Neaty's Day

I was useful all morning and nobody had to ask me twice.

That is worth saying at the start, because the rest of this is about the bit that went wrong, and the morning did not go wrong. I sorted wicks into fives. I straightened the hooks along the first stretch so they all sat the same way round, which nobody noticed and which made the whole gate end look like somebody had meant it.

Tidy pinned the plan to the gatepost at ten. I was not there when it went up — Muddle and Wobbly were, and Muddle told me afterwards about being asked to name the smallest job — but I went and stood in front of it for a good while once it was there. Pictures, in order, with the hanging done from the far end back towards Winky's. It is a very satisfying object.

I counted the lanterns at half past four, because somebody ought to, and because I cannot walk past a row of anything without counting it.

Fifty-four.

I counted again. Fifty-four.

There should have been fifty-five. I knew there should be fifty-five the way you know your own name — one for every fluff, that was the whole idea, Winky said it that morning standing on a bucket.

"Tidy. There's fifty-four."

"There's fifty-five on the map."

"There's fifty-four on the wall."

"Then you've miscounted," said Tidy — kindly, not unkindly, and already turning back to the board. Tidy was busy. Everybody was busy. This is how it happens.

And then I stood there and had the worst ten minutes of my day, which were not about lanterns at all.

Because here is the thing I have been told, gently, by fluffs who love me, for years: you fuss. You want it perfect. You cannot let a small wrong thing be. And they are right, and I have worked extremely hard at it, and I have a whole trick for it — done is better than perfect, give yourself a star.

So I tried it. Standing there. "Good enough," I said out loud. "Fifty-four is fine."

And it would not go down.

That is the part I want to write properly. It was not stubbornness. I stood in that yard and genuinely could not tell, for about a minute, whether I was a fluff who had found a real problem or a fluff who was about to make everybody's evening worse over one lantern out of fifty-five.

Then I worked out how to tell the difference, and it is this: the fussing kind is about me. It is a feeling in my chest that wants tidying. This one was not in my chest. It was out there, on the wall, in the shape of a gap.

"Oopsy. Count the wall for me. Don't ask why."

"Fifty-four."

"Thank you," I said, and went to find somebody who would listen properly.

Peeky said it out loud before I got there. Twice. The second time the whole yard stopped.

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.

I nearly talked myself out of the party on the wall at six o'clock, which is a stupid thing to admit.

"I only did the count," I said. "I didn't actually make anything."

Lovey was next to me and did not argue, which is the only reason it worked. Lovey just said out loud, at ordinary volume, one true good thing about Lovey — carried oil dishes for an hour, was good at it, made Handy sit down, pleased about it.

"You can't just say that," I said.

"Why not?"

I opened my mouth and could not find the reason.

"...I counted them twice," I said eventually, "when everybody said I'd got it wrong. And I had not got it wrong."

By the time the path was lit there were four of us on that wall taking turns, and the last one was Snuggs, who needed two goes and a hug.

At the party I sat with Oopsy, who is good company once he has stopped apologising, and we watched Beamy read the whole day off an envelope. My name was on it. So was Oopsy's, for the eleven minutes of finding out.