Wednesday 14th October 2015

We had a phone call around lunchtime today from Mouse (we had lent him and Lola the phone that I had been using for accessing the internet, so that they could contact us to report on how things were going). Professor Greenbloom took the call, but put his phone on 'speaker' so that my Master and I could hear.

'I tried to call you earlier, but it wouldn't work until Hothbrodd went off into the woods,' Mouse explained. 'Lola showed me how to use the phone, but she says trolls interfere with radio reception.'

'When did you find him?' asked the Professor.

'Yesterday evening. He swore a lot in Norwegian when we told him we needed him to rescue a dragon in Scotland, but when Lola said we'd come from you, he said he supposed he owed you one. What does that mean?'

'Oh, it doesn't matter. We're old friends, but he doesn't want people to think he's soft. So, has he got any ideas?'

'He's going to build an aeroplane big enough to carry a dragon. He says it's going to take him ages because he can't just ask just any kinds of trees to grow plank-shaped branches to make into an aircraft – it has to be the stealth birches.'

'What is a stealth birch?' my Master whispered to me.

'I don't know,' I said. 'They're not mentioned in any of the tree books, and I've never seen one.'

Professor Greenbloom laughed. 'That's how they've survived so long!' he said. 'They don't mind extruding a limb here and there for a good friend like Hothbrodd, but if they see a woodcutter looking for someone to chop down for furniture or firewood, they just – arrange not to be noticed. Nobody – well, no human anyway – knows how they do it, because no researcher who was trying to answer the question could find any stealth birches to experiment on.'

'And they can grow plank-shaped branches?' asked my Master. 'How long does that take?'

'If Hothbrodd asks them nicely, possibly within a day or two.'

'Does Hothbrodd ever ask anyone nicely?' asked Mouse, at the other end of the phone.

'Oh, he gets on perfectly well with trees,' said the Professor. 'He just isn't keen on humans – or mountain trolls, of course.'

'But isn't Hothbrodd a troll, too?' asked Mouse.

'Yes, but the different species don't always have much in common. For example, fjord trolls like Hothbrodd have a plant metabolism, which is why they're most active in daylight, when mountain trolls are silicon-based, which means they can't operate at high temperatures and prefer to be awake at night, when it's cooler. That's why mountain trolls are more active in winter, too, unlike moomins, who hibernate then. Different species of troll vary far more than different species of kobold, and they don't always get on with each other – not that any species is exactly evil. Even the ones who lurk on internet forums aren't all vicious monsters who want to hurt people – some are just mischievous, and enjoy posting silly comments to see whether anyone will respond.'

Mouse didn't know much about the details, and was more interested in talking about how exciting it was being with Lola, and how she had been explaining to him how her miniature plane worked, and he was hoping she might teach him how to fly it. However, he thought that Hothbrodd was likely to have his stealth-birch aeroplane ready in a couple of weeks, so that he should be able to fly over to Scotland without being seen, collect Slatebeard and take him back to Norway, by the end of the month.

'And the last week in the month is half-term,' Professor Greenbloom reminded my Master, when Mouse had rung off. 'I know your school wants me to keep you to a regular routine while you're suspended, but they can hardly complain if I take you and Guinevere on a camping trip at half-term, can they?'

'Can Ivan come, too?'

'Of course¸ if he wants to. It might feel a bit lonely for Guinevere being the only girl – I'm afraid Vita won't be able to get time off work – but she could always ask one of her friends if they want to come along. Though admittedly, I don't know whether many of Guinevere's school-friends are interested in dragons.'

'Can you take that much time off work?' my Master asked.

'Oh, yes – the university offered me compassionate leave until the end of term, just in case there isn't a pupil referral unit that has a place for you. Either they think all foster children are tearaways who need constant supervision, or it's a convenient way for them to get rid of me for most of a term.'

'What? Why would they want to get rid of you?'

'Well – because they think I'm a bit strange for insisting that dragons and sphinxes and gorgons really exist. Some of the students have been complaining that my lectures are useless, because they don't tell them the answers they need to write their end-of-term essays and pass exams. Honestly, I'd be willing to give up mentioning dragons – well, during lectures, anyway – if I could only get my students to see that education is about learning to think and wonder and question the received wisdom, not just about collecting the pieces of information they need to pass the next exam!'

My Master didn't look as if he had taken much of this in. 'It isn't because we're German, is it?' he asked.

'What? Why would that make a difference?'

'Well, the shopkeeper yesterday said to the policeman that they were going to have a referendum and send all the immigrants back to Europe. The policeman thought it was funny, because he's not from Europe, he's from Afghanistan. But I thought Britain was in Europe. So how can we go back to Europe?'

Professor Greenbloom looked as if this was such a complicated question that he didn't know which bit of it to answer first. 'Well, a lot of the countries of Europe are in a group called the European Union,' he said. 'Do you know what that means?'

'I thought it meant everyone in Europe uses the same money. But British people don't. So is Britain not part of the European Union?'

'No, Britain is in the European Union at the moment, but it just isn't one of the countries that use Euros. But being in the EU means we've all signed up to various agreements about trading with each other, and people being allowed to live and work wherever they want within the EU without needing passports or visas or work permits,' he said. 'But then, there are also some European countries, like Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, who aren't members of the EU, but they still have arrangements that people from those countries can work in EU countries without needing work permits. So if Britain does decide to leave the EU, it doesn't really mean that it's going to be cut off and that nobody can trade or travel or anything.'

'But would it mean you and Vita lose your jobs?'

'I can't see any logical reason why it should,' said the Professor. 'Lots of the people who teach at the university aren't from anywhere in Europe, let alone from EU countries – they're from Africa and Asia, North America or South America or Australia. So the only way that it could make a difference would be if lots of people in Britain voted to leave the EU – which different people might do for different reasons – and then the British government assumed that everyone who voted to leave was someone who hated immigrants, like that shopkeeper, and then the government decided to do what it thought people wanted by making life as hard as possible for everyone who isn't British. So, no, I don't think that's likely to happen. But if it does…'

'We'll find somewhere else to live, like the dragons!' said my Master excitedly. 'Could we go to the Rim of Heaven? If we all go, not just me, then Firedrake can't say I need to be back with my own kind, can he?'

'Well – I wouldn't mind leaving this country,' said the Professor, 'but I don't know much about the Rim of Heaven. Obviously, you've been there and I haven't, but how easy would it be for humans to keep warm and find food, for example?'

'I don't know. The Dubidai grow mushrooms in the caves, but I mainly just lived on the food the monks had given us. And it was fairly cold, even with the warm clothes they lent us. It was worse for Twigleg, because he's so small. But it wasn't too bad as long as we were cuddled up against Firedrake.'

I imagined what the Rim of Heaven would be like when all the petrified dragons were revived and all the Scottish dragons had moved in. Fifty dragons, all of whom had flame that could break enchantments and turn me back into an insect at any moment. Firedrake and Maia might remember to be careful, but what were the chances that everyone would? Especially when they started having children – I don't know at what age dragonets first start breathing fire. But it wouldn't be fair on my Master to mention this – after all, how is he supposed to cope with having friends who are dragons, and another friend to whom dragons are potentially lethal?

'Are you all right, Twigleg?' he asked. 'Worrying about how you're going to put up with Sorrel and the other brownies?'

'Something like that,' I said.

Actually, I'm getting used to brownies. When we read the next chapter of The Lives of Christopher Chant to each other, and got to the temple full of sacred cats, and the girl who claims to be the Goddess – then first Billy, followed by Robbie, and then all six brownies, came to listen. I think they approved of Throgmorten, because he's vicious and doesn't let humans boss him around. By the end of the chapter, they were eagerly asking questions about what had happened before Chapter Four, and who Christopher's uncle who kept being mentioned was, and why he was sending Christopher and Tacroy on these journeys to other worlds.

'Could some of you take over reading?' I asked. We had shared out the reading so that my Master read Christopher's lines and I read the narration and all the other characters – first Christopher's governess, then Tacroy, and then the Goddess, not to mention Throgmorten's furious yowling – and my voice was starting to feel tired.

Most of the brownies looked blank. Most of them didn't seem to have heard of reading, and Billy snorted, 'Who'd want to read something a human wrote?'

But Blue said, 'If I read, can you count it as my good turn for the day?'

'That's not a bad idea,' I said.

'Who do you want me to read? Tacroy?'

'No!' I said, so vehemently that I was surprised. I didn't know why I cared, except that Tacroy was my favourite character and I didn't want his lines to come out of Blue's mouth. 'I tell you what…' (I scanned hastily through the pages to see which characters were in Chapter Five), 'if you could read Christopher's uncle, and his mother, I'll read his governess, and his father, and then Tacroy. And, Mas– I mean, Ben – please could you read the narrative, as well as Christopher's lines? He doesn't have a lot to say for the first part of this chapter, but the story is told from his point of view, so it makes sense to have the same person reading Christopher's thoughts and experiences.'

'Yes, that's fine,' said my Master, but the other brownies were protesting: 'What about us? How come Blue gets to do his good turn just by reading, instead of washing up or peeling potatoes? Aren't we doing just as good turns by listening and discussing it with you?'

'No, you're not!' protested Blue. 'Are they?' he demanded of my Master.

My Master considered. 'Well – maybe we can say everyone else is doing half a good turn,' he suggested. 'So I'll do half of your work in return.'

I wanted to help, too – I might not be strong enough to lift an iron, or tall enough to reach into the washing machine and unload clothes, but there's no reason why I couldn't at least kneel on the kitchen table and hold down a potato between my knees and one arm while peeling it with the other hand. But my Master said that I'd done more than enough work in helping him with all his lessons, not just reading, and anyway they only had two peelers, one for him and one for Bwbach, so I ought to take a break. So I'm writing this.