16:50
the wall and Winky's front room
Oopsy is certain the missing lantern is his fault and starts apologising. Mendy stops him and makes him find out first. Eleven minutes later: nine came up from the ditch and nine are on the wall. The fifty-fifth is the one Snoozy took indoors at six that morning, sitting cleaned on Winky's table. There never was a missing one.
3 fluffs tell this minute. None of them saw the same one.
And it turned out there had never been a missing lantern at all — Snoozy had carried the fifty-fifth indoors at six o'clock that morning, cleaned it, and put it on Winky's table, and never mentioned it to a living fluff. Oopsy found that out at about ten to five, having spent the best part of an hour certain the whole thing was his fault.
I was right that there were fifty-four on that wall. I was right to say so. And nothing was wrong. Both of those are true and I have been turning them over ever since.
So we went and found out. It took eleven minutes.
Nine came up from the ditch. Nine were on the wall — I counted them myself, including the crooked-patched one with the flower off a tea towel.
The fifty-fifth lantern was not lost and had never been lost. Snoozy took it off the wall at six o'clock that morning, before anybody had counted anything, carried it indoors, cleaned it, and set it on the table by Winky's door, where it sat all day being the one lantern nobody in the yard could see.
"So there never was a missing one," said Neaty, slowly.