Man, & Company,” as he had recently renamed himself and the business. The “& Company” referred to the dwarfs, who each had an equal share in the talent management company, and therefore an equal say in its affairs. This made the monthly company meetings noisy, stressful, and, in the case of Mumbles, difficult to understand. Behind Dan was a vaguely van-shaped object covered in a white tarpaulin.
“Now,” said Dan, “you’ll remember that, at our August meeting, we decided we should buy a new van.”
The dwarfs vaguely remembered this. They didn’t pay a lot of attention at the company meetings. They just liked shouting and arguing, and sticking their hands up to vote for things that they didn’t understand.21 They might well have voted in favor of buying a new van. Then again, they might have voted in favor of buying a spaceship, or invading China. For little people, the dwarfs didn’t pay much attention to small print.
“Just remind us: why are we buying a new van again?” asked Jolly.
“Because we can’t keep repainting the old one,” said Dan. “And you didn’t want to be known as ‘Dan’s Dwarfs’ anymore, or even ‘Dan’s Elves.’?”
“That’s because elves don’t exist,” said Angry. “It’s like being called ‘Dan’s Unicorns,’ or ‘Dan’s Dragons.’? ”
“Exactly,” said Dan.
“And we’re not ‘your’ elves,” said Jolly. “It makes us sound like slaves. Which we’re not.”
You’re definitely not, thought Dan. Slaves might do a bit of work occasionally.
“You don’t like being called ‘little people,’?” said Dan, “and you’re not sure about ‘dwarfs,’ so I had to think up a different name, which I did. I now present to you—the new van!”
Dan whipped away the tarpaulin, and the van stood revealed. It was bright yellow, and very shiny.
Dan glowed.
The van glowed.
The dwarfs did not glow.
“What’s that?” said Angry.
“It’s a van,” said Dan.
“No, not that.
“It’s your new name: Dan’s Stars of Diminished Stature.”
Dan was very proud of the new name for the dwarfs. He’d spent ages thinking it up, and he’d visited the painters every day that they were working on the job just to make sure they got the details right. The words flowed diagonally down both sides of the van. They’d even found a way to continue the writing over the windows without obscuring the view. The van was a work of art.
DAN’S
Stars
Of
Diminished
Stature!
The dwarfs looked at the van. Dan looked at the dwarfs. Dan and the dwarfs looked at the van. Dan’s eyesight wasn’t very good, and things might have gone on like that until night fell had Angry not said, “So, nothing strikes you as odd about the van?”
“No,” said Dan.
“Nothing at all?”
“Maybe the letters aren’t big enough. Is that it?”
“No, no, the letters are more than big enough. Too big, some might say. It’s more how they read that bothers me, so to speak.”
Dan looked again. He spelled out the words, moving his lips. He took a step back. He squinted.
He saw it.
“Oh,” he said.
“Yes, oh,” said Angry. “In fact, not just ‘Oh,’ but ‘Ess, Oh, Dee, Ess’. The side of our van reads ‘Dan’s SODS’!”
“That’s not good,” said Dan.
Definitely accurate, he thought, but not good.
• • •
The dwarfs and Dan sat in Dan’s office. They did not present a happy picture. The van was just the latest in a series of disasters. They had caused a major gas explosion, and they now owned a van that described them as sods.
Oh, and they had recently been dragged to Hell for a time. Let’s not forget that.
But their main problem at the moment was that, while they owned a talent agency, it didn’t have any real talent to promote.
“What about Wesley the Amazing Tightrope Walker?” said Dan. “We have him. He’s a genius! He can walk along a length of spiderweb without falling off.”
“He’s afraid of heights,” said Dozy. “It’s hard to get excited about a man who can only walk a tightrope that’s six inches off the ground. Even then he looks a bit nervous.”
“Jimmy the Juggler?” suggested Dan. “You’ve got to admit that the man can juggle.”
“He
“Bobo the Clown?”
“He gets angry with children. It’s one thing throwing a bucket of confetti over them, but he’s not supposed to throw the bucket as well.”
“And then there’s, well,
“Them!” said Jolly, shaking his head.
“Them!” said Angry, casting his eyes to heaven.
“Them!” said Dozy, putting his head in his hands.
“Arble!” said Mumbles.
Which said it all, really.
• • •
They followed Dan down a steep set of stairs to the basement and walked along a hallway to a large padlocked door. Dan fumbled in his pocket for the key.
“Do you really need to keep them locked up?” asked Jolly.
“It’s for their own good,” said Dan. “They wander off if I don’t.”
“They were never very intelligent,” said Angry. “It’s a wonder they lasted as long as they did.”
“It’s sad, really,” said Dan. “You know, they wouldn’t survive a day in the wild.”
He placed the key in the lock and turned it.
“Careful now,” Dan warned. “They react to the light.”
He removed the padlock and pulled the bolt. The door began to open with a creak. The room beyond was big and comfortable, but very dark. As the door opened farther, a rectangle of light appeared on the floor and grew wider and wider, like the beam of a spotlight tracing its way across a stage.
A figure jumped into the light, followed by a second, and a third, and a fourth. They all looked a little bleary-eyed. Their spangled shirts had seen better days, and their trousers bore food stains. Their voices also sounded somewhat croaky, but that was nothing new.
“Hi,” said the first. “I’m Starlight.”
“Oh Lord,” said Jolly.
“And I’m Twinkle,” said the second.
“Good grief,” said Angry.
“I’m Gemini,” said the third.
“They never stop, do they?” said Dozy.
“And I’m Phil,” said the fourth. “And together we’re—”
“BoyStarz!” they all cried in unison, and performed a small twirl before they began doing to a perfectly innocent song what grape crushers do to grapes.
