"Who's there?" he said.

Ward stuffed the bag back under the wardrobe. He heard it ease down into the cavity. Then he crept into the darkness beneath the stairs.

"Candles don't light themselves," Jaggles said, slowly descending the stairs. "Not on my watch."

Ward crouched in the darkness, holding his breath.

Jaggles reached the candle. He picked it up and held it before himself, standing in the middle of the cellar and turning about to peer into the shadows. Candlelight painted the walls. Shadows leapt. But Ward's dark hidehole remained dark.

"Okay, I'll flush you out then," Jaggles said.

He launched into a speech then, in which he regaled the cellar with proofs of his flushing-out abilities, the grisly ends the enflushed came to, and sundry references to the consumption of frying pans, which he assured the cellar he would undertake should the flushing-out be unsuccessful.

Once Jaggles was deep into this soliloquay and his back was turned Ward made his move. He rushed for the stairs.

Jaggles whipped around as fast as a snake.

Ward bolted up the stairs and out into the storeroom, flinging the trapdoor closed behind him. He sat on it and grabbed the padlock from the floor nearby. He was just about to hook it through the latch when a terrific jolt hit the trapdoor from underneath. He dropped the padlock.

"YOU!" came Jaggles's voice from the depths.

"ME!" Ward shouted, laughing crazily. He reached for the padlock again, but again came the jolt, and this time one of Jaggles's hard red hands came snaking through the gap. A grunt from below as Jaggles put his shoulder against the door and heaved. The first hand was joined by another. Another heave, and Ward found himself tumbling off the trapdoor onto the storehouse floor. The trapdoor crashed open. Jaggles erupted from it like a geyser.

Ward dashed for the storehouse door. Jaggles steamed diagonally across the room to intercept. Ward reached it first, bursting outside and hurling the door closed behind him, but before he could slam the bolt home the door burst open. He flew backwards, landing painfully on an outcrop of granite.

Jaggles strolled over. He looked down at the injured boy. Then he began to laugh. Jaggles often laughed, but it was always at someone else's expense. Usually Ward's. Like now.

"Hahahahahaha!" laughed Jaggles.

Ward's body was numb from the waist down. He wondered if he was paralysed.

"How in Eden did you do it?" Jaggles said. Was that a note of praise in his voice? Impossible.

"Do what?" Ward groaned.

Jaggles laughed again.

"Nick'll come for me," Ward said.

"Nick's come and gone."

"What?"

"We searched high and low, me boy."

Ward's heart sank. If Jaggles was telling the truth... but no, Nick wouldn't leave him behind. Would he?

"High and low," Jaggles said again, with a bemused shake of his head. "Saint Nick thought he had old Jaggles by the short and curlies."

"I was there the whole time," Ward said, getting painfully up into a sitting position. "I fell asleep."

"Oh you musta been there," Jaggles said. "Cos nothing just disappears. Not on my watch."

"Nick wouldn't leave me here," Ward said, but there was a horrible hot feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Come look for yourself." Without a backwards glance to see if Ward was following, Jaggles steamed up the rocky slope behind the storehouse.

Ward rose gingerly to his feet, brushed the gravel off his stinging hands, and checked for broken bones. Finding none, he hobbled after Jaggles up the hill.

"Righto," Jaggles said, once Ward had joined him at the top of the bluff. "Show me your ship then."

Ward shaded his eyes with one hand. He turned slowly about on the spot. When he had left it last night the ship had been anchored in the channel between the two islands. All he saw now was empty blue ocean. The ship was gone.

Without a word, he turned and hobbled back down the slope alone, as Jaggles's laughter echoed off the hills.

Show me your vote then.