by Steve I’Anson

It was going to be a very exciting day for Alvin Robinson. He did not know this yet and, although it was only seven o'clock in the morning, Alvin was very bored.

Alvin lived with his mummy and daddy in a big, stone house in the country. Before they had moved here they had lived in a smaller brick house in the big city and Alvin had had lots of friends living on the same street and he never seemed to be on his own. The new house was on its own up a little lane which did not lead anywhere else and the nearest of his new friends lived in the village, which was too far for small boys to go on their own. On some days during the holidays, other boys or girls from Priddington First School were brought round to spend the day with Alvin and sometimes he went to someone else's house. On other days Alvin just knew nobody would take any notice of him whatever he did and today was one of those.

Alvin had loved the house almost before he had seen it. The For Sale sign on the main road to Priddington was at a crazy angle only supported by the hedge and the paint was peeling from it but, without it, they would never have found the entrance to the lane which was almost blocked with brambles. All the way up the muddy track to the house the branches were scratching at the windows. The house itself was wonderful! It looked a bit like a house out of a fairy tale or ghost story. It had some big windows but others were just slits in the stone, it had massive chimneys and, most exciting, it had pointed bits on the roof like witches' hats of the sort that you normally only saw on castles. The people who had lived there had made no alterations to the house and, when they had died, no-one from the modern world had wanted to take it on and it had been empty and rotting for two years. Mummy had not been very keen at first. She did not like the muddy track, the holes in the roof, the kitchen floor, which could never be got clean because it was made of big blocks of stone. Where was the school, how would Alvin get there every day? What she really did not like was the old well half way down the garden, which she was sure Alvin would fall down, given half a chance. Daddy did not seem to like it much either and made sucking and tutting noises as they walked round the rotting house and overgrown garden. He said that "it had potential" and "the price was right". This meant that daddy would fix everything so that everybody would like it, and he had. Daddy was good at fixing things, which Alvin knew because he had heard mummy telling one of the mothers at school that daddy was a fixer. Daddy said he was a businessman.

Now there was a proper road up to the house with a huge orange street light. The roof did not leak, there was hot water, a shiny, tiled kitchen floor and a wooden cover on the old well. To be doubly sure there were also a little fence and a little hedge round the well to make sure that Alvin could not get near. They seemed to think that, if Alvin got within ten feet of the well, he would be sucked in but it all just made the well more fascinating to Alvin.

"I just want to have a look at it, " complained Alvin.

"You can look at it out of the window, " replied daddy, and that was that.

This was nearly as bad as expecting him to look at mummy's new earrings or daddy's new tie without touching them. "Look with your eyes not your fingers Alvin!" they said, but all small boys know that this just is not the same.

It had taken ages to get all the work done on the house and garden and, even when they moved in, there were still builders about. This was fun as they would always break off to talk to Alvin but now they had finished. Alvin had not been near the well yet but today he was very bored.

Alvin had already been up for an hour. He had watched a video of Thunderbirds, played with his computer, looked at a book and made a fully armed space cruiser out of Lego. He had been and woken mummy up but she had not been pleased to see him and had not wanted to play. She had suggested he go and watch TV or a video until breakfast time. It was funny how she never thought those were good things for him to do after breakfast. Daddy was away on business, fixing things for people Alvin supposed, so he had taken the opportunity to spend some time climbing on to the bannister on the staircase but had not yet worked up the courage to slide down it. What was he going to do all day?

Breakfast passed without life becoming any more exciting for Alvin. He put some sugar on his cereal when mummy was not looking, which was good, but he spilt his orange juice while explaining the flight patterns of his Lego space fighters, which was not so good because there was no more left. "Can't you speak without waving your arms about, Alvin?" mummy had said rather loudly. But how else can you explain space flight?

Mrs. Jones from the village came after breakfast and started to clear the dishes away and clean the house. Mummy went into her office to work. Alvin was on his own.

Alvin was not entirely sure what mummy did in her office but he knew that he was not allowed in there. She would come out every now and again during the day but would be inclined to say things like: "Just let me sit down quietly and drink this coffee for five minutes" rather than play with Alvin. He had spent some time looking through the office keyhole and all his mummy did was tap the keys on the computer and talk on the telephone. This seemed much easier than fixing things and he could not work out why it made her so tired.

Mrs. Jones did not really seem to notice Alvin at all. If he spoke to her, no matter what he said, she just waited until he finished and then replied "Yes, dear". It had taken several of Mrs. Jones' mornings at the house earlier in the holidays spent trying to get more out of her to finally convince Alvin that it was hopeless. He had done the job properly, he had not avoided any course of action, no matter how dangerous, in reaching this conclusion. He had started with stamping across the wooden dining room floor and then slamming the door very hard over and over again. This seemed to get the attention of most adults but had no effect on Mrs. Jones. He had then tried the cleverer tricks of putting jam on her dusters, of pulling the vacuum cleaner plug out of the wall when she was not looking and of ringing the front door bell at five minute intervals (and then, of course, hiding round the corner). None of this had any effect on Mrs. Jones; she just shook her head a bit and, if she said anything, she said "Yes, dear".

There was no alternative then but to go and play in the garden. Alvin said "I'm going to play in the garden, Mrs. Jones", and she of course replied "Yes, dear".

The garden had been completely overgrown when Alvin had first seen the house but now most of it was quite neat and tidy like it must have been in years gone by. There was a lawn at the front of the house which was separated from the lane by a really high prickly hedge. This hedge then continued round the big part of the garden which lay to the left of the house, most of which was used for growing vegetables and where there were some apple and pear trees, and round the back where there were more lawns and flower beds. There was no garden to the right of the house and the hedge was only separated from its stone wall by the gravel path. The well was behind the house and just to the left and could be seen from all the different parts of the garden, or it would have been possible to see it if it was not for the little fence and hedge which now surrounded it. Alvin had explored and played in every corner of the garden except, of course, for the little bit round the well.

Alvin felt pulled towards the well as soon as he stepped out of the kitchen door. After all he was very bored today and really needed something to put some life into the day. Alvin did not walk towards the well immediately since he knew that they may well watch out of the windows to see what he did. So he started by rushing about the pathways scattering the gravel, digging his heels into the lawns, jumping in the flower beds, dislodging stones in the small stone walls and the other things that he knew were expected of him. It occurred to Alvin at this point that he had his best school shoes on and that he should have been wearing his wellies but nobody had told him when they had the chance and he was not going in again until he had had a good look at the well. It was not that he wanted to do anything dangerous like lift the lid up and dangle his feet over the edge, he just wanted to look at it in the way that small boys do these things. Alvin wanted to poke his fingers into any holes in the stone wall at the edge, see if there was a gap in the cover which he could see down by lying on top of it, he wanted to find some way of dropping stones down. He wanted to be sure that nobody knew anything about the well that he did not.

Alvin approached the well from the side which faced away from the house. Behind him were the hedge at the edge of the garden and then a field which sloped downwards at first before rising again to a large area of very old woodland. In front of him was the house, most of the garden and the big, orange street light sticking out above the hedge just to the right of the house. Alvin crawled right up to the hedge surrounding the well before he dared to stand up and start looking for a gap which he could crawl through. The first boy-sized gap Alvin found was at a place where the hedge and fence were really close together and he could not get out at the other side. He had to wriggle out backwards and ended up with some prickly bits of hedge stuck in his jumper and his hair. Alvin did not give up but soon found another hole and this time he got through into the gap between the hedge and the fence. The next bit was not as easy as expected. The gap between the fence and the hedge was very small indeed and there were no gaps in the fence at the place where Alvin had got through the hedge. This meant he had to move along the narrow gap until he found a loose stake in the fence which he could squeeze past and he had to do this by sliding along the ground on his tummy because there were less branches there. By the time he finally got through Alvin was looking a bit like a bush himself with his face, clothes and legs a uniform brown colour and bits of twigs stuck out of his hair and jumper. This was a big change because fifteen minutes before he had been almost clean, with only a few traces of breakfast here and there. Now Alvin was enjoying himself!

Alvin the great adventurer approached the well itself very cautiously. He circled it slowly looking for gaps and crevices but the stone work of the little wall round the well was in very good condition and had no interesting holes in it. That was rather disappointing but Alvin had not yet started looking at the lid. At first, the most interesting part of the lid seemed to be the narrow crack where the two heavy halves met across the middle of the well. By sliding across the top of the lid on his tummy, Alvin examined every inch of this crack by putting his eye as close as possible to it. He could not see anything but wood anywhere: the lid was just too well made. Alvin sat by the edge of the well chewing a piece of grass and wondering what to do next. Maybe he could just move the lid of the well just a little bit so that he could see what it was like? It was very difficult to get any sort of grip on the lid and it certainly did not feel like it was going to move at all - it was too heavy and too well fitted. As Alvin walked round the well for the tenth time he noticed that there was a padlock on each side of the lid which joined the two halves together and also fastened each to a metal ring cemented into the wall. But, as Alvin was studying one of these locks and poking a piece of twig into the key hole to see if it would open, he noticed that there were some small gaps between the bottom surface of the lid and the top of the little wall. As he prodded with a little twig from the hedge, Alvin found that he could poke it quite a long way - surely over the wall itself. This was much better! If only he had been able to push the stick right through so that it fell into the well, he would probably have been happy and would have gone and played somewhere else in the garden and none of the exciting things would have happened but there was a wide bit at the end of the stick and it would not go. Alvin was sliding it about, seeing if the stick would go through at a slightly different angle, he had his eyes screwed up and his tongue stuck out with concentration.

Then it happened! Suddenly the stick pulled back! Alvin jumped backwards and very nearly shouted for his mummy but the instinct of a little boy playing where he should not saved him. As he sat with his back to the fence, Alvin could see that the stick was still wobbling about and moving and trying to get into the well on its own!

This was not just exciting, it was scary and Alvin was feeling a bit shaky but he was still watching his end of the stick like he had been hypnotised. Eventually, after hours of watching it (it was really two and a half minutes but Alvin did not have his watch on), he started to move slowly back towards the well. Something had hold of the other end of that stick but what could it be? It could not be a fish because, if there were any fish in the well, they were miles underground in the water. It had to be a monster of some kind! But what did it look like, what was it doing in the well, would it be able to pull harder on its end of the stick than Alvin could pull on his? An adult would have called the police, the fire brigade and probably the army but Alvin was not going to tell any adults because he was not meant to be playing there and would get in trouble. So he was going to get hold of his end of the stick again and see what happened.

As he pushed and pulled at the stick Alvin could feel whatever it was on the other end pulling and pushing too. Then the strangest thing happened, he heard a giggle from inside the well but, even stranger, Alvin was giggling a bit himself! Alvin stood up and, in his deepest and bossiest voice, he said "Who's that in my well?"

There was silence for a second or two then the reply came, in an equally bossy voice, "It's Rootmould and it's not your well it's ours", but it sounded like another little boy.

"I'm called Alvin and my daddy built this little wall and put this lid on and this is our garden," replied Alvin instantly. He was not really feeling scared any more.

"And I suppose that horrible light that comes on every time we try to come out when it's nice and dark is yours as well!" said Rootmould. "My daddy says we might have to stay here forever if something doesn't happen to stop it."

As Alvin was trying to work out what this meant, he heard another voice.

"Rootmould, what are you doing near that lid again. One of these days you'll move something and let all the light in and then where will we be?" This was Grimbranch, Rootmould's father and he sounded very annoyed.

Very bravely, Alvin said, "It's my fault, we've been playing."

"Who are you and what are you, out there in the nasty daylight?" asked Grimbranch.

"I'm Alvin Robinson and I'm a boy," replied Alvin politely.

"You don't smell like a human." What Grimbranch meant was that Alvin did not smell of all the horrid things that people tried to make him use like soap, shampoo, talcum powder and especially deodorant. Grimbranch could smell these things a long way off and hated them. Instead Alvin smelt of soil, worms, mould and of the leaves of the hedge but Grimbranch was used to smelling these things all the time and hardly noticed them.

"Maybe you could help us," continued Grimbranch slowly. "You don't seem as bad as most humans and we certainly need some help. Will you come down into the well and talk to us about it. We must see what you look like and you must hear our story." He went on to tell Alvin about the two stones which could be removed from the little wall at the edge of the well, which would allow him to step into the little room that they had made in the wall of the well. He said they would be very careful not to let him fall and that it was easy to get out again. "But you must find a way of coming in without letting all the daylight in because it is very bad for us woodgnomes," added Grimbranch, sounding worried, "we will explain everything else when you come in."

Alvin thought about this. He knew he should go and ask before he went in someone's house but he also knew that, if he asked his mummy whether he could go down the well to talk to some woodgnomes, she would be unlikely to say yes. On the other hand, he had been told it was alright to play in the garden and he only had to ask if he went somewhere else. Quick as a flash he knew the answer, he would ask Mrs. Jones and she would say, "Yes, dear". He needed to go back to the house first anyway because he had to find something to make it dark around the hole in the wall while he was inside. "Give me ten minutes," he said.

Alvin squeezed back though the fence and along the gap by the hedge and through the hedge into the rest of the garden. He ran into the kitchen and said to Mrs. Jones, "Please can I go into the well to talk to the woodgnomes," and sure enough she replied, "Yes, dear," but there was a twinkle in her eye, which Alvin did not notice. He was too busy rushing round the kitchen looking for something to keep the light out when he went into the well. He did not notice either when Mrs. Jones banged her mop against her bucket to get his attention and nodded towards the big, black oilskin cape hanging on the back of the door - Alvin thought it was his own idea!

Alvin ran straight back to the well, threw the oilskin over the fence and hedge, crawled and wriggled his way back to the side of the well and said, "It's Alvin, I'm ready."

The next bit was a bit fiddly. Following the instructions given to him by Grimbranch, Alvin arranged the oilskin like a tent around the bit of the wall round the well that he was going to go through. He placed little stones all the way round so that the wind would not move it and he was soon crouching in the pitch dark waiting for Grimbranch and Rootmould to remove the stones from the inside. As he stepped inside supported by the strong but pointy and rough feeling hands, Alvin passed into complete darkness and it seemed ages before he could make out anything of his new friends. The story, however, started immediately.

Woodgnomes, it turned out, are creatures which live in the woods who look a lot like little people but are much cleverer. The biggest of them are about the height of an eight year old boy but they are all very thin. Woodgnomes do not wear clothes because they do not need to, since they have strong, rough, brown skin which is more like the bark of trees than ordinary skin. They have hair which looks a bit like the branches of a bush but a bit more bendy and have sensitive pointed noses which give them the look of a fox. Their favourite meal is earthworms and blackberries, although they will eat any other sorts of berries and, when they cannot get anything better, they eat beetles and ants.

Light is the thing that woodgnomes hate most. Light which is too bright or shines on them for too long causes, at first, a painful feeling in the skin and eyes, then burns and temporary blindness follow and finally death. They do not mind starlight but avoid moonlight and daylight is completely out of the question.

Woodgnomes sleep all day in small holes in the ground. They are not terribly good at digging but badgers and foxes do not mind if they adapt a bit of one of their tunnels, as long as they stay out of the way. Usually the woodgnome family will dig a little chamber for themselves a few feet from the surface.

During the night woodgnomes travel quite widely over the surrounding area finding nice things to eat, sometimes they meet their friends and dance and have parties. They are never seen by humans, unless they want to be, since they are so well camouflaged and it is always so dark wherever they are.

One autumn night the family of Grimbranch, Rootmould and Stingbark, who was Rootmould's mother, had set out to eat blackberries and worms in the garden of the abandoned house (as Alvin's house had been at that time). They found that people had been there and that some things seemed to be happening to the house, there was even a weak light in one of the windows, but not enough to worry them. There were lots of earthworms and blackberries and they were thinking of having a bit of a dance when suddenly - WHAM! - the whole garden was flooded with light almost as bright as daylight. They were all burned but fortunately they were near the old well, which was still uncovered at that time. Rootmould, Stingbark and Grimbranch had dived, as fast as they could, into the darkness. If Alvin did that he would not stop until he reached the bottom, which was a long way down. The woodgnomes used their strong, spiky fingers to catch themselves on sticking out pieces of stone and root as they fell. They had no idea what had caused the light but were relieved when after only a few seconds it went out again. They had climbed out of the well intending to get as far away as they could as quickly as possible but the light had come back on forcing them back in. The family had eventually discovered that every time they went out the light came on and that otherwise it stayed off. They had been pinned down in the well ever since. Before daylight that day they had had to dig a chamber for themselves in the side of the well by pulling out some of the stones and removing the earth behind. This had not been too difficult but there were no berries down there, although plenty of earthworms, and they ended up eating beetles almost every day. They were, Rootmould said, bored to death and Alvin knew how bad that was! Grimbranch had noticed that the light came on at other times too, but, when it did, he could almost always hear humans moving around in the garden or near the house.

A few days later some workmen had come along and repaired the little wall on top of the well and fitted the cover. They had not seen the woodgnomes, of course, and this had not bothered them. Grimbranch had pointed out that if the cover had been on when they first saw the light, they would never have survived that night. What had worried them though was that, some time later, another light had appeared. This new light was not as bright but was orange, really bright like the colour of a carrot, and this was the worst type of light for woodgnomes and they really could not cope with it. How were they ever going to get back to the woods and their friends and the berries? Could Alvin help them? Alvin had to help them, they were really fed up!

At the start of the story, which had been told mainly by Grimbranch but with bits added now and then by Rootmould and Stingbark, Alvin was scared stiff and could not see anything. By the end he was feeling very sorry for the woodgnomes and, much to his surprise, found that he could see the three of them quite well. They were all sitting, like Alvin, with their backs to the wall of the little underground chamber, with their sad eyes all watching him. They were all quite similar to look at, although Rootmould was a bit smaller, Grimbranch was a bit taller and Stingbark was a little fatter than average. Alvin supposed he was one of the only people to have ever seen a woodgnome but who would he tell?

When the woodgnomes had finished their story and the chamber went quiet, Alvin spoke for the first time. "I think I know what both lights are," he said, "but I'm not sure what to do about it." He explained that, before they had moved in, his daddy had wanted to do many things to the house and one of those was to fit a burglar alarm and a flood light which came on when it sensed heat. Daddy had felt those things were necessary because the house was on its own and he was away so much. He had fitted these things himself during the evenings because he had once had a home security business and felt that he was best at it. Alvin had overheard daddy telling mummy that there were only cowboys working in that business and that fitting it himself was the only way to be sure that it would work. So this must have been the evening when daddy finished connecting up the powerful light and every time it detected their body heat it came on. Alvin did not know how to turn the light, which was mounted high up on the house, off but he would try to find out. The other light, the orange one, was, of course, the street light, which had been put in by the council a few weeks later when they had made the muddy lane into a proper road. Alvin could not think of where to start if he was going to switch that off! "How about putting something over it?" Rootmould had suggested. "It's too high," Alvin had replied. This had confused the woodgnomes because they were very good at climbing and would have been able to do it easily, had it not been for the burning light. Alvin said he would think about how to do it but inside he was not at all sure that he could.

In the end they all agreed that Alvin would find out what he could and would come back before night. Alvin felt very important and grown up but was used to telling his mummy about things and, because he could not, he felt a bit nervous. When he had crawled back through the hole in the little wall round the top of the well and was lying quietly under the black oilskin coat waiting for Grimbranch to put the stones back behind him, Alvin was not feeling quite sure what he was going to do.

As Alvin walked back up to the kitchen he started to feel very hungry. At that moment he could even imagine that a bowl full of juicy earthworms and blackberries might be quite nice. Of course, after the adventures of the morning, Alvin had no idea what time it was and was very pleased when he got to the kitchen and found that it was only twelve o'clock and that he had not missed lunch. Everything has a bad side and he had to wait for half an hour until mummy stopped work and came to eat it with him. Mrs. Jones had cut the sandwiches and set the table but he knew that she would not let him have any until his mummy joined him. Mummy was always saying that she believed in family meals, which sometimes seemed very cruel to Alvin.

"I'm starving," said Alvin to Mrs. Jones.

"Yes, dear," replied Mrs. Jones.

"I've been down the well with the woodgnomes and they can't get out because of the security light and the street light and they have to eat beetles and I'm going to save them," burst out Alvin without meaning to and was glad he had been speaking to Mrs. Jones, who would surely not tell anyone else. He hardly noticed when Mrs. Jones said, "Yes, dear", but continued, "I can probably find out where to turn off the security light from mummy without her finding out, but how am I going to put something over the street light?" Alvin was beginning to like Mrs. Jones, it was nice to be able to explain things to someone who did not make stupid, adult comments or try to trip him up with sensible, adult questions. He decided he would talk more to Mrs. Jones in future.

Mrs. Jones did not say any more than usual but she was looking towards the woods beyond the edge of the garden with her mouth pulled into rather a sad little shape. She began picking bits of twig out of Alvin's hair and clothes, removed some beetles and worms from the pockets of his shorts and gave his face and knees a wipe with the sponge which was kept by the sink for this purpose. After a moment's thought, though, she had not used any soap and had, in fact, given the sponge a good rinse first.

After another few minutes, during which Alvin was absolutely certain he would die if he did not get food instantly, mummy appeared and lunch began.

"Well, Alvin, did you have a good morning?"

"Yes, mummy," replied Alvin.

"Where have you been playing?" asked mummy.

"In the garden," replied Alvin and, after a few moments, he continued, "Mummy, if we wanted to, could we switch off the security light? What if it went wrong, what if a bird built a nest in it, what if there was a gas leak and it was going to make it blow up - BANG - BOOM - CRASH - the whole house could fall down and we could all be killed?" The last part of this rather long question was accompanied by a lot of arm waving, spreading bits of the contents of the sandwich Alvin was holding round the kitchen and coming very close to knocking over Alvin's orange juice, mummy's tea cup and the milk jug.

"Calm down, Alvin, what's brought all this on?" gasped mummy, thinking that there were an awful lot of things to worry about without that. "If you are really that worried, I'll show you when we've finished eating."

Alvin concentrated on eating for a while and did not make any noise except for the occasional horrid little sounds that all boys make at the table. He was feeling very pleased with himself for solving the first part of his problem. At least now he only had the orange street light to worry about.

"Mummy, how do they switch the street lights on and off when it goes dark and gets light?" asked Alvin politely.

"The council do it from somewhere," said mummy, "They switch them all on and off at once with one big switch, I think."

This did not sound very hopeful and Alvin was going to have to do some more thinking.

After lunch mummy showed Alvin where the switch was which would turn off the outside light, as she had promised. It was a very ordinary looking switch high up on the wall on the landing near his bedroom. When it came to be time to turn it off, he would need to stand on a chair and there was one in his room, so that was OK. Alvin thanked his mummy, who was still looking rather confused about the whole thing.

When mummy went back into her office, Alvin spent a while trying to think of some way of stopping the orange street light from shining. He was stamping round the kitchen opening and closing all the cupboard doors and making a lot of noise, which is what small boys do when they are thinking hard, when he walked straight into Mrs. Jones' leg. Mrs. Jones was normally only there in the mornings but, at lunchtime, she had asked mummy if she could work this afternoon instead of tomorrow morning, when she wanted to do something else.

"Mrs. Jones, how can I possibly stop the orange street light so that the woodgnomes can get out of the well and back to the wood? If I had an anti-tank gun or a mobile rocket launcher I could put it out, no problem. Do you know any way that they could get out without being burned by the orange light?" asked Alvin, but he already knew what answer he was likely to get.

"Yes, dear," was the answer but the way that Mrs. Jones said it made Alvin start to watch what she did very carefully. Did she really know a way of solving his problem?

Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Jones walked towards the outside door of the kitchen which was standing open because it was so warm outside. She looked outside and saw that the sun was shining very brightly and before she went to get the clothes off the washing line she carefully rolled down the sleeves of her overall and put on a straw hat which hung behind the door. Alvin knew that Mrs. Jones was very sensitive to the sun and never went anywhere hot on holiday. Then it clicked. Mrs. Jones did not like the sun and so she covered herself up so why shouldn't the woodgnomes put on some clothes to protect them from the orange street light?

Alvin dashed out of the kitchen colliding with Mrs. Jones slightly along the way and ran down to the bottom of the garden. Once there he began his, now familiar, route to the side of the well. Once he had got there, he knocked lightly on the lid and said, "Hello, it's Alvin."

"Hello, Alvin, have you come back with good news already?" asked Grimbranch. Alvin joined them in the dark chamber in the side of the well and set off into a long and involved description of his plan.

"Well, I suppose it will work. We really don't like wearing clothes but it would only be for a short time. You are sure that you can't switch off the orange light?" asked Grimbranch but Alvin shook his head. He continued, "It would not be possible for us to cover ourselves completely with clothes because we would not be able to run, we'd be bound to get a bit burnt. It's the best chance we're likely to get. Can we do it tonight?" This time Alvin nodded. He was very pleased as they had spent a long time talking and Grimbranch had asked him all sorts of questions that he could not answer.

Stingbark took over at this point. She was also very pleased that the talking had finished as she was desperate to get her family back to the woods for some decent berries. She hoped she would never have to eat another beetle in her life. Pointing at Alvin's clothes, she said they needed three sweat shirts and three pairs of trousers and also said that they needed three hats. This did not seem too hard to Alvin. He would spend the rest of the afternoon sneaking the clothes outside and would leave them under the black oil skin coat, which was still in position over the place in the low wall round the well where the removable stones were.

Grimbranch was worried because a considerable amount of the orange light would still get to their skin. They could not wear more clothes because they would be too weighed down by them - they would certainly be badly burned. He hoped his family would survive to get back to the woods and their old life.

Alvin found some plastic carrier bags in the back of a kitchen cupboard and took them up to his room. He found three sweatshirts, three pairs of trousers and three multi-coloured woolly hats that his mummy made him wear to school in winter. He loaded the clothes into three bags and set off quietly through the house. Strangely, Mrs. Jones was not in the kitchen so he did not have to sneak past her and Alvin had soon got the clothes in position. He had a final chat with the woodgnomes through the lid of the well, telling them that everything was ready and arranging that they would leave the clothes at the edge of the wood where he could find them in the morning.

It all seemed a bit easy to Alvin and there was nothing else that he had to do to help his new friends except to turn off the security light at bedtime. This was still a long time before it went properly dark and it was possible that mummy would notice that the light was switched off and this was a bit of a worry. Alvin decided that he would have to stay awake as long as possible and, every time he heard footsteps along the landing, he would check that the light was still switched off. He would also have to be sure to turn the switch back on in the morning because his daddy was due back tomorrow and would certainly notice if any of his security precautions had been tampered with.

For the rest of the afternoon and for the gap between teatime and bedtime Alvin found it very difficult to settle to anything. He got all his lego out and spread it out on the living room floor but had only fastened a few pieces together and had not actually built anything when he found he wanted to dash off into the garden to check that the all important oilskin coat was still there. He watched TV for a while but it seemed to have lost its excitement today and he went up to his room to have a look at the huge old atlas which one of his aunties had bought for him last Christmas, leaving the TV switched on, of course. He had a very quick game of indoor golf, started two different jigsaws in different rooms, practised juggling with some multi-coloured bean bags and, by bedtime, the whole house seemed to be knee deep in toys. This would have attracted mummy's attention and made her very worried if only she had noticed but the house usually looked like this by the end of the day and Alvin was not behaving noticeably different to normal! He had stopped saying he was bored every five minutes but this seemed good rather than something to worry about.

It was just about dark enough to get going and the woodgnomes were ready but were all feeling a bit nervous about getting across the garden, across the field and at last into the their beloved woods. They were sure that Alvin would have been able to switch off the security light but the horrible, glaring orange street light was still going to make it very unpleasant. They had put on the clothes that Alvin had brought and they felt very strange in them. Actually they looked rather funny as well and Rootmould had been unable to stop himself from laughing at the way his father and mother looked with their pointed brown faces surrounded by the woolly winter hats. None of them would keep the clothes on for any longer than absolutely necessary.

The worst part of their preparation had been the last meal. Stingbark had insisted that they should eat as much as they could since, when they had been burnt by the orange light, they would be too ill to eat for several nights. If only they could have got to a blackberry bush, they could all have eaten enough for a week without trouble! The worms were OK but all they had to go with them were beetles and a few woodlice. They had not been a happy group during the meal and they ate in small mouthfuls and pulled faces. It was all the worse because they would soon be back in the woods, if all went well.

Grimbranch was very worried that things would not go well. What they were about to attempt was very dangerous indeed. The orange light would start to burn them immediately and would make it very difficult to see where they were going. If any of them tripped and fell, the others could not wait for them but must keep on running. They would need to go very fast until they reached the other side of the prickly garden hedge and the relative darkness of the field but they would not be comfortable until they reached the woods. Then and only then could they remove the awkward clothes that smelled of soap and fabric conditioner and finally rest.

Alvin was in bed by this time, but he was not asleep. Alvin was listening and waiting; he was not sure what he was waiting for but he hoped that it happened before he went to sleep. After tea he had had his bath, which was supposed to happen just before he went to bed, but always seemed to signal the start of a lot of shouting instead. Mummy always told Alvin to dry himself after his bath and get into his pyjamas but he seemed to get this urge to leap out of the bath, grab a towel for a cape and rush round the house naked and dripping pretending to be batman. Shortly afterwards he would remember how nice it was to be snuggled in the big towel in front of the fire. This was about the time when mummy's patience ran out, since he could not be persuaded to move: he would be happy to stay there all night. Usually Alvin ended up moving only after mummy and daddy (if he was there) had both shouted at him quite a lot and he always ended up a bit upset. Well, it's not very nice getting up from a comfortable, warm place like that just to go to bed - why couldn't they leave him alone?

"If only you'd just put on your pyjamas when you got out of the bath and get in bed and read, this would never happen", was said more than once. There were always other complications at about this point when they discovered that his knees were still muddy and that there was still something sticky in his hair. They would get angry about his clothes being on the floor in the bathroom, even though they were dirty and he was not going to wear them again - and just how did they expect the floor in the bathroom to stay dry anyway? This part of the day was usually very difficult, but today Alvin had carefully washed and dried himself and had put his pyjamas on and gone to bed like a very good boy - he had other things on his mind. He had left his trousers dangling in the toilet where he had kicked them off and had splashed an unusual amount of water on the floor when Stingray had made an attack on an enemy plastic duck, but nobody's perfect!

Just after his bath and while mummy was sitting downstairs feeling deliriously happy that he had finally grown up enough to not make a fuss about bath time, Alvin quietly took the chair out of his room onto the landing, stood on it and, stretching as high as he could, turned off the security light switch. It was not dark yet, so no-one would notice that it was not working even if they went outside. Would his mummy go outside after it was dark and expect the light to come on? Alvin did not know but he was going to try to stay awake just in case. Or would mummy see that the switch had been turned off? He had to stay awake.

It was getting dark and Alvin had nodded off once, even though he still had the light on and he kept on pinching himself. Suddenly he was wide awake - there was a loud whooshing noise from the other side of the room, from the direction of the window. The window was open because it was summer and it was open very wide because Alvin wanted to hear if anything happened outside. Whatever it was that had whooshed had done it outside with such enthusiasm that his bedroom curtains fluttered and, before they had stopped, Alvin was on the other side of them, next to the window looking out into the dusk. He was amazed to see something black flying very fast away from the house and he really had no idea at all what it was - a rocket, a ghost, a large bat? Just as it seemed about to fly out of sight beyond the edge of the garden, the thing did a long slow turn and flew back towards the house and it was then that Alvin realised that it was a witch on a broomstick. If today had not been exciting enough already, this would really have been something! She had the pointed hat and the black cloak and the broom was a thick piece of wood with twigs tied to it and she was headed straight for his window. Just as Alvin was about to run back to his bed and dive under the covers, he realised that he recognised the witch's face - it was Mrs. Jones. She changed direction at the last moment and Alvin just had time to shout "Is that you?", and as she passed the window with another whoosh he heard the reply which he should have expected - Mrs. Jones said "Yes, dear!". This time the witch did not go round in a circle but flew towards the orange street light, which Alvin could just see if he craned his neck. With his cheek pressed against the glass Alvin could just see with one eye as she stopped briefly, took a black bin-liner from under her cloak, and dropped it neatly over the light. Alvin had not, until this point, noticed that the light was switched on but, now that it was hidden, it suddenly seemed very dark. Just at that moment there were steps on the stairs and his mother's voice said "Alvin are you alright?" Did I hear you shout something just then?".

"Yes, I'm fine mummy, I think I must have been dreaming," Alvin was rather surprised to find himself saying, especially because he had somehow got back into bed without really knowing how. He supposed he had told a fib to his mummy but somehow he was now so tired that it seemed almost like a dream. He could sleep now that he knew that Mrs. Jones had solved the problem of the orange light.

So, it all turned out well for the woodgnomes. Just as they were about to set off into the horrid light in their bid for escape, it disappeared. That is the light went out - they could not believe it at first but after a few minutes they realised that the impossible had happened. They did not waste any more time and set off into the nice, dark garden. They left Alvin's clothes on just in case because they still didn't quite trust either of the lights to stay off and this slowed them down a bit but they were soon out of the garden. They wriggled through the fence and the hedge around the well, which took slightly longer than expected because Rootmould got his sweatshirt caught on a prickly branch and could not stop giggling while Stingbark and Grimbranch released him. They then quickly crossed the garden and crawled through the big hedge into the field and after that it took no time at all to cross to the start of the woods. At last they were free and they could hardly wait to take off the smelly clothes, although they did take the time to fold them neatly and leave them at the edge of the wood. Except of course for Rootmould who had managed to cover himself in mud, twigs and leaves and threw the clothes on the floor in his haste - he was not really so different from Alvin! They spent the whole of the rest of the night dancing and eating anything they could find except beetles!

Alvin slept very well that night, since he knew that Rootmould, Stingbark and Grimbranch would be safe. In the morning he remembered to switch the security light back on before mummy was up and could hardly wait to see Mrs. Jones until he remembered that she had the day off because she had worked yesterday afternoon. He was disappointed until he remembered that daddy was due back today.

It was really very funny when daddy arrived home because he was so angry that he rang the council before he had even said hello to mummy. He was livid because there was a black bin-liner over the street light, which he had had such problems persuading the council to install. He was so upset about it and so keen to fix it immediately that he did not even notice that Alvin was giggling behind him, which was just as well. It was nice to have him back and Alvin got so interested in the stories daddy was telling him about the business deals he had done that he forgot all about fetching the clothes from the edge of the wood. This could have been very bad but somehow mummy did not notice and Mrs. Jones was able to collect them, wash them and put them away the next day.

Comfortable in a dark tunnel near the entrance of a badger's sett, the woodgnome family were resting. Stingbark and Rootmould were sleeping more soundly than they had for a very long time: everything was alright now. Grimbranch was lying awake listening to the faint woodland noises from above, but he too would sleep soon after he had thought just a little more about the one thing on his mind. He must work out some way that they could thank Alvin Robinson for what he had done for them - he had to plan a special treat of some kind. This was going to be difficult since Alvin never left the house at night and they could never venture out in daylight but he would not forget and, sometime soon, it would be done. He would not forget how Alvin had saved his family when he, Grimbranch, had been left helpless by the vicious, artificial lights. Right now, it was daylight; it was strange but, even in the complete darkness of the tunnel, he could feel the pressure of the summer sunshine. Now he would sleep.