having work to do for next term, and at 9.30 I synthesised a headache that got me out of the front room and back to safe territory. I got undressed, set the alarm again and dropped off to sleep as quickly and painlessly as if I’d been reading a Martin Amis novel.

  The results, when I came to examine them the next morning by the feeble light of the little pen-sized torch that had fortuitously tumbled out of a cracker the day before, weren’t nearly as encouraging as I’d hoped. One saucer of stale beer had become a sort of Agincourt for snails, and there was no indication that the biscuit and chocolate had been touched. As I approached the next saucer a very fat-looking pigeon tried to do an emergency lift-off, stalled about a foot from the ground and just about pulled off a forced landing in the leek patch. I don’t know if pigeons can be prosecuted for drunk flying; if so, I hope it had the sense to hunker down and sleep it off, though I doubt it. If it was bright enough to do that, it wouldn’t be a pigeon. My guess is that a badger got at the third saucer; that, or it was the victim of a very small-scale drive-by Greek wedding. In any event, the saucer was too badly smashed and the shards too widely distributed to give me any useful data about whether and by what its contents had been molested. That just left one more saucer, in the same part of the garden where I’d seen Elf One all those years ago, and sure enough all the beer had gone, along with nearly all the chocolate and two-thirds of the biscuit; also, there was a small puddle of yellowy-brown stuff that didn’t smell nice at all and could conceivably have been elven vomit – but I couldn’t confirm that, of course, since I had no samples of definitely genuine elf-puke to compare it with. What there weren’t were any tracks, footprints, discarded artefacts or other clear evidence. A definite maybe, in other words.

  Never mind. I gathered up the three surviving saucers, replaced them with the next instalment, and got back inside before sunrise had a chance to grass me up to the household. The day dragged by in the same tiresome pattern of obligation and evasion, and once again I set the alarm before going to sleep. By the end of the week, I didn’t need it; I’d mutated, God help me, into an early-to-bed early riser, which only goes to show the sacrifices we scientists are prepared to make for the sake of our research.

  But a pattern was starting to emerge. The only saucer to get any sort of result was Number Four in the lettuce zone. No more alleged elf-puke, and still no tracks or other visible signs, but something was scoffing the bickies and glugging the beer in a highly thorough, not to mention dedicated fashion; certainly enough to justify proceeding to Phase Three.

  Assuming I was prepared to take the risk, of course. Putting down saucers of flat beer could just about be explained away as a science project or a sudden burst of compassion for asylum-seeking hedgehogs or something of the sort, though I suspect that if I’d been called upon to explain myself to Daddy George an explanation along those lines would’ve come across as unconvincing bordering on the Clintonesque. A camera, on the other hand, cunningly rigged with tripwires to set itself off as soon as anything jostled the saucer, was in another league altogether. Besides, quite apart from the security aspect, I couldn’t make up my mind whether I was prepared to change the nature of my relationship with the putative elf –

  I know, that does sound nauseatingly flaky. But look at it this way. Up to that point, all I’d done was give away free beer and calories, out of (for all the elf knew) the kindness of my heart. If the little buggers were capable of goodwill, I was due for some; likewise trust and all that stuff. If I was then to start loosing off flashguns under their noses like some ruthless paparazzo, we’d be straight back to square one, possibly even worse.

  Furthermore, it wasn’t just a matter of cold policy: I was starting to feel attached to the little tyke.

  God only knew how or why; looked at logically, on the evidence I had gathered, my elf was the kind of person who drinks the equivalent of ten pints of beer and guzzles three packets of chocolate digestives and a half-dozen Mars bars every day. A mental image inevitably begins to condense around statistics like that, and in my mind’s ear I was already imagining him burping a lot and talking with an Australian accent. Even so: the idea of trapping him with a hidden camera felt like betrayal. It might be the next logical step in my research, but I didn’t want to do it. Simple as that.

  When in doubt, prevaricate; as mottoes go it’s neither use nor ornament, but it’s what I tend to do, and it’s my life. I put the decision off for another two days and carried on with the biscuit-and-beer drops, hoping that something would happen that would make the stealth photo call unnecessary. Maybe the elf was getting as curious about me as I was about him, and one morning I’d show up with the day’s saucer and he’d be there waiting for me, poised to carry out first-contact protocols in a properly dignified and serious manner. Or maybe he’d get careless and leave something behind. There was a fair chance that with all the booze and chocolate he’d been getting through, I’d come down one morning and find him stone dead of heart or liver failure. Now that really would be evidence: a dead elf – another dead elf. But you can take nearly everything too far, and that includes scientific research. In fact, thinking it over, that was all the more reason to wrap up Phase Two and stop putting down the saucers, if I didn’t want another death on my conscience.

  Valid point, dammit.

  So: next morning I didn’t take a fresh saucer with me. No big deal, I told myself. After all, I’d proved the existence of elves to my own satisfaction, which meant I wasn’t crazy, or at least not as regards elf-seeing. Surely that was all that mattered; besides, even if I completed my ‘research’ and came up with dead certain conclusive proof, who the hell was I going to show it to? Any scientist worth his lab coat with the row of pens in the top pocket would tell me to get lost as soon as he saw the word ‘elf’ in the title of my field notes. Nope; time to call it a day, pack it in, get a life . . .

  I froze. Out of the corner of my eye I’d noticed something. Something strange – well, that wouldn’t have been so bad. This was worse than strange, it was familiar.

  It was an elf, sure enough. I could just make out the shape of his head through a screen of verdant weeds. Because of the angles and the height differential, I was fairly sure he hadn’t seen me yet. Very slowly and carefully I turned my head until I could see him properly.

  An elf: same size as the other two, same general appearance. This one was squatting on an upturned acorn cup with his tiny moleskin trousers round his ankles, smoking a miniature ciggy and reading a very small tabloid newspaper. Bloody hell, I thought.

  I guess that if you’re a trained naturalist, you don’t get embarrassed. Must be so, since those guys spend all their time spying on God’s creatures, with a somewhat dubious level of concentration on their reproductive activities. But this was the first time I’d done anything like this; and besides, the little fellow looked so much like a human that the natural social instincts cut in before I could stop them. And the first instinct was, of course, to apologise.

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’ I stammered.

  The elf looked up and scowled at me. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re staring at, tall-arse?’

  If it wasn’t for the extreme mortification that was flooding all my systems at that moment, I’d have taken conscious note of the fact that, although the first couple of words seemed very faint and far away, as you’d expect of the product of a one-sixteenth scale larynx, something inside my head managed to turn the volume up, so that by the time he’d finished the sen
tence it was like listening to someone my own size. There you go, you see. A born scientist would’ve noticed that straight away, rather than having it dawn on him several hours later.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated, ‘I didn’t mean – I mean, I didn’t expect—’

  The elf snorted. ‘What d’you mean, you didn’t expect? Stands to reason, I’d have thought. Whole saucer of beer every night, on top of all that chocolate and biscuits, any bloody fool ought to see what that’s going to lead to. The runs,’ he added accusingly. ‘Something chronic.’

  ‘Actually—’ No, I told myself, don’t try and explain further. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said for the third time. ‘Besides, if it didn’t agree with you, why did you—’

  ‘What, turn down a free drink?’ The elf laughed harshly and flicked away his dog-end. ‘Now, would you mind terribly much pissing off while I wipe my bum? If it’s all the same to you, that is.’

  I turned away so quickly that I nearly lost my balance and fell over. While I was still wobbling precariously on one foot, I realised that I was practically face to face with Daddy George, in a green-and-red-checked dressing gown and non-matching slippers.

  ‘Who were you talking to?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘What? Oh, nobody,’ I replied as best I could, though it wasn’t easy; it felt as though my tongue was suddenly several sizes too big for my mouth. ‘I was just—’

  He waited a while second before prompting; ‘You were just what?’

  ‘Just, um, rehearsing.’ Christ, said a voice inside my head, couldn’t you have done better than that? ‘For a play.’

  He looked at me as if he’d just found half of me in an apple. ‘What play?’

  ‘School,’ I said. ‘Next term.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything about any play.’

  ‘Didn’t I? Oh well. It’s only a small part, you see, and—’

  His nose twitched once. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he replied. ‘Like they say, size isn’t everything. Tell you what – after dinner tonight, your mother and I can help you learn your lines. How’d that be?’

  Was I really so transparent, I wondered. If so, I had a wonderful career ahead of me as a plate-glass window. ‘That’s really kind of you,’ I said, ‘but I’ve only got three lines, so it isn’t—’

  ‘Ah.’ He nodded. ‘I see. You sure about that?’

  I gulped. ‘What?’

  ‘I made it four,’ Daddy George explained. ‘First you said sorry, then you didn’t expect, then if it didn’t agree with you, and finally—’ He shrugged. ‘You’re right, it was just three. My mistake. Must be a funny old play, though, if that’s all you’ve got to say. Pinter?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Harold Pinter? Samuel Beckett? The playwright,’ he added, ‘not the time traveller.’

  ‘Um,’ I replied. I guess I’ve just got a knack for repartee. ‘No, not them. Someone else.’

  ‘Ah. Who?’

  ‘I – it’s on the tip of my tongue. Begins with an S.’

  ‘Shakespeare?’

  I shook my head. ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘it’s just sort of gone, for now. It’ll come back to me in a moment, I’m sure.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘After all, it’s fairly essential when you’re acting to know what play you’re in, otherwise you might wander into the wrong theatre by mistake and screw everything up for everybody. Well-known theatrical adage, that is. You ask Ken Branagh or anybody like that, they’ll tell you exactly the same thing.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I muttered. ‘I’ll remember that.’

  ‘Well, do your best,’ he said. ‘But don’t strain yourself. I’d start with easy stuff, if I were you, like your name and address; then you can work your way up to remembering tricky things like playwright’s names and bits of useless advice. Well,’ he added, sniffing, ‘I think I’ll go in now. You coming, or are you going to rehearse some more?’

  As I followed him into the house, not daring to look round at where the elf had been, I did a quick mental tally of the score so far. Clearly Daddy George knew that I knew something, but the fact that he hadn’t said anything openly about it and had confined himself to menacing hints and similar melodrama implied that he didn’t know for sure what I’d found out. On balance, then, a solid six out of ten was probably on the generous side of fair.

  By dropping said hints, on the other hand, he’d tacitly admitted that there was something going on and that he was involved in it, and also that it was something at least vaguely disreputable (or else why hadn’t he come straight out with it and yelled at me?) Once you’d taken out all the performance art and general presentation, even though I was the one who’d been careless enough to let himself be crept up on, when the whistle went for full time I’d learned rather more new and interesting stuff than he had. Seven out of ten for me, then, and there was a case to be made for upping that to seven point five or eight. That, of course, would depend on what action Daddy George now felt obliged to take. If the result was that he panicked and had me killed to stop me telling his secret to the world, my executors would probably feel they had no choice but to scale down that seven into a six, maybe even to a five-five.

  Not that he’d go that far, of course.

  Would he?

  For some unaccountable reason I was as jumpy as a rat in a blender for the rest of the holiday. I was right off my food, didn’t sleep much, stayed well away from mechanical or electrical apparatus; on the other hand, I was noticeably less antisocial, to the point where I was never alone from dawn to bedtime if I could possibly avoid it, which wasn’t like me at all. When the holiday finally ground to a halt, I turned down an uncharacteristically considerate offer of a lift back to school from Daddy George, and made a point of not sitting in the seat on the train that he subsequently reserved for me. In fact, it was only once I was back in my study at school and I’d had a thorough snoop round for loose electrical connections, stray cobras and tarantulas and freshly loosened floorboards that I stopped twitching and managed to relax.

  Next day, after close of business, I went looking for Cru. I felt I probably owed her an apology for something or other, and if I didn’t she could book it in on account for the next time I screwed up. I found her down by the tennis courts, throwing bits of gravel at small, gullible birds who assumed they were biscuit crumbs.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Bastard,’ she replied.

  Well, in a way it was nice to have my intuition confirmed. ‘So,’ I said, ‘how was your Christmas, then?’

  ‘Utterly horrible,’ she replied. ‘Go away and get eaten by rats.’

  I assumed a stationary orbit, so to speak, and waited while she scored one direct hit and four near misses. Her hand/eye co-ordination always was excellent. ‘Sorry you had a rotten holiday,’ I ventured. ‘Me too, actually.’

  ‘Good. Serves you right.’

  I sensed that something wasn’t quite right between us. ‘Is something the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. You. But nothing that couldn’t be solved by you sharing a bath with an electric fire. Goodbye.’

  I took a moderately deep breath. ‘Have I done something wrong?’ I said.

  This time she turned round and looked at me. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And if your IQ was greater than your inside leg measurement, you’d know that. I’m so glad I’m not as stupid as you are – it must be so infinitely depressing.’

  ‘Oh well, then,’ I said. ‘See you around.’

  She frowned. ‘In the distance, preferably. Now, would you mind going and contaminating somewhere else? After all, what harm has this tennis court ever done you?’

  I’m not totally insensitive; I can take a hint. So, with a glum sort of smile and a slight shoulder-shrug to convey bewildered regret, I pushed off and left her to her target practice.

  It was easy enough to come to terms with the idea that my girlfriend – my only friend, if we’re going to be grittily honest about it – had decided she never wanted to see me ever again in
this or any parallel universe. After all, I’d never really been able to get my head around the idea that she’d ever liked me, let alone – well, there you go. There was a certain feeling of dreary inevitability about the while thing that made it easier to accept, though no less hard to bear. At least it removed a complication from my life; and one less thing to lose is one less thing to have to worry about.

  (Did I ever mention that when I was nine my school nickname was Eeyore? Even the teachers called me that sometimes, when they weren’t thinking.)

  If there was a positive side to this development, it was that I could now give my full time and attention to the matter of elves. The drawback to that was that, in all honesty, I no longer cared. After all, what the hell was the point of gathering evidence for the existence of small, pointy-eared people? I already believed, and I’d long since reached the conclusion that I’d never be able to convince anybody else, not if I dragged out a live, kicking example and shoved it up their nose. What good would it do, in any event? The human race had managed to shuffle along quite happily for centuries not believing in elves. Finding out the truth would probably just get them mad at me.

  Still, I’d come this far – which is just a sort-of-upbeat way of saying force of habit, but there are worse reasons for doing things. The first step, it occurred to me, was to make a start on some actual tangible written notes. Quite by chance, one of my Christmas presents had been a diary. To be precise, a give-away freebie promotional diary, the kind that businesses have done up with their name in gilt on the spine, so that every time you go to write down an appointment or whatever, you catch sight of the name and are reminded of their extreme generosity and general overall excellence. In case you think I’m just being paranoid, by the way, how else would you explain the fact that this particular diary, which came from my uncle Trevor the probate lawyer, was richly gold-embossed with the legend T. J. Bardshaw & Sons Family Funeral Directors est. 1958?