The Postman Who Was HERMES

Part One. Backwards

We had seen the postman once before, on Wednesday, going past the bin and the bench with his back to everything. The first time we properly spoke to him was on Thursday, and he was WALKING BACKWARDS again.

He came through the school gate with a big red bag over his shoulder, going backwards the whole way, and he didn't bump into a single thing. Not the bin. Not the bench. Not even Mr Harris, who stepped out of the way at the last second, holding his clipboard like a shield, and said, "Morning, Mr Hermes. Is there a reason for...?"

"Habit," said the postman, with a wink. "Old trick."

His badge said MR HERMES, ROYAL MAIL (ISH). He wore a red jacket and a little red cap with two tiny wings on the sides. His white trainers had wings on the heels, and they flapped a bit even when he was standing still.

Alex Bailey said the wings were probably just really good laces. Felix Bailey said laces don't flap. They agreed to look into it.

Part Two. Alex Notices, Felix Asks

Alex and Felix are twins, which means they have a system. Alex notices things and Felix asks about them, and then they swap, and it works every time.

On Friday, at break, Alex noticed that Mr Hermes was never late. Not once. He was also never seen arriving. One minute the gate was empty, and the next he was just there, saying good morning.

Felix asked Mr Harris how many schools the postman delivered to. "About forty," said Mr Harris. "But he's always here first. Always has been."

Alex noticed that the postman knew everybody's name. He said "Morning, Kenji," and "Afternoon, Mrs Ibbs," and "Hello, Hamster," and the hamster stood up on its back legs.

Then Felix asked the most important question of all, which was, "Mr Hermes, what's in the bag?"

"Everything," said Mr Hermes. "Every message for every god, in every country, going out on a Monday. The big post goes at three o'clock. Three o'clock on the dot, every week, for three thousand years."

"Can I carry it?" said Ollie, who is always hungry and was hoping it was heavier on the inside than the outside.

Mr Hermes put the bag down on the grass. It landed with a thump that we felt in our feet.

Ollie took the strap in both hands. He pulled. His face went red and then purple. He lifted it a whole finger's width off the ground and then he sat down very suddenly.

"It never gets any lighter," said Mr Hermes. "No matter how many parcels come out." And he hooked it back over his shoulder with one finger, as if it were full of feathers.

Above us, on the roof of the bike shed, a big grey seagull put its head on one side. It had been watching Ollie's crisps for ten minutes.

"Don't," said Ollie, to the seagull. The seagull did.

By the time Ollie had stopped shouting, someone small was standing at the postman's elbow.

Part Three. The Fearless One

She was in Reception, which is the smallest class in the school, and she had two wonky plaits, a muddy knee and a jumper with a pig on it. Her name was Dot, and she had only joined the school three weeks ago.

We knew a lot about Dot already. She had found the Lost Property box on her second day, and she had arranged all the odd gloves into pairs, and then into a rainbow. She danced down the corridor instead of walking. She had once asked Mr Harris to see his head teacher certificate.

She was not afraid of anything. We had checked.

She looked straight up at the postman and said, "Have you got one for me?"

"Not today, Dot," said Mr Hermes, and a funny look went across his face, as if he had been caught out in something.

"You never have," said Dot, without being cross, and she wrote it in the dust with her finger. A big 0. Then she skipped away across the playground, singing.

"Hm," said Alex.

"Hm," said Felix.

They had both noticed the same thing, which was that she had said it as if she were adding something up.

"Right," said Alex. "Who is he?"

They both said, "We need Maya."

Part Four. Behind the Compost Bin

Maya Singh was already waiting behind the compost bin. She had been waiting since Wednesday.

"I wondered how long it would take you," she said.

Kenji and Ollie sat on their upside-down buckets. Willow, the Reading Cat, who is a Bengal and very dignified, sat on the compost bin lid with her tail curled round her feet. And someone small and plaited came and sat next to her, uninvited.

"Dot," said Maya, "this is a private meeting."

"I like private meetings," said Dot, and stayed.

Maya let it go, and opened her notebook.

She said that in ancient Greece, people believed in a god called Hermes. The Romans called him Mercury. He was the messenger of the gods, so when one god needed to send word to another, Hermes took it. He was very, very fast, because he had winged sandals on his feet and a winged hat on his head.

"Like a postman," said Kenji.

"Exactly like a postman," said Maya. "Except he was also the god of travellers, so he kept people safe on the road. And the god of luck, and traders, and thieves."

"Thieves?" said Ollie.

"I'm getting to that," said Maya. "Dot, don't wriggle."

"I'm not wriggling," said Dot. "I'm dancing sitting down."

Part Five. The Baby and the Cows

Maya took a deep breath, because it was her favourite story.

She said that Hermes was born in a cave one morning. By lunchtime he was bored of his cradle. He crawled out and wandered about, and he found an old, empty tortoise shell by the cave door. He thought, that looks as if it could make a noise. So he fixed seven strings across it and made the first ever lyre. It's a little harp. It played beautiful music.

"He was ONE DAY old?" said Felix.

"About six hours," said Maya.

By the afternoon he was bored of the music, and he was hungry. He remembered that his big brother Apollo had fifty beautiful cows in a field. So he crept out and took them.

"He STOLE them?" said Alex.

"Yes," said Maya. "But he was clever about it. He tied bundles of twigs to the cows' feet, so the tracks were all smudged. And then he made the cows walk BACKWARDS, so that the footprints looked as if they were going into the field instead of out of it. Then he hid them in a cave, wriggled back into his cradle, pulled up the blanket, and pretended to be asleep."

Kenji clapped. Maya said, "Don't clap, it was naughty."

Kenji stopped. Then, a little quietly, he clapped again. Willow looked at him very slowly, which is how she claps.

When Apollo came looking for his cows, he found a baby in a cradle who said, "Cows? What cows? I'm only a day old." Apollo took him to Zeus, the king of the gods, and Zeus laughed so hard he nearly fell off his throne. But he said, "Give them back."

"And he did," said Maya. "And to make up for it, he gave Apollo the lyre. Apollo loved it so much that they became best friends, and that is how Hermes got his job as the messenger."

"So he said sorry," said Felix, "and then he shared something."

"And made it right," said Alex.

"Yes," said Maya. "That's the big idea." She underlined it.

Dot had stopped dancing. She was looking at the notebook.

"Did he get in trouble?" she said.

"Not for long," said Maya. "He'd said sorry, and he'd put it right."

Dot nodded, slowly, like somebody putting a fact into a pocket.

Part Six. The List

Alex had the pencil. Felix held Maya's notebook, because they always share jobs.

1. THE WINGS. The cap and the trainers. We all tested the trainers by standing very close to them, and they flapped.

2. THE BACKWARDS WALKING. Thursday, and Wednesday before that. Maya said it was a classic Hermes move, to leave a trail that points the wrong way.

3. HE'S ALWAYS THERE FIRST. Nobody ever sees him arrive.

4. HE KNOWS EVERYONE'S NAME. Even the Reception children. Even the hamster.

5. THE BAG. It's a big red sack, and it's always full, and it never gets any lighter. Ollie had tested this with his whole body.

"It's the strongest list we've ever had," said Felix.

"Apart from Mr Thorley's," said Alex.

"We don't talk about Mr Thorley's," said Felix.

Over the fence, two big girls had stopped to listen. They were Elfine and Marion, the cousins. Elfine wears glasses and tells facts. Marion carries a stopwatch and measures things.

"Fun fact," said Elfine. "The smallest planet nearest the sun is named after Hermes's Roman name. It's the fastest one."

"I tried to time him on Friday," said Marion. "Gate to door. He's so quick that my stopwatch never got going."

She showed us. It said 0.0. She looked a bit hurt.

Part Seven. The Bag Goes Missing

On Monday, Mr Hermes arrived at school panting and red in the face, and WITHOUT HIS BAG.

It was the first time we had ever seen him out of breath. His cap was crooked.

"Mr Harris," he said, "I have a problem. I put my bag down for one second to tie my shoelace, and somebody took it."

"How long ago?" said Mr Harris.

"About four minutes."

"That's not very long," said Mr Harris.

"That bag," said Mr Hermes, in a rather strangled voice, "has every message for every god in the world. It goes out at three o'clock. If it isn't delivered by three, everything gets MIXED UP."

"Mixed up how?" said Mr Harris.

At that very moment, a strange announcement came over the school speaker.

It was Mrs Ibbs, the dinner lady, and she said: "Good morning, boys and girls! Today for lunch we are serving MATHS. Please queue by your own shadow."

Nobody said anything. Even Willow looked up, which is rare.

"Ah," said Mr Hermes. "Like that."

It got worse by the minute.

By ten o'clock, Mr Thorley was in the hall on top of a ladder, shouting, "WHO TOLD ME TO TURN THE SUN OFF?" Mrs Felicity gave out forty-two raffle tickets, every one labelled EVERYBODY LOSES. Mr Jackson in the library was sent a message that said PLEASE LIE DOWN IN THE ROAD, and he was very polite about it, but he did put his coat on.

In the Gardening Club, Miss Persey's flowers were blooming upside down. In the music room, Mr Shah was sent a message telling him to DANCE VERY QUIETLY AND VERY LOUDLY AT THE SAME TIME, and he was trying, and it was hard to watch. Mr Harris was told by a mysterious voice in his ear to swap places with the hamster.

He went to the cage, and stood there for a while. "I am not doing that," he said. Then, in a smaller voice, "Not yet."

Nobody was hurt. But everything was upside down and back to front.

"That's what he meant," said Felix.

"Every message is getting muddled because the bag isn't where it's meant to be," said Alex.

"It's just like the stories," whispered Maya. "If the messenger of the gods is lost, nobody knows what anyone is saying."

Kenji was looking round the playground. "Where's Dot?" he said. "She's not in the lunch queue. She's not in Lost Property. She's not dancing."

"Maybe she's queuing by the wrong shadow," said Ollie.

Part Eight. One Sandal

Mr Hermes tried to fly off to look for the thief. He flapped his heels, and bent his knees, and one of his sandals gave a sad little pffft, and fell off.

It lay on the playground, twitching. Then it hopped up on its wing, wobbled in the air like a leaf that couldn't decide, and flew away over the school roof. Mr Hermes tried to catch it, and fell over.

"I can't fly without both," he said, in a very small voice.

He sat down on the bench with his head in his hands. A god who has delivered the post for three thousand years looked, for a moment, just like Mr Harris on the last day of term.

Alex went and sat down on one side of him. Felix sat on the other.

"Mr Hermes," said Alex. "You taught us something, with the cows."

"Did I?" said Mr Hermes.

"You walked them backwards," said Felix, "so that nobody could tell which way they'd gone."

"So if someone took your bag..." said Alex.

"...maybe they walked backwards too," said Felix.

Mr Hermes lifted his head. A small, dazzling smile began to spread across his face.

"Go on," he said.

Part Nine. The Footprints

The twins ran to the place where he had put the bag down, which was a patch of muddy grass by the front steps. Alex crouched. Felix crouched. They looked at the ground.

There were footprints. They were very small, and close together, like the steps of someone in a hurry.

"They look as if they're pointing TOWARDS the gate," said Alex. "Like somebody walked in."

"But look at the heels," said Felix. "And the toes."

"The heel marks are deeper," said Alex.

"So whoever it was was walking BACKWARDS," said Felix. "Away from the gate. Towards..."

They followed. Maya followed them with her notebook, and Kenji and Ollie followed Maya, and Willow followed everybody at a distance, as if she'd come for her own reasons. The footprints led across the playground, round the side of the school, past the bins, and stopped at the bottom of the old fire escape.

It was a black iron staircase, rusty at the edges, and it went up and up past the windows, all the way to the flat roof where nobody was ever allowed.

Felix and Alex both looked up.

At the very top, a very small figure was sitting on something very big and red, swinging her legs.

"Dot," said Maya.

Part Ten. The Foot of the Fire Escape

"NOBODY," said Mr Harris, "goes up that fire escape."

He had come running with his clipboard, and Mr Thorley behind him with a ladder still in his hand. He looked up. He went the colour of porridge.

"She is in RECEPTION," said Mr Harris. "She is in Reception, and she is on the roof, and that staircase has not been climbed since the year I came here."

"I'll go," said Mr Hermes. "I can't fly, but I can climb."

Then he looked at the staircase and swallowed, because Mr Hermes, the god with the wings, is secretly afraid of heights. It is a very funny thing for a god with wings. Nobody laughed.

"I'm too wide for those steps," said Mr Thorley slowly. He put his hand on the rail and gave it a shake. It did not even rattle. "But I can hold this. I'll hold it still the whole way."

"One at a time," said Mr Harris. "In single file. You stay on the rail. If anyone feels wobbly, you stop, and you tell me, and we all stop. I will be right behind you. Mr Hermes first, because it's his bag. The twins next, because they found the footprints. Then Maya, Kenji and Ollie, because I can see you will follow anyway, and I would rather you were counted."

"Why the twins first?" said Ollie.

"Because a very small person at the top of a fire escape does not want a crowd," said Mr Harris. "She wants someone she knows. This is a one-off. I will be signing a great many forms."

Willow was already on the third step.

Part Eleven. The Climb

It was a very long climb. The wind blew, and the iron creaked, and every step wobbled a very little. Mr Thorley stood at the bottom with both hands round the rail, and he did not move, and neither did the staircase.

Mr Hermes climbed first. His knees were shaking, and his one sandal wing was flapping like a leaf. Every few steps he said, "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm perfectly fine," and nobody believed him.

Then Felix stopped, halfway up. He had looked down.

The playground was a long way down. The bins looked like toys.

"I can't," said Felix, in a very small voice.

Alex, who was one step behind him, did not say a word about being brave. He put his hand over Felix's hand on the rail, and he said, "Don't look down. Look at my shoes."

Felix looked at Alex's shoes. They were muddy. One lace was undone.

"Your lace is undone," said Felix.

"I know," said Alex. "Count the steps with me. One."

"Two," said Felix.

"Three."

They counted all the way to the next landing, with Kenji counting underneath in a whisper, very fast. Felix's feet moved. He did not look down again.

A few steps higher, a gust of wind took Alex's cap off his head. He watched it fly off over the bike shed, spinning, and he stopped. His face went pale.

"It's only a cap," said Felix. He took hold of Alex's sleeve. "Look at me. Not at the cap."

"It's my best cap," said Alex.

"It'll be in Dot's Lost Property by lunch," said Felix. "Count with me. One."

"Two," said Alex.

At the front, Mr Hermes had stopped as well. He was looking at the twins counting. He took a very deep breath, and he said, in a quiet voice, "Do you know, I think I'll count too."

So we climbed, all of us, counting out loud, up the old black staircase. From below came the sound of Mr Harris saying "Nine, ten, eleven," with his clipboard held out in front of him like a lantern.

By the top, neither twin had let go of the other's hand for about forty steps. Neither of them noticed.

Part Twelve. The Top of the School

The roof was flat and grey and very quiet. There was a wall all the way round it, as high as Mr Harris's chest, and in the middle there was a wide, low box with a lid and a pipe sticking out. Mr Harris said later it was for the heating.

Nobody ran. We all sat down in the middle, away from the wall, while our legs remembered what solid ground felt like.

Mr Hermes lay flat on his back and looked at the sky. "I have flown over oceans," he said, "and Mount Olympus in a thunderstorm. And I have never been so frightened as on that staircase."

"You didn't stop," said Felix.

"Neither did you," said Mr Hermes. "Neither did your brother."

Mr Harris came out of the stairwell last, puffing, and sat down hard on the lid of the heating box. "I am fine," he said. "I am just resting my clipboard."

Willow sat down next to Mr Hermes's head as if she had meant to be there all along.

A seagull landed on the wall. It was the same seagull. Ollie put his hand over his pocket.

And there, in the corner of the roof, beside a very big red bag as high as a beanbag, sat Dot. She had her plaits, her muddy knee, and the pig on her jumper. In her lap was a winged sandal, which was busy trying to flap its way out of her arms and was not getting anywhere.

"Hello," said Dot.

Part Thirteen. Dot

"That's my sandal," said Mr Hermes, sitting up.

"It was lost," said Dot. "I found it flapping about on the playground. That's lost property. I have to look after it until someone says it's theirs."

"It's mine," said Mr Hermes.

"Prove it," said Dot.

Mr Hermes thought about this. "It has my name in it," he said. "In Greek."

Dot turned the sandal upside down. "That says H.E.R.M.E.S. in felt-tip," she said.

"My mum did it," said Mr Hermes.

Dot considered this the best evidence she had heard all day, and handed the sandal over.

Dot took a very big breath, the way you do when you have been planning to say a thing for a long time.

"I took the bag," she said. "I saw you put it down by the steps. I'm sorry. I said I would give it back, and I'm giving it back now."

"But why?" said Alex.

Dot looked at her knees. She wasn't shy, not even now, but her voice had gone flat and careful.

"You bring everyone a letter," she said. "The big kids, and the teachers, and the dinner ladies. Mrs Ibbs got eleven last week. I counted. I stood by the gate for three weeks. You don't have one for me."

"Dot," said Mr Hermes softly.

"I thought if I opened the bag, I could find one with my name on it. Just one. I didn't know it was the whole world's post. Then I sat down on it, and it was too heavy to carry down by myself, and I wasn't going to leave it." She sniffed, fiercely. "Lost things should be looked after."

Nobody laughed. Nobody wanted to.

Felix took a folded paper out of his pocket, which was a half-finished drawing of a dragon, and a pencil from behind his ear. He wrote something on the back, very fast, and folded it up. Alex tore a page out of his school diary, borrowed the pencil, and did the same.

They each held out a folded note.

Dot took them. Her hands were not quite steady. She unfolded Felix's first.

Dear Dot, I think you are brave. Love from Felix. P.S. I like your plaits.

She unfolded Alex's.

Dear Dot, I am glad you are in our school. Love from Alex. P.S. Do you want to play on Tuesday?

She read them twice. Her bottom lip wobbled, and a very large tear rolled down her cheek and landed on the pig.

"Nobody ever wrote to me before," she said.

"Now two people have," said Maya, sitting down next to her. "I'm going to write one too. And so are Kenji and Ollie."

"And I would be honoured," said Mr Hermes.

Part Fourteen. The Bag That Would Not Lift

"I took something that wasn't mine, once, too," said Mr Hermes gently, and he knelt down. "And I got it wrong, and I said sorry, and I made it right. Shall we do the making right part together?"

Dot wiped her nose on her sleeve, stood up, and nodded.

That was when Kenji, who had been quietly counting something on his fingers, gasped.

"It's TWO FORTY-FIVE," he said. "Fifteen minutes. And the bag's still all the way over there."

Everybody froze.

"The big post goes from the highest point," said Mr Hermes, in a panic. "And I can't lift that bag."

"You don't have to do it alone," said Felix.

"We can help," said Alex.

So we tried. The highest point of the roof was the flat top of the heating box, three steps up and a few paces across. It would not take long.

Alex took the left strap. Felix took the right. They said, "One, two, three, LIFT," and the bag did not move. Not a single hair.

"Again," said Felix.

This time they lifted. The bag came up off the ground by a hand's width. Then Alex's end swung higher than Felix's, and the whole thing lurched sideways, and both of them sat down on the roof, and the bag sat down on both of them.

"It's heavier than a person," said Alex, from underneath.

"It's heavier than a bus," said Felix, from underneath.

Felix lay still for a moment, thinking. "We went on different numbers," he said. "You went on two and I went on three."

"We need somebody who's good at timing," said Alex.

Dot, who had been watching with her head on one side like the seagull, sat down on the lid of the heating box. "I'm good at timing," she said. "I dance. You can't go on one, two, three. Everybody has to go together. Like dancing."

"You go on and," said Dot. "And, LIFT. Everybody breathes in on and."

So Mr Hermes took the front. Maya, Kenji and Ollie took the middle. Alex took the left strap again and Felix the right, and Dot stood on the heating box and counted them in like a conductor.

"And," said Dot. Everybody breathed in. "LIFT."

The bag came up off the roof. It wobbled. It tilted. Ollie's end sagged, and Kenji said "Left, left, LEFT," and everybody shuffled left. We walked it across the roof the way you walk a very large and very sleepy dinosaur, and we heaved it up the three steps onto the top of the box, and we let it go.

It stood there. Mr Harris, who had been watching from the stairwell with his clipboard over his eyes, took the clipboard down very slowly.

"Well," he said. "I'll be."

Part Fifteen. Three O'Clock

"TWO FIFTY-SEVEN!" came a voice from far below.

It was Mr Thorley, whose voice carries. At the foot of the fire escape, Marion was holding up her stopwatch and Elfine was reading it out to him, and he was bellowing it up the staircase, one word at a time, as if he were a very large clock.

"It started when he arrived this morning," Marion shouted, in the gaps. "It's never worked before!"

Mr Hermes stood up on the highest point, with one sandal on, and one sandal in his hand. He did not say he was fine. "I am going to need somebody to hold my hand," he said.

Alex and Felix, who always share jobs, took one hand each.

Dot buckled the sandal on. She did it very neatly, with a double knot. "There," she said. "Now it won't get lost."

Mr Hermes opened the bag.

An enormous heap of letters and parcels and messages came tumbling out in all colours, every one addressed to a god. Kenji read out the names. Ollie held the bundles. Maya made the piles. Alex and Felix, side by side, raced up and down, passing each pile to Mr Hermes, who caught every one and sent it up in the air, where it vanished.

Among them was a brown box with stamps on it, and a note that said THE NEW PE TEACHER (DO NOT SHAKE. DO NOT FEED). Mr Hermes tucked it under his arm. "That one goes later," he said.

"TWO FIFTY-NINE!" boomed Mr Thorley.

Mr Hermes rose three feet off the roof, shut his eyes tight, and wobbled. He did not look down.

That was when the seagull swooped.

It came out of the sky like a grey boomerang, straight at the last big parcel. The parcel was heavy and gold, it was addressed to ZEUS, and Dot was holding it up in both arms. Dot didn't flinch. But the seagull was bigger than she was.

And on the wall, in front of it, appeared Willow.

She sprang up onto the highest and narrowest and windiest place on the roof, and she planted all four feet, and she put her ears flat, and she looked the seagull full in the face. She did not hiss. She did not scratch. She just looked, with her great amber eyes, as if she were saying, Not today.

The seagull stopped in the air. Then, with a loud, embarrassed squawk, it wheeled round and flew off over the bike shed.

"Now," said Dot, to nobody in particular, and she threw the parcel.

WHOOOOSH.

There was a clap of thunder, and a silvery light, and a far-off voice that said, "Thank you, Hermes."

"THREE O'CLOCK!" boomed Mr Thorley, and from the bottom of the stairs, very faintly, we heard Marion say, "Exactly. Three o'clock exactly. It's never got that right before." She sounded as if she might cry.

Part Sixteen. Everything Goes Back

The announcements stopped being strange. Mrs Ibbs told us that lunch was fish pie. Mr Thorley came down his ladder, and fixed the light, and said "Hm. The sun's back," as if it had never been his fault. Mrs Felicity's raffle tickets turned back into raffle tickets. Mr Jackson took off his coat. Mr Shah stopped dancing very quietly and very loudly at the same time, and sat down, and looked relieved. Miss Persey's flowers all turned the right way up. And Mr Harris's chair stopped being the hamster's.

We came down the fire escape the same way we had gone up, in single file, counting, with Mr Thorley holding the rail the whole time. Mr Hermes floated down beside us with both sandals on, and gave his wings a happy flap.

"I've delivered for three thousand years," he said, "and I've never had help. I didn't know how nice it was."

"That's what friends are for," said Maya.

"That's what messengers should be for, too," said Mr Hermes. He put his hand in his coat and took out a small cream-coloured envelope. He held it out.

It said: FOR DOT. FROM EVERYBODY.

Inside were drawings from every single child in the school, and the teachers, and the dinner ladies. There was a card from Mrs Ibbs written in hieroglyphs, and a flower from Miss Persey, and a sticker from Mrs Felicity that said YOU ARE LUCKY. At the bottom was a very short note in a very big hand: WELL DONE, DOT. THOR.

Dot read every one. Then she read them again.

"I'm going to keep them for ever," she said.

"That's exactly what they're for," said Mr Hermes.

Part Seventeen. Say Sorry, Make It Right

At home time, Mr Hermes stood by the gate in the long yellow light, and every child stopped to say thank you.

Dot was the last. She stood in front of him with the envelope held against her chest.

"I still took your bag," she said. "I did it on purpose."

"You did," said Mr Hermes. "And you gave it back, and you helped carry it, and you held the Zeus parcel when the seagull came. Do you know what that is?"

"Naughty?" said Dot.

"That's what I did," said Mr Hermes, "and it turned out all right. Everyone gets it wrong sometimes, even a god. The trick is what comes next." He crouched down so that he and Dot were the same size. "You say sorry. You make it right. And you keep going."

Alex said, "That's the cows."

Felix said, "That's the notes."

"It is the same as everything good," said Mr Hermes.

Dot said it first, in her flat, certain voice, the way she says everything. Then Alex and Felix said it with her, and then the rest of us, and Willow sat down and looked as if she'd said it too.

"I CAN SAY SORRY, MAKE IT RIGHT, AND KEEP GOING."

"Good," said Mr Hermes. "Now I have forty more schools to deliver to, and a brown box to look after, and I will be late, which has never happened." He tipped his little winged cap. "Mr Harris, I'll be here first tomorrow, as always."

"I know you will," said Mr Harris. He said, to nobody, "We are going to have a very long staff meeting about that fire escape."

Mr Hermes turned round and walked away from us backwards down the road, whistling. Halfway to the corner he flapped his heels, and with a soft, silver whoosh, he lifted off the ground, and was gone.

Part Eighteen. The Frost

The next Friday, it was the coldest morning of the autumn.

Dot got to school before any of us. She was waiting on the front step in a hat with ears, and she was jumping up and down, and she said, "Come and look. Come and LOOK."

She marched us round the side of the school, past the bins, to the end of the playground, where the old shed stood with its back to the wall. The old shed had a padlock the size of a dinner plate and nobody had opened it in years.

It was open.

There was a glow coming through the cracks, warm and orange, like a very small sunrise. From inside came a slow, steady sound, clang... clang... clang... like a bell with its mind on something. The air smelt of hot metal and toast.

"It's been doing that since six," said Dot. "I came early to check."

The grass was white with frost. And in the frost, leading from the gate to the shed door, were footprints. They were big boot prints, deep and uneven, left, then right, then left, with a wobble in the middle of each pair. And beside every one, a small round hole, as if somebody had been leaning on a stick.

"Wobbly," said Felix.

"A stick," said Alex.

On the shed step stood a kettle. It was steaming, and nobody was near it, and nothing was under it.

"No fire," said Kenji.

"No fire," said Ollie.

Maya got her notebook out, and wrote BOOT, STICK, KETTLE in capital letters, then drew a line under it, then another line.

Behind us, somebody whistled. We turned round. Mr Hermes was coming through the gate, walking backwards, with the bag over his shoulder, and a very small key held up between two fingers.

"Don't look at me," he said. "I only deliver." He put the key down on the step next to the kettle. The label on it said FOR THE OLD SHED. FROM SOMEBODY WHO WILL NEED IT. He winked, and tipped his cap, and was somewhere else.

Willow's ears went up. The orange glow flickered.

Clang, said the shed. Clang. Clang.

Alex looked at the shed. Felix looked at the boot prints.

"Monday," they said, at exactly the same time.

The End.