Tiny Life and the Monster Head

1

A Painter’s Itch

For years there was nothing in the black landscape apart from four walls containing one room, but then he found the picture of the ear-mouse. That was when all the building started. This little room, its walls pasted with pictures and interesting facts, was built upon and surrounded by many other rooms, until they were fifteen storeys high and expanding. But it was the ear-mouse that started it all – still there, beside the ground floor window in yellowing old newsprint – that naked mouse in a Petri dish with a human ear growing out of its back, and its curious snout forever pointed skywards as if to question its creator. And the rooms and rooms of interesting facts went higher and higher as if reaching for an answer, because the ear-mouse wasn’t just interesting. It was terrifying.

The painter studied his work with critical eyes, jet-black and glistening like marbles dipped in tar. With the job finished, he stuffed the brush into his chest pocket, unhooked the paint bucket and climbed down the ladder. Gazing up from ground level, he walked backwards to the other side of the street, so absorbed in the sight that he hardly noticed the struggling antennae brushing his legs as he passed them. He tucked his thumbs into his belt and twitched his four whiskers with pride.

All the way up the front of the Flotsam tower, there now climbed two green stems and at the top of each stem, there bloomed a blood-red rose, spanning eight floors each. He had even painted over some of the windows, but since nobody lived there, nobody would mind. He turned his downy face to peer along the rest of the street, which was tiled with broken china and flanked by unruly buildings, all standing tall and all standing out like a parade of punks trying to out-punk each other. Some of them were studded with rivets or needled with spires. Others were pierced with wild wirework that twisted into brambles of balconies. And lots of these constructions had been painted with towering red roses, each spiked up and down with extra large thorns.

He unclasped a side pocket, pulled out a hunk of red meat and jabbed his front teeth into it, tearing off a corner and filling his skinny cheeks. In the meantime, the gigantic bug had managed to flip itself over. Flicking its feelers on the way past, it scuttled down through a crack in the road and with a parting clack of its pincers, slunk away to a darker and damper place. The painter sniffed and rubbed his nose briskly with the back of his hand. Then he took a deep breath and produced an ear splitting squeak. He turned his gaze on the far end of the shadowy street, where the ground dropped away to nothing and very quickly, his large ears detected a distant scratching that grew louder and louder, sending vibrations through the whole city as it drew closer. Then out from a side street, a massive rodent burst into view, skidding onto the china and came scurrying right at him with its whiskers scraping along the walls on either side.

The painter didn’t even flinch. He just stuffed the rest of the meat in his mouth and chewed. Then he held out his hand as though offering a different kind of meaty snack, but instead of jumping on him and biting it off, the animal simply stopped and allowed its huge head to be stroked.

That’s the last of the paint, Speck, said the painter, We’ll have to go out and get some more. He then glanced at Speck’s paws, which were normally just dirty but since yesterday’s little mishap, had a new coating of orange. And we’d better be a bit more careful this time, he added.

2

A Painter’s Secrets

A polished pair of black shoes strode across the floorboards. At the top of the crisply pressed pinstriped trousers, the start of his waistcoat was just visible, and further up, out of sight, was sure to be the usual folded handkerchief in the top pocket. The shoes stopped and stood in front of a smaller pair of dirty trainers with a few spare inches of denim crumpled around the ankles. A red t-shirt hung down over the faded jeans, and behind his back, the boy’s hands clutched a sheet of paper.

Let me see it, the wearer of the black shoes demanded.

Reluctantly, the sheet of paper was brought forward and immediately plucked from the boy’s fingers. A short silence followed.

What on Earth is it? the voice boomed.

The reply sounded feeble and ashamed:

It’s a beehive, dad.

It doesn’t look anything like a beehive.

The boy’s fingers twitched suddenly as though they had just touched an electric fence.

Well, it’s only a sketch, he whispered.

I’m telling you, lad, this art nonsense is going nowhere. The shirtsleeves went rigid at his sides, one edge of the drawing clenched in his fist as he bore down on his son. Don’t let me see this stuff again, do you hear me? With a flick of a white starched cuff, the drawing was discarded and it flapped onto the floor, face down.

Yes, dad.

The boy reached down to retrieve his drawing, but a black shoe got there first and stood on it. So the boy straightened up again.

Get out your maths book, his dad commanded.

Yes, dad.

Out came a gold-capped fountain pen and the lid was unscrewed.

"Now sit here. I’m going to show you what a useful drawing looks like."

And so father and son sat side by side at the little desk, and when the lesson had begun, it was safe to proceed.

The painter entered through a narrow opening, with Speck following close behind.

He couldn’t see in the dark, but the darkness sharpened his other senses. In here, the smell of old leather and fresh paint. Out there, the muffled sounds of education:

X plus ten equals fifteen. There! That makes it easier to understand, doesn’t it?

His hearing was as sharp as a mouse, and the paint he was scooping out was yellow. He knew the colour because he could taste it.

Now, if I add two more apples over here, what happens?

Standing on the back of his rodent friend, he felt beneath his feet, her warm fur and her heart beating slightly faster than the usual six hundred and thirty beats per minute.

Oh, come on, the teacher snapped, It’s not difficult.

Speck flinched. The painter staggered but kept his balance. He heaved on the stopper handle, pulling the cords taut, dragging up the ball bearing and plugging the nozzle of the scooper pipe.

"X plus ten, plus two equals fifteen plus Y.  Now you draw some scales and work out what Y is."

Okay.

Good. Now I’ve got some important work to do, but I’ll be back to see how you got on, okay?

Yes.

Chair legs scraped on the floorboards and they heard polished black shoes striding to the door. The lesson was already over and they hadn’t even unloaded the first scoop yet.

And make sure you keep those scales balanced, the voice added on its way out.

The door opened and then closed again, and the footsteps clumped away downstairs. Speck was getting very twitchy. Both their pulses had quickened, but they had to stay focussed. He shook the scooper up and down to encourage the paint out quicker.

Ok, girl. Keep it steady. Nearly there, he whispered.

Against all her instincts, Speck held her ground. With the pipe emptied and the canister full, it was Mission Aborted, but the scooper still needed to be secured to her harness.

The rumble of another pushed back chair sent vibrations through the floorboards. The painter’s fingers fumbled to do up the straps.

The boy’s trainers approached, his knees knelt down and Speck instinctively bolted, just as the floor shifted the other way. All her momentum was suddenly pulled out from under her and they went skidding into pots.

Then the roof lifted and daylight flooded in. Above them loomed his head, with a dark curly halo of hair and wide staring eyes. And before Speck managed to scrabble her way clear, his huge hand reached inside towards them. The painter froze, and a shock – like a flash of bad memory – shot through his tailbone. But in the next moment, gripping fur between fingers and knees, with four legs and the speed of fear beneath him, he was out through the corner hole and racing away. A hundred and fifty pounds of boy flesh and bone crashed down onto boards in pursuit, but way too slowly. As the first wave of the earthquake reached them they flew in through the jagged wall arch and tumbled into the crevice, bumping off crags of mortar, clawing and scratching at brickwork to slow their fall. Two thirds of the way down they scraped to a precarious halt, wedged back to back in a narrower part of the cavity, digging in with claws and toenails, and panting heavily.

The painter pulled away some of the face hugging cobweb and wiped the dust from his eyes.

That went well, he said, catching his breath.

He swivelled round and checked the payload, just to confirm what he already knew: the one and only canister on Speck’s harness that they had managed to fill, they had completely emptied again on the way down. Glancing up through the swirling mortar dust, he traced the evidence of their fall (splattered in yellow) all the way back to the top, where a patch of brickwork was now being lit up...by a spotlight.

It was the same torch he thought he’d lost ages ago. He must have chucked it under here and forgotten about it.  Good timing to stumble across it again now, just when he needed it. Not that it helped much: he had found their escape hole, but his visitors were long gone, and all he could see was the space between two walls: just bricks and a bunch of dusty old cobwebs.

Frankie! came a voice from above.

Frankie jumped and hit his head on the base of the bed.

What are you doing under there? came the voice again. Luckily it was only his mum.

He scrambled out backwards and sprang to his feet.

I’ve just seen a…

Yes?

Frankie hesitated. I’m not really sure, he said, Must have been some kind of alien.

Quite used to Frankie’s vivid imagination, Mrs. Webb hardly raised an eyebrow.

Really? she said.

Yeah. A really small one.

Oh, a small one. I see.  Then she bent down and started talking to the space under the bed. "Hello? You under there! Are you any good at maths? Could you please come out and help Frankie to do his before his dad comes back?"

There was no reply.

Mrs. Webb stood upright, put her hands on her hips and stared at him.

I did, mum, he said.

You’ll be seeing stars if you don’t hop to it. And for god’s sake, put that suitcase away or you’ll be asking for trouble.

"I did see it," Frankie muttered.

But his mum had stopped listening.

Lunch will be ready in ten minutes, she said on her way out, If you’re lucky, you’ll be saved by the bell.

Frankie gazed down into the still open suitcase. They looked pretty good, those lava coloured creature marks. As eruptions went, they definitely did the job. He was sure his mystery visitors hadn’t come back to help him with his volcano painting though. There must have been some other reason for it.

He closed the lid and slid the suitcase back out of sight. Then he sat at his desk, staring at the sea of gibberish in his exercise book, but there was no way he could think about a pineapple called ‘X’ after what he’d just seen. Why would he even care about ‘Y’?

3

Only A Story

It was the usual Sunday scene in the dining room – even the flowers on the wallpaper looked bored – but perhaps they hadn’t seen what Frankie had. From his chair at the table, he inspected every visible inch of skirting board around the room, just in case.

Salt! came the voice of Mister Webb.

This wasn’t a request but a gardening suggestion: Frankie’s parents were having a conversation about snails and how best to get rid of them.

Isn’t that a bit cruel?

It’s the only way, Margaret. You have to let them know who’s boss.

If you say so, dear.

There was a brief pause, filled by the rattle of cutlery.

Eat up, Frankie! said his mum.

Frankie turned his gaze back to the half eaten meal on his plate and the piece of honey-roast parsnip on the end of his fork. On the opposite side of the table, Mrs. Webb stared at him until he put the parsnip into his mouth.

Sitting stiffly in the chair next to him, elbows tucked in at his sides, Mister Webb loaded his fork with a small and equal quantity of each ingredient on his plate. He then delivered the neat parcel of food to his mouth and fixed a businesslike stare on the sideboard.

You know, I really think we ought to get it valued, he said, referring to the antique vase that was standing on top of it, I’ll give Derek Smythe a call. He’s just the chap.

Derek Smythe? Mrs. Webb enquired.

Customer of the bank. Art dealer. Qualified expert. We’ll invite him over for dinner.

If you think so, dear.

Absolutely, said Mister Webb, After lunch I’ll lock it in the safe.

Oh you don’t need to do that, dear. It’s meant to be seen, not hidden away.

Can’t be too careful, Margaret. Not with valuable antiques. And with the matter settled, he closed his mouth over another efficient forkful.

Frankie looked across at the precious vase, which was quite brown and ordinary shaped with two handles and some peculiar figures and animals painted around it. It wouldn’t have been anything special without the pictures. All the people had long chins and seemed to be doing a funny dance. Some of the animals looked like lions, except with wings and beaks. There was even a three-headed horse. If Frankie had done a drawing like that, his dad would have called it ridiculous.

It’s going cold, Frankie, said his mum.

Frankie turned to confront his overloaded plate again and tackled a slice of carrot just to keep her happy.

Have you worked out what Y is, Frankie? his dad enquired without looking up from his lunch.

Frankie should have been ready for that question. Um…sort of, he said.

You either have or you haven’t. There is no ‘sort of’ with equations.

Yes dad, said Frankie as he pushed a pea around the gravy with his knife.

So have you or haven’t you?

No, dad, he admitted.

Don’t play with your food, Frankie, said his mum, casting a slightly nervous glance at Mister Webb, who was chewing noticeably harder than before.

Frankie stopped playing with his food and followed his mum’s glance. If you knew where to look, it was easy to tell when his dad was irritated – it was his jaw muscles that gave it away.

Mister Webb laid his knife and fork neatly on his plate and when he had finished chewing he said, The sooner you master equations, the sooner we can get onto graphs.

Yes dad, said Frankie and he waited for a moment to see if he wanted to add anything else but instead, Mister Webb took a slow and precise sip from his glass of water. This seemed like a good time to say the magic getaway words: Please may I leave the table?

You haven’t finished, said his mum.

I can’t eat any more.

That’s ok, Margaret, said Mister Webb, dabbing his lips with a cotton serviette, "Frankie can go and work on his very easy equation, while we have cheese and biscuits."

Alright, off you go, said his mum.

Frankie was quick to skedaddle but half way to the door, from the blind spot behind his dad’s chair, he took a last peek underneath the table just to check. But the only thing he saw was the look on his mum’s face as their eyes met. Taking the hint, he straightened up, turned round and headed out of the room.

Graphs, Frankie! Mister Webb called after him without turning round, Pictures with prospects!

There was no furniture in the corridor, which made it easy to see that there were no holes either. Frankie’s investigation led him to the doorway of Mister Webb’s study, but he would have been risking life and limb to go any further. So standing on the threshold, he leaned in and scrutinised the borders of the room. The walls were lined with bookcases and cabinets, some of which stretched from the ceiling to the floor, covering up the skirting boards completely. However, a few of the cabinets were on legs and the biggest one stood on the opposite side of the room beyond Mister Webb’s large mahogany desk. That was where he kept all the awards and certificates he had won for working in a bank and being good at maths. Frankie got down low so he could get a clear view along the floorboards and across the big rug beneath the desk. From here he could see, in the darkness underneath the cabinet, a very small patch that looked even darker. With his cheek to the floor, he closed one eye and spied with the other. That dark patch was definitely a hole.

So if that was where it came out, where would it go next? Shrinking himself down in his mind, he took his eye for a mouse-sized run. He ran it in a straight line across the rug under the desk, out through the study door and along the corridor as far as the kitchen. It was at this point that his mum emerged from the dining room, carrying a tray of dirty plates, and spotted Frankie on his hands and knees in the doorway of Mister Webb’s study.

What on earth are you doing? she hissed. She checked back over her shoulder and moved away from the doorway to avoid rousing her husband’s attention. Get up, this instant.

Frankie got to his feet.

You’d better get up those stairs and do your maths or there’ll be trouble, she said sharply. Then with a sigh, she added, Honestly! It’s only a story, you know. And with that, she clopped off to the kitchen with the rattling tray of plates.

In order to explain mathematical equations, Frankie’s dad had drawn what he said was a pair of weighing scales. It wasn’t a very good drawing though. It was just a triangle with a straight line on top and looked more like a seesaw. On either end of it, he had drawn some fruit. Well, that was what he said it was, anyway. Frankie stared at the pile of circles, which were meant to be apples, and the lumpy oval thing that was meant to be a pineapple, and drew some handles on the seesaw to make it look better. If ‘X’ was a pineapple, what could ‘Y’ be? A coconut? He didn’t know and he didn’t really care. He was far more interested in his mum’s riddle than his dad’s. What did she mean, only a story?

Next to the seesaw, he began to draw a thin, imp-like figure with short trousers and bare feet. He gave it a big pair of protruding ears and a tousled nest of hair on top, but when it came to drawing the eyes, his pen hesitated. He didn’t really know what its face looked like because he’d only seen it from behind and very briefly, just as it was running away. He had definitely seen it though, and it was tiny.

That was what they all said. Not many humans had ever caught a glimpse of the little painter, but the few who had spotted him all said the same thing. Did you see that? they would say, It was tiny!

He had never had a proper name and tiny was the only thing he had ever been called, so in a way it felt like Tiny was his name. Speck didn’t have a name either until Tiny had called her Speck. And the only reason he was able to call her Speck was because a long time ago, Tiny had learned to speak. He had tried to teach Speck how to speak too, but for some reason she just couldn’t get her tongue round the words. Speaking, it seemed, was an ability he shared only with humans. And it was only from humans that he had learned to speak.

But if humans were the only monsters with tongues that could speak, what did that make Tiny? It was a question to which he had never found an answer. He was far too small to be human, and even though he looked a lot like a little person, nobody ever got close enough to see that in some ways he looked a little like a mouse too.

Tiny had lived in a world of monsters for as long as he could remember, and not all of them were giants. Some of the most fearsome looking beings were even smaller than he was. But for all of their spines and stingers, jaws and feelers, of all the monsters in this world, there were none that scared Tiny more than the monsters that ruled it: the hairless monsters with tongues that could speak; the upright monsters with two hands and two feet: human monsters that did terrible things to mice.

It didn’t look right without a face. Frankie couldn’t leave it blank, so he made up a pair of almond shaped eyes, and then gazed at the strange little character he had just drawn.

Who are you? he mumbled, Where do you live?

From his desk, he had a good view out of the back window right up to the end of the garden, where the beehive stood among the trees. Everything looked pretty calm at the moment - just bees coming and going as normal. The foragers were hard at work, bringing in pollen and nectar to give to the housekeepers to make into beebread, while manning the entrance like border police, the guard bees were doing their duty: checking friends in and keeping impostors out. No sign of any disturbance. If an alien midget had tried to move in with a colony of bees, there would have been a major disturbance. No doubt about it.

You wouldn’t stand a chance, Frankie said, and then found himself wondering how many bee stings it would actually take to kill someone who was around six centimetres tall. He looked at his drawing and imagined it covered in bees. From head to foot, all round, it would have taken no more than about sixteen of them to completely smother a person of that size.

While he wasn’t looking, the situation outside had changed very rapidly, and when he glanced out of the window again a few seconds later, the air around the hive was suddenly swarming with bees. Something was disturbing them after all.

Frankie couldn’t believe it.

You must be mad, he muttered, jumping to his feet and hurrying out of the room.

Careful not to be spotted, he crept quietly downstairs to the kitchen, out through the back door and rushed over to the shed, where he quickly put on some protective clothing.

By the time he reached the top of the garden, the disturbance had already settled down and apart from a few bees still buzzing around the entrance, it looked as if nothing had happened. The only clues were on the ground. It was clear now that the problem wasn’t alien houseguests; the explanation was more ordinary and deadly. For the time being, all but one of them had been driven away and it was left to Frankie to deal with the straggler.

Hey, you! The party’s over, he said. Using his hive tool, he flicked the wasp off the bee that it was attacking. Then, before it could right itself and get away, he drove the blade down into the earth and sliced the predator in half.

He scooped up the fatally injured bee on the broad edge of the blade and held it up to his face. It was still twitching. The legs and antennae were groping about and the poison sack in its tail went on pumping and thrusting with nothing there for it to sting. Through the netting of his veil, he looked at the slowly flexing abdomen, amputated from the rest of its body. This was the juicy part and it would have made a nice meal for some hungry grub back at the nest. Well, not this time. Frankie had seen to that. And after all, he had only done to the wasp what the wasp had done to the bee.

He hacked out a small hole in the turf and buried the bee in it to deny any other wasps the chance of a free lunch, then with smoker in hand he stood up to check on the hive.

Frankie was fourteen now and he had been a fully-fledged beekeeper since he was twelve and a half. Some said that was too young, but age really had nothing to do with it. In any case, when the old man died, somebody had to take over, and Frankie was the only one who knew what to do. With a few puffs from the nozzle of the smoker to keep them calm, he carefully lifted out a frame of comb that was crawling with bees and turning it over in his hands, examined it closely for signs of an invasion. This one looked clear so he replaced the frame and pulled out another. On the next comb, he quickly spotted the new queen, surrounded by an entourage of helpers. There were bees crawling over his hands too. He could feel them because he wasn’t wearing any gloves. This was a good thing. If he could feel the bees, it meant he was less likely to hurt them, and if he didn’t hurt them, they wouldn’t hurt him. It was a fair deal. Bill used to say that beekeeping with gloves on is like ballet dancing in football boots. That was just one of his many wise sayings.

The old man and the beehive had come with the house. It was in the contract. The hive was not to be removed, and the beekeeper was allowed to come round once a week to check on the colony and collect honey in the summer. Bill was a quiet man and seemed to move about in his own time zone, like a different kind of animal. He didn’t really need a smoker; the calmness he gave off was so contagious, the bees were always gentle around him. As soon as Frankie was big enough to wear a bee suit, Bill had started showing him the ways of the hive and how to read the wax. Birth signs, death signs, signs of rebellion: All the clues are written on the comb by bees, he would say. Frankie had got so good at reading the wax, it was almost as if he was walking the wax and seeing everything from a bee’s point of view. But he was neither looking at it through the eyes of a bee, nor even the eyes of a beekeeper; he was looking at it through the eyes of an artist – and before long he had begun to draw the wax too, because as much as he loved keeping bees, an artist was what he wanted to be.

He put his finger into a cluster of bees and one by one, pushed them gently out of the way so he could take a look underneath. There, he found what he was looking for: lots of them – one at the bottom of each cell, like a grain of rice standing on end – and he was relieved to find that none of them had been eaten. In a few days, as long as the wasps stayed out, these eggs would be as big as the larvae in the other nursery cells, curled up like white worms and ready to begin their transformation.

Frankie closed the hive and smothered the smoker. The guard bees had done their job well this time, but it was spring, there was a nip in the air and the yellow jackets were starting to prowl. This was a dangerous time to be a honeybee. The psychopaths of the insect kingdom was what Bill used to call wasps. Meat eating killers is what they are and bee meat is what they hunt. Those guard bees would be glad of some help. As soon as he could, Frankie resolved to make some bottle traps.

After pulling a stinger out of his skin with a thumbnail, he made his way back across the garden. Wasps just got what was coming to them, but he felt sorry for the bee that had stung him. She didn’t deserve to die. Compared to a fate like that, the pain in his hand was nothing. As he hung up his bee suit in the shed, he took a deep breath and steeled himself to face something much worse.

4

No Ordinary Scavengers

The house stood white and broad at the top of Hovey Hill, chimney topped and rooted there as deep as the trees for miles around it. Fields with hedgerow edges patched the land on all sides – chopped for silage or chewed by sheep or ploughed and tilled and drilled for peas; crops of barley sprayed for disease – all rolling uphill until the boundary wall where fields and farming stopped, and lawn and garden began. It was all a very long way, but really not so far from the blaring bustle of the big city where constant shoppers and hurried workers herded the streets. Out here, beyond the babble, clatter and fuss, the loudest chatter came from the breezy branches where birds perched and feather-ruffled, looking out towards the house on the hill. Neither a bird nor a beetle could see from here the tiny lives that were there, but the crow that flew closest and waited in a tree just outside the wall watched with black unblinking eyes, two small bodies on a windowsill with a bounty of meat.

Hand-stitched and pocketed in offcuts of cotton and suede, and survival-belted in watchstrap leather, Tiny sat skin-by-fur with his rodent companion, ripping into dinner. It had been a successful raid – a routine operation in which they were well practiced. First they sneaked in through the kitchen window, seesawed down to the worktop on the scales with the hanging dishes, and gathered up the scraps on the chopping board. Then they hid behind the toaster, waited for Mrs. Webb to trot back with the dirty plates and as soon as she trotted off again with a cheese board, they came out and grabbed the leftovers.

With a piece of beef each between hands and paws, they tore at it with their sharp front biters, and chewed in unison. It was the ledge of the master bedroom window that they were sitting on, high up at the side of the house with the best view around. From up here, Tiny could see the tops of the trees. The rest of the time, when he was down there in the jungle, he had to crane his neck just to see to the top of a dandelion. It was his favourite spot and perfect for eating in. After the trials of the morning, they were more than ready for a good meal, and as long as they didn’t go hungry, a few cuts and bruises were nothing.

He wiped the meat juice and gravy from his chin, then carved off another hunk of roast beef with his sword and passed it to Speck who snatched it off him and gnawed it with relish. Mice would eat just about anything – even grasshoppers if they had to – but as far as Speck was concerned, there was nothing better than roast beef. Chicken and pork were good too, but roast beef was the best. With the kind of menu this mouse was used to, grasshoppers had nothing to worry about. After slicing off a piece for himself, Tiny leaned back against the window frame.

To the kid, he said, and bit off a good face full.

It was rich pickings today thanks to Frankie’s bumper leftovers. There was so much that Speck had been loaded up like a pack-mule. They now had enough food in the store to last them a week.

Tiny picked up his sword and stabbed a pea the size of his head onto the tip.

Don’t forget to eat your greens, he said.

Speck took the pea in her paws and gnawed through it quickly so she could get back to the beef.

Tiny ruffled her neck fur and said, We’re a good team, you and me.

There was no doubt about that. Humans called mice ‘scavengers’ and Tiny was one as well. But he and Speck were no ordinary scavengers. The two of them had taken scavenging to a whole new level. They had turned it into an art form. That said, not even a haul of food like this could really make up for their disastrous paint mission.

Tiny looked out over the jungle that the Webbs called their ‘garden’. His gaze drifted over canopies of wildflowers, where the last few foragers were heading home to the beehive after a hard day’s work, out across the overgrown moorland of lawn, beyond the thickets of shrubs and plantations of roses, and finally came to rest on the far-off city skyline that glinted on the hazy horizon. Everything looked small from up here and the city looked like the smallest thing of all. The tallest skyscraper looked as tall as a single red rose.

He became lost in the view for a moment, almost forgetting about the half eaten portion of beef in his hands. Nothing could make Speck forget about her dinner, though, and she wasn’t going to hang about waiting for Tiny to carve. So while he carried on staring into the distance, she went ahead and gnawed at the slab of beef that lay between them.

The mysterious shapes of the city were now silhouetted against a deep orange sky. Tiny had copied those shapes precisely. Every oblong, triangle and semi-sphere was accurate. Almost every angle and curve that he could see, he had imitated exactly. Everything else that he couldn’t see from here, he had imagined. And he had imagined a lot. He didn’t know if he would ever get to see it for real. He hoped that he would, even though he knew that it was probably very dangerous.

The thought of walking through the real monster streets of the real monster city made Tiny’s tail itch. At least, it made the place where Tiny’s tail used to be itch. He reached round and scratched the stump. As he scratched, he looked down from the skyscrapers to the jungle wall and pictured all the sunflowers that would soon be blooming in front of it.

Maybe I should forget about Sunflower Street, he heard himself saying.

Speck stopped chewing, her ear twitching in disbelief. It took a lot to distract a mouse from its food, but Speck was gawping at Tiny with an open mouth full of semi-chewed mush. She squeaked at him several times.

Yes, I know that was the plan, but…

Speck interrupted him.

Yes, I know we need paint, but…

She squeaked again.

It’s too risky, he insisted.

This was unbelievable. Speck eyeballed him blackly. Then she turned her back, grabbed some cheese and gnawed it furiously.

Oh come on, Speck, don’t be like that.

But it seemed Speck was going to carry on being exactly like that, just so long as she had a coward for company. She had been a very supportive friend and Tiny felt a little bit ashamed – almost as if he was letting her down more than himself – but he could end up getting them both killed, just for the sake of his harebrained project. And that would be crazy. They had to be realistic about it.

We have to be realistic about it, he said out loud.

This prompted some spluttering and a spray of cheese. Speck had never heard him say anything so ridiculous.

With a sigh, Tiny took his eyes off the fur hump beside him and watched the sun oozing across the skyline. He wasn’t even sure why he had done it. Where was the point in building his own city with nobody in it? What had he been thinking? The whole idea suddenly struck him as completely stupid.

It was around this time that the security light was timed to come on. From the wall directly above them, a glaring beam blasted the jungle below, lighting it up like a football pitch. A floodlight is just the kind of thing you don’t need in the middle of a sunset – it tends to spoil the effect – but on this occasion the light coming on happened to coincide with a ladybird