‘Oh.’ Daddy Bear looked hurt. ‘You mean you don’t like it?’

‘Never could stand the horrid thing, since you ask. But you never did, so I never said anything.’

Daddy Bear shrugged. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘at least we’ve got one cup left. There’s poor starving bears in Antarctica who’ve got absolutely nothing at all.’

‘Tell ‘em they can have your coronation mug, then. They’re welcome to it.’

Behind a clump of bushes at the extreme edge of the clearing, the three pigs watched the forlorn search and tried not to feel as guilty as hell.

‘Could have sworn it was our house,’ Eugene whispered.

‘Shut up and keep still,’ Julian replied, adjusting a knot on the makeshift sling he was attaching to Eugene’s arm. ‘I’ll admit I was fooled too, though,’ he conceded. ‘That’s the trouble with these rotten little design-and-build jobs, they all look the same. Anyway, we know what it’s like to have a house blown down around our ears, and it’s not the end of the world. Just for once, it wasn’t us after all. Be grateful for that.’

‘And we’ve got rid of the wolf,’ Desmond added brightly. ‘Copped the full force of it, he did. No way he could have survived that.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ Julian said. ‘Looks like Old Mr Silver Lining’s finally been flushed out into the open. Hey, lads, if that’s not our house, has anybody got any ideas where our house has got to?’

Eugene shrugged. ‘It’s a quaint little cottage in a clearing in the heart of the forest,’ he replied. ‘That narrows it down to about fifty thousand possibles.’

‘Bit of a turn-up, though,’ Desmond continued. ‘I mean, it being us who wrecks the cottage. Role reversal, I think the technical term is.’

‘Maybe it’s something to do with all the weird stuff that’s been happening lately,’ Julian suggested. ‘You know, like that business in the hospital with Humpty Dumpty and Jack and Jill. Like lots of things are getting stood on their heads all of a sudden.’

His brothers looked at him.

‘Does that mean we’re going to have to go around blowing down people’s houses?’ Desmond asked plaintively. ‘Because I don’t think I’ve got the puff for that.’

Julian thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Might be. I’m not all that sure how these things actually work. Adds a new terror to self-defence if it does.’

‘Huh?’

‘If someone attacks you and if you kill them, you’ve got to take their place,’ Julian explained. ‘If that’s the way it’s going to work from now on, I think I’d rather hold still and be eaten. Which,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘is the same thing in reverse, surely, since you are what you eat, though you don’t necessarily eat what you are. Am I burbling?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry, I’ll stop. There,’ he said, tightening the last knot on the sling, ‘how does that feel?’

‘Bloody awful.’

‘Oh well, never mind. It’ll have to do for now. I suggest we wait here till nightfall and then try to find our house.’

The other pigs shrugged. ‘Might as well,’ Eugene muttered. ‘Nothing to hurry home for, after all.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Julian enquired.

Eugene frowned thoughtfully. ‘It’s just occurred to me,’ he said. ‘If we really have managed to snuff the wolf, what are we going to find to do with ourselves from now on? For as long as I can remember, we’ve been building houses for that creep to blow down. If he’s gone—’

Julian stared at him. ‘You’re not saying you miss the bugger, surely.’

‘I don’t know, do I? I’m just asking a simple question, that’s all. Personally, I reckon I’m too old and set in my ways for a radical career change.’

‘He’s got a point,’ Desmond agreed.

‘So has an almost bald hedgehog,’ Julian replied. ‘What of it? Nothing to say we can’t carry on building houses just because there’s no one to blow them down any more. Think of it. Building houses that are still there in the morning. I’d have thought you’d all have liked the idea.’

‘It has a certain novel charm,’ Eugene conceded. ‘Though whether it’ll catch on remains to be seen. There’s such a thing as gimmickry for gimmickry’s sake, you know.’

Julian made a vulgar noise. ‘Don’t you see,’ he said angrily, ‘we’ve done it. What we’ve been trying to do since I can’t remember when. What we’re for. We’ve killed the big bad wolf, and now we’re free to go. Happy ever after. That’s how it works, isn’t it, in stories? Well, isn’t it?’

The other two looked at him as if he’d just fallen out of the sky at their feet. ‘What’s he talking about?’ Desmond whispered. ‘I don’t like it when he starts talking all funny.’

Eugene shrugged. ‘Comes of being the youngest, I suppose,’ he replied. ‘You know how it is with litters, the run— I mean, the youngest isn’t really even supposed to survive. Makes ‘em a bit weird in the head sometimes.

‘Hey!’ Julian glowered at his brothers, who smiled sweetly back at him in a manner that suggested that the only reason they weren’t trussing him up in a straitjacket was that they didn’t have a straitjacket. ‘Do you mind,’ he went on. ‘I’m still here, you know.’

‘Of course you are,’ Eugene replied. ‘Anything you say. Or maybe,’ he added in an audible aside, ‘it’s just a bang on the head or something. That can turn people funny, and sometimes they get better.’

Julian thought for a moment. His mind was full of strange things, none of which had been there a while ago, though it felt as if they’d always been there. It was like going up in the loft for the first time when you’ve been in the house five years, and finding a whole lot of cardboard boxes left behind by the previous owners. In this case, Julian got the impression that the cardboard boxes had things like GELIGNITE — HANDLE WITH CARE stencilled on the side, which didn’t exactly help.

Somehow he’d suddenly become aware of the fact that he was in a story. What a story was, or what being in one actually meant in practical terms, he wasn’t exactly sure; there were little bits of information stuck to the insides of his mind like the shreds of paper that come off on your windscreen after you’ve pulled off a sticky-backed car park ticket, enough to make him realise that there was something important here to know, but not enough to make sense of any of it. It was as if he’d known the story once, but forgotten ninety per cent of it; fairly significant bits, like the beginning, the middle and the end. If he’d had any say in the matter he’d have deleted them at once, but that was out of the question. It was a bit like having someone tell you who the murderer is about halfway through a detective story you’re really enjoying; you wish you didn’t know, but you do and that’s that.

And then he thought: detective story? What’s a detective story? And it was almost as if he could see fragments of the memory rushing past him and gurgling down the plughole of oblivion, winking maliciously at him as they vanished.

This is silly, he muttered to himself. Get a grip. Pretend it isn’t happening. Otherwise, at the very least, these two are going to have you put away in the bewildered pigs’ home. At worst, that might possibly be the right thing to do.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘just thinking aloud, don’t mind me. All I was trying to say was,’ he went on, sneaking a surreptitious glance over his shoulder to check that the way was clear if he had to make a run for it, ‘why don’t we carry on building houses, for now, and wait and see what happens? I mean, something’s bound to turn up. Something always does.’

Eugene and Desmond looked at each other warily. ‘I think he’s trying to say he isn’t crazy,’ Eugene said. ‘I’m not sure I believe him.’

‘Nor me,’ Desmond replied. ‘I reckon we ought to tie him up ma sack and have him seen to. You know, take him somewhere where they know about these things. A fair, or whatever.’

‘A fair?’

Desmond nodded. ‘Heard about it once. There’s people at fairs who know all about pigs. They can even tell you how much you weigh just by looking at you. They’d know what to do, I reckon.’