The Irish Tales

Chapter Sixteen
　
And so, a few days later, Patsy spoke, quietly but fondly:
"I can tell you where Impy has gone. And where the other Friendly Monsters are. And why your sock drawer contains nothing but socks these days."

Jay spoke no words, but her eyes were full of questions.

"I can tell you why the postman no longer stands on his hands to deliver the mail. And why tomorrow, the milkman will no longer bark."

...

Chapter Fifteen

(Goodbye to all that…..)
　
One crisp, brisk winter morning, as the sun rose over the hills and the milkman barked hello, Jay stared through the ice on her bedroom window and wondered.

She wondered what was for breakfast, she wondered if Desert Orchid * was happy in his retirement and she wondered if the Postman would ever manage to post that thick, heavy letter through the letter-box, whilst standing on his hands.

(He did.) ...

　
There is no Chapter Thirteen because it’s bad luck.
So let’s skip straight to Chapter Fourteen.
　
Chapter Fourteen
　
"Come on Patsy ! Let’s go !" yelled Jay excitedly. But Patsy simply yawned, stretched and slurped down some water from the trough.

"What’s your hurry,?" she asked languidly.
"But…there’s a monster to be found !" replied Jay. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why Patsy wasn’t champing ...

Chapter Twelve



Getting Patsy to agree to come to the Show was one thing.
Getting her up at nine in the morning was quite another.

When Jay first knocked on the trapdoor, she was ignored. When she knocked again, a surly voice advised her to "Go away."

When she knocked a third time, a tremendous roar of anger sped from the attic, followed by the head of a very angry-looking Scaremonster.

"WHAT ???" roared ...

Chapter Eleven
(Best in Show.)
　
Days come and days pass, but sometimes, the nights go on for ever.
Especially if you are little and young, or even large and old, but it is the former of which we talk now.
The Oldies can look after themselves.

Under Patsy’s tuition, Jay had learned to deal very handily with most monster-ish appearances in her sock-draw.
Many was the time she awoke for no good reason to find something dark and ugly baring its ...