‘Not them,’ Mr Hiroshige hissed. ‘Us. And for pity’s sake stop playing with that thing, before you put someone’s eye out.’

Mr Akira’s jaw dropped. ‘But that’s silly,’ he protested. ‘There’s just as many of us as there are of them, and they’re only little—’

‘The word you’re looking for,’ Mr Nikko interrupted quietly, ‘is dwarves. Now put it down before you get us all killed.’

Mr Akira shook his head. ‘I still don’t understand,’ he said stubbornly. ‘They’re little short people, and we’re samurai. We’ve got swords and they’re unarmed. We could take them out like that.’

‘Yes, but—’ Mr Nikko hesitated. Inside his brain, the hard disk was crinkling furiously, trying to access some deeply buried path where the explanation — the perfectly simple and logical, patently and painfully obvious explanation — lay buried. He knew that there was a perfectly good reason why big, strong trained fighting men ought to be terrified of little cute people with long white beards and brightly coloured jackets with big round brass buttons. He could remember distinctly — He could remember remembering — He could remember having remembered — ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘We could, couldn’t we?’

‘Of course,’ Mr Akira was saying, ‘that’s always supposing that we wanted to. And that’s a big supposing, because after all, they’ve done us no harm, can’t actually see how they could possibly ever do us harm, what with them being so small and weedy, so the chances of our ever wanting to take them out just like that are pretty damn small. All I’m saying is, in the unlikely event…’

He realised that nobody was listening. Instead his six colleagues were advancing on the seven newcomers, brandishing their swords and uttering strange guttural cries, while the newcomers — call them the seven dwarves, it’s easier — were backing away with that worried, sheepish look of people whose bluff has just been definitively called. He had the feeling that somehow, this shouldn’t be happening. It was a strong feeling, bordering on a conviction. Unfortunately, he hadn’t a clue how to stop it.

‘Here, you,’ he snapped at the witch, who was grinning like a thirsty dog. ‘Do something.’

‘What d’you mean, something?’ she replied.

‘Stop them, before they do something they’ll regret later.’

The witch’s eyes sparkled. ‘Not a lot I can do with this thing pinning my ear to this tree,’ she replied, reasonably enough. ‘Now if you were to pull it out—’

‘All right, all right,’ Mr Akira sighed, as Mr Hiroshige lashed out with his sword and neatly snipped off the little bobble on Dumpy’s sky-blue hat. ‘Keep still, and we’ll have you out of there in a—’ As soon as he’d prised the throwing star out of the wood, the witch sidestepped, sneaked past his flailing hands, slipped back into her human form with the practised ease of a model changing clothes behind a catwalk, grabbed the mop-handle out of Fang’s grasp, jumped on it and shot up in the air like a firework. Whatever he may have thought of the lost opportunity to get back to his real shape, Fang reacted well; he tripped the samurai with his heel, clobbering him with the dustbin lid as he went down, then snatched the sword away from him and, just before overbalancing and falling flat on his face, took an almighty swipe at Mr Hiroshige’s head. He didn’t actually connect, but Mr Hiroshige did a first-class impression of the Apollo 11 moon shot launch and collided with Mr Nikko, knocking him over. Mr Nikko knocked over Rumpelstiltskin, who tripped up Mr Miroku, who landed quite heavily on Tom Thumb, who squeaked so loudly and shrilly that Mr Suzuki, under the impression that he was under attack from behind, spun round and collided with Mr Wakisashi, who staggered backwards and trod on Dumpy’s foot, causing him to jump up and down, lose his footing on a patch of damp moss and lurch into Mr Akira, inadvertently head-butting him in the solar plexus and bringing him down on Grimm #2, who grabbed at his brother to keep himself from going under and pulled him over as well. The net result was something like a cross between the Last Judgement and a Charlie Chaplin movie.

‘Hell,’ Fang growled, as he removed Mr Nikko’s foot from his ear. ‘She got away.’

Mr Nikko tried to kick him with his other foot. ‘Idiot,’ he wailed. ‘Fine handsome prince you turned out to be. Didn’t anybody tell you you’re supposed to rescue the main chick, not the witch?’

‘But I’m not a handsome prince, I’m a big bad wolf,’ Fang almost sobbed. ‘I’m just—’

‘Filling in between engagements? Well, I suppose it beats working in a hamburger bar.’ Mr Nikko got up slowly and painfully and retrieved his helmet, which had come off. One of the sticking-out horn things had got itself bent double, and when he tried to straighten it, it snapped off. ‘And besides,’ he added, ‘you can’t be the big bad wolf. She was.’

Fang stared at him. ‘Who?’

‘The witch,’ Mr Nikko said wearily. ‘She was one of those werethingies. Didn’t you see?’ He dropped the helmet and kicked it into the bushes. ‘He meditated her,’ he added, jerking a thumb at young Mr Akira, who was trying to sort out whose leg was which with the Brothers Grimm. ‘Here, that’s a thought. Can you meditate her back?’ he asked his junior colleague. ‘Preferably with prejudice. Hideously agonising cramps in the head and stomach for choice, but a forced landing in a clump of nettles would probably do at a pinch.’

Young Mr Akira pressed together the tips of his fingers and closed his eyes. ‘Any luck?’ he asked.

‘Not so far. Come on, you can do better than that.’

‘I–I don’t think I can do it on purpose,’ Mr Akira said uncertainly. ‘It’s like when you go to the doctor and he gives you the little bottle to fill—’

Fang sagged at the knees and sat down on the ground. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘This is starting to annoy me. Why is it, as soon as I want a witch, they’re suddenly as rare as true facts in a newspaper. Normally you can’t stub out a fag-end in this godforsaken forest without setting fire to at least one.’

‘Just a minute.’

Fang looked round, then down at ankle level. ‘Well?’ he said.

‘Couldn’t help overhearing,’ said Tom Thumb. ‘Did you just say you’re really the Big Bad Wolf?’

Fang nodded sadly. ‘Used to be,’ he replied. ‘It’s a long story. But, basically, yes.’

‘The same big bad wolf that used to blow down the three little pigs’ houses?’

It took a moment’s hard thought, but Fang located the memory file. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Back in — hell, I was just about to say the good old days, but it can’t have been all that long ago, surely. Yes, that’s me. Why do you ask?’

Tom Thumb shrugged his microscopic shoulders. ‘Oh, no reason,’ he replied. ‘Would you mind waiting there just two seconds? Be right back.’

He wandered away, ducking under a dandelion and using a convenient floating leaf to cross a small puddle. While he was conferring with his colleagues, Fang looked round for his elf.

‘You and the small fry,’ he said, indicating Thumb with a jerk of the head. ‘Just now, you seemed quite—’

‘Mind your own business, you overgrown terrier.’

‘Please yourself,’ Fang replied, hurt. ‘I was just asking, trying to take an interest. Good industrial relations, that’s all.’

‘Bullshit,’ the elf replied. ‘You were going to make fun, weren’t you? Just because, after all these years, I may just possibly have found someone I can really relate to, you know, kind of respect and look up to—’

‘Look up to? Hellfire, elf, he’s even shorter than you are.’

The elf scowled. ‘There you go,’ she said sourly. ‘And anyway, that’s only true in the strictly empirical sense. Looked at through the greater perspective of the Way—’

‘Don’t you start,’ Fang muttered. ‘Hey, look, your boyfriend and his chums are all coming this way. Wonder what they want.’

The elf pursed her lips. ‘Given that they’ve borrowed a couple of swords, three bows and a big spear from the samurai and are spreading out in a classic encircling formation,’ she replied, ‘I really haven’t the faintest idea. However,’ she added, just before Dumpy gave the order to charge, ‘if I were you, at this point I might well consider—’