‘That’s right,’ the young man replied.

‘How do you do that, exactly? It must be ever so difficult.’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ replied Mr Akira, frowning a little. ‘At least, I’ve never had a problem with it. I just lift the lid and put them in.’

The two older men exchanged glances. ‘He’s just lifts the lid and puts them in,’ Mr Hiroshige repeated. ‘Like the archer who, on the point of releasing the arrow, closes his eyes and entrusts its flight to the harmonies of the universe. It’s like what I’ve always said: the more apparently complex an act, the more vital it is to search until you find its inner simplicity. May we watch? We promise not to make a noise.’

‘Feel free,’ said Mr Akira, with a slight bow. ‘This way.’

They followed him up the path and stood at a respectful distance while he dumped the bags in the bin and put back the lid. The other two dipped their heads in respectful admiration.

‘Likewise,’ said Mr Hiroshige, ‘whereas even the most skilled worker in jade could never produce a really convincing facsimile of a leaf, with all its endlessly complex veins and textures, a tree puts forth new leaves without a conscious thought. Thank you. That was—’ He paused, took a deep breath, and let it out again slowly. ‘Beautiful.’

‘Oh. Good.’

‘And yet,’ interrupted Mr Miroku gently, ‘it would be presumptuous to congratulate him on a skill that comes not from within himself but from the essential forces of the cosmos. After all, one compliments the painter, not the brush.’ He turned and gestured politely towards the bin. ‘Would you mind terribly doing it again?’

Mr Akira raised both eyebrows. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If you like.’ His brows furrowed for a moment like trysting ear-wigs. ‘This is a Zen thing, isn’t it? Like doing the ironing or unblocking the sink trap.’

Mr Miroku’s smile was beatific. ‘All things are Zen, my son,’ he said. ‘When you’ve truly grasped that, you will at last be one of us.’

‘Oh. Gosh.’ Mr Akira took the lid off the dustbin, pulled out the bags, put them back again and replaced the lid. ‘Did I do that all right?’ he said.

The other two nodded. ‘Remarkable,’ said Mr Hiroshige.

‘You put those bags in almost exactly the same place as you did the last time. Now if you’d tried to do that on purpose, measuring the clearances and the distances and measuring the angle at which the bags were inserted, I’ll wager you wouldn’t have achieved anything like the same level of precision.’

‘Quite so,’ Mr Miroku agreed. ‘But by subordinating your conscious self to the forces of the natural order—’

‘Ah.’ Mr Akira beamed with pleasure. ‘Now I see. There’s just one thing, though,’ he added apprehensively. ‘With the very greatest respect—’

‘Feel free to speak, my son.’

‘All right. It’s just,’ Mr Akira went on, ‘I’m probably being very dense here, but how exactly is putting out the dustbin bags and all the other housework you kindly let me do going to help me to become a superbly trained master swordsman?’

The other two exchanged a gentle smile. ‘Show him,’ said Mr Miroku.

‘No, no. You do it so much better.’

‘You’re very kind.’ Mr Miroku composed himself and closed his eyes; then, in a single fluid movement, so swift and smooth that it was almost impossible to follow, he reached to his left side, drew the great two-handed katana broadsword and brought it down with devastating force on the dustbin, slicing it into two exactly symmetrical halves without even disturbing the lid. There was a moment of sublimely perfect stillness; then he opened his eyes and gave the blade a little twitch, whereupon the two halves of the bin and the precisely bisected bags within opened like the pages of a book, slowly toppled over and slumped on to the grass.

‘Gosh,’ said Mr Akira.

‘It was nothing,’ Mr Miroku replied. ‘Or rather, it was a power so great, so universal, as to be far too vast for our weak minds to grasp. One might as well try to contain the sea in a teacup.’ He performed chiburi, the seemingly effortless flick of the wrist that shakes the blade clean, and sheathed the sword with a graceful flowing movement. ‘But please observe this, because it’s very important.’ His face suddenly became grave. ‘Because within the Way all is as one, your act of putting the bags in the bin and my act of cutting the bin in half were fundamentally one and the same act.’

‘So if anyone asks…’ Mr Hiroshige added.

Mr Akira nodded twice, very slowly. ‘I think I’m beginning to understand,’ he said, as the wind gently ruffled the pages of a precision-sliced newspaper. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’

Mr Miroku made a tiny gesture with his hands. ‘Think nothing of it,’ he said. ‘What nobler calling could there be than to guide another’s footsteps along the Way?’ He started to walk towards the cottage, then looked back. ‘One last thing, though.’

‘Yes?’

With the merest quiver of a single finger, Mr Miroku indicated the sprawl of garbage, which was being gradually dispersed by the gentle breeze. ‘Get that mess cleared up, would you?’

‘I don’t think it’s following us,’ the wicked queen panted, leaning against an apple tree as she caught her breath.

They looked back at the castle. There was something white and fluffy oozing out of all the upper storey arrow slits, and the moat looked like a bubble-bath. The queen breathed a sigh of relief and rested the bucket carefully on the ground.

‘I spilt some,’ she said, ‘but not too much, I don’t think.’ She peered at the surface of the water and nodded. ‘Looks like all we’ve lost is some of the naff graphics and the Spell Check.’

‘Spell—?’

‘Don’t ask. It never worked anyway. Well now,’ she went on, ‘here we both are, with the bucket and the clothes we stand up in and not a lot else. Any ideas?’

Sis just shrugged.

‘It wouldn’t be a problem if the system was still running,’ the queen went on, taking off her shoes and sitting down. ‘Normally, we’d have just enough time to catch our breath before a wizened old crone or quaintly humorous hunchback came by offering to tell us everything we need to know. Marvellous feature of the program, that was, when it was working okay.’

‘Don’t look now,’ Sis muttered, ‘but there’s two men under that tree over there staring at us.’

‘Are there?’ The queen lifted her head. ‘That’s interesting. You never know, maybe that part of the system’s still running. Let’s give it a try, shall we?’

Sis looked doubtful. ‘They don’t look terribly nice,’ she whispered. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we—?’

‘No.’ The wicked queen stood up and waved her shoe. ‘Hello! Yes, you there. Are you Help?’

The men who’d been watching them started guiltily, looked round just in case the queen had been talking to somebody else, then slowly walked towards them. It was easy to see why Sis hadn’t liked the look of them. Where she came from their sombre grey suits, sunglasses and bulging left armpits could only mean one thing: they were some sort of Them.

‘Sorry?’ one of them said. ‘Can we help you?’

‘That depends,’ replied the queen briskly. ‘By rights, you should be a little old man with a long white beard or a gnarled old peasant woman bent double under a heavy load of firewood, which we would proceed to carry for you.’ She paused for a moment, then continued. ‘If this is making absolutely no sense to you, then you aren’t who I think you are.’

The elder of the two cleared his throat. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘we know what you’re driving at, but we aren’t who you think we are.’

‘We aren’t even here,’ added his colleague, with a rather mimsy grin.

‘Not officially, anyhow,’ the elder man said. ‘This is supposed to be covert surveillance.’

‘Then you’re not very good at it, are you?’ the queen replied. ‘Come to think of it, I do know who you are. You’re the Grimm boys, aren’t you?’