'I'd be hugely insulted if anyone ever accused me of being a normal person,' my friend retorted, jumping down to the gra.s.s and marching across it.

Lonnie is just under four feet tall. He has a strong, handsome face with a p.r.o.nounced brow and a shock of black hair that he wears quite long. He also has a p.r.o.nounced hump on his right shoulder and dresses flamboyantly. When I first met him he favoured enormous hats, flowing trench-coats that would trail along the ground behind him and loud flared trousers. I have always a.s.sumed that this was primarily because he had spent most of his life locked away from prying eyes, 'protected' from mockery by a mother and maiden aunt who were embarra.s.sed by his condition. Lonnie had pa.s.sed the time reading fantasy novels, stories in which dwarfs were heroic and accepted, and his attire reflected this.

Since becoming a member of staff at Drumlin (and seeing how other people dressed) Lonnie had tempered his fashion sense slightly, but still leaned towards bright colours and an almost punkish desire to clash whenever possible. Today he was wearing a loose shirt that was bright orange down one side and electric blue down the other. This was matched with pink and white checked trousers and canary yellow Doc Marten boots. If the fashion police ever came upon him, he'd soon be serving a very lengthy inst.i.tutional sentence.

'I've got a pot of chilli on,' I said. 'You want a beer?'

'What've you got?'

'Umm ... Bavaria. It's Dutch, I think.'

Out of a bag he had slung across his shoulder he produced an amber bottle, some kind of Scotch Lonnie favoured single malts. 'I'm sure you'll take a drop of this afterwards.'

'I might force some down.' I grinned. 'Get a beer and a chair. Dinner'll be half an hour or so yet.'

When he was settled beside me he leaned down and scratched Millie behind the ears. 'She seems to be settling in nicely. Has she house-trained you yet?'

'I'm a slow learner. How are things at Drumlin?'

'We're just about managing without you. We say a prayer every morning for your safe return and for the welfare of the poor children left to your tender mercies.' He took a slug of beer and nodded in satisfaction. 'How are you managing in your new position?'

'All right, so far,' I said. 'But I have a feeling that the children are sort of sizing me up. I don't think the axe has really fallen yet.'

'Do tell,' Lonnie said, leaning back in his chair, so the front two legs were in the air. He had remarkable balance.

I told him about my first couple of days at Little Scamps, about the staff's exhaustion and the general chaos.

'So your plan is to redecorate, and get the kids to help?' he said, peeling the label off his beer bottle.

'I can't change the kids in one go,' I said, 'but I can change the environment.'

'Mmm. And our little water baby is one of your charges?'

'Tammy, yeah.'

'How has she been with you?'

'You'd think she'd never ever set eyes on me before.'

'What's wrong with her, anyway?' Lonnie asked.

'No one seems to know,' I replied, and told him what I had seen at Tammy's house earlier that day.

'I'd guess neglect might have something to do with it, then,' my friend said.

'To begin with,' I agreed.

'So what are you going to do?'

'About Tammy?'

'About all of it,' Lonnie said.

'Finish decorating and then play it by ear.'

'What I like about that plan is its simplicity,' Lonnie said sagely.

'Kind of foolproof, isn't it?' I agreed. 'I also need to hire some extra staff, and that may be a problem.'

'Why?'

'Well, Susan and Tush have tried and failed to get any new people to stay,' I explained, 'and I am, in fairness, supposed to be getting these children to settle down and feel safe and comfortable in the place. If I cause even more changes particularly ones that don't last I might end up making things worse.'

'Bit of a mess,' Lonnie said, deadpan. 'One might even go so far as to say that you've been a total disaster.'

'Thanks for the support.'

'You're welcome. Now, seeing as how I hauled my a.r.s.e all the way over here on a very warm evening, is there any chance of you feeding me before I die of starvation?'

'Well, since you put it like that ...' I said.

We went inside.

Dinner pa.s.sed pleasantly, with no mention of work. Lonnie had seen very little of the world, but he was widely read and could talk on virtually any subject. This made him an enormously entertaining dinner companion. That evening I was treated to his theories about the latent h.o.m.os.e.xuality in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (riddled with it, apparently), the real reason the French irritate so many people (how can a nation consider itself the pinnacle of art and culture when its greatest work of architecture is basically a bit of leftover scaffolding?), and whether or not Elvis was really dead (who cared?). When the plates were cleared away we took Millie for a short stroll through a pretty little wood near the cottage, where she spent her time chasing rabbits.

'What do you think she'd do if she ever caught one?' I asked Lonnie, as we watched the greyhound pounding helter-skelter after a bundle of grey with a white bobtail. As soon as it disappeared underground another (or maybe the same one) popped out of a hole ten yards to the left and Millie was off again.

'I expect she'd break its neck, disembowel it and eat the viscera,' Lonnie said, without a blink.

'Not the baby?' I said, aghast.

'Nature red in tooth and claw,' Lonnie said. 'It's instinct.'

By the time we got back to the cottage it was starting to get dark. I lit a small fire (it wasn't even slightly cold, but I always find a fire soothing and cheering), put some Miles Davis on the stereo and we sat nursing large whiskies.

'I've been thinking,' Lonnie said.

'I always find those words deeply disturbing,' I said.

'You should.'

'All right, I'll take the bait. What were you thinking about?'

'You need staff at this playschool, right?'

'We do.'

'How many do you need?'

'One will suffice. For now, anyway.'

'I'll do it.'

I took a swig of whisky. It was Teacher's not a single malt but very mellow. 'That idea had never occurred to me,' I said, mulling the ins and outs of the proposal. 'You're qualified, aren't you?'

'I did a course last year. Tristan insisted on it.'

'And you have no criminal record.'

'Correct. And a piece of paper to prove it. As you well know, I haven't had much opportunity to get arrested in my uneventful life.'

I sat forward on my chair and looked at Lonnie seriously. 'Do you really want to leave Drumlin? I mean ... it's all you've really known since ... well, since ...'

'Since you and Tristan found me,' Lonnie said tersely. 'Yes, I'm painfully aware of that. And it's one of the main reasons I want to throw my hat in with you. I want to strike out a little.'

'There are other ways,' I said. 'You could go to college, or take a holiday, or buy a cat. I appreciate what you're offering but-'

'Buy a cat?' Lonnie spluttered. 'Do you think I couldn't help?'

I heard the sharpness in his voice. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but I owed it to him to be honest.

'I do. I think you'd be a huge benefit to me and the other staff, and the children would be lucky as h.e.l.l to have you. But I need to know for certain that you aren't just jumping ship out of some misplaced sense of duty to me.'

'Why the f.u.c.k would I do that?' Lonnie said. 'I don't even like you.'

'I'm being serious,' I said, getting angry now myself. 'If you want me to go to Tristan and request that you be released, you have to be straight with me.'

'Okay.' Lonnie drained his gla.s.s and poured more. He held out the bottle to me, but I shook my head. 'If anything, you would be doing me the favour.'

'How so?'

Lonnie sat back and ran his hands through his hair. He was great at talking about anything other than his feelings not unlike many of us, I suppose. 'When I came to Drumlin I was what you folks call a "trainee", a client, one of the people at the unit who needed help.'

'When I arrived there I needed help too,' I interjected. 'Not a d.a.m.n thing wrong with that.'

'Yeah, but no one ever referred to you as disabled, or questioned your intellectual functioning, or tried to measure your social skills.'

I thought about a way to tell him he was wrong. But he wasn't. Finally: 'No. They didn't try to establish what was wrong with me.'

'Now don't get me wrong,' Lonnie said. 'The investigation wasn't done in a way that was intrusive or insulting. Anyway, I'm used to it. I've been the subject of comment and conjecture all my life. I've tolerated questions and probing about everything from my capacity to understand complex decimals to the size of my d.i.c.k since I was a child. Tristan was, at least, sensitive about how he measured and cla.s.sified me.'

'I'm not sure that's fair, Lonnie,' I said. 'No one tried to cla.s.sify you.'

'Oh, so there was never any discussion at staff meetings as to what kind of dwarfism I have?'

'Well-'

'I know there was, Shane. Don't try and bulls.h.i.t me!'

'I'm not-'

'You are! What cla.s.sification of dwarfism do I have?'

'I don't f.u.c.king care what sort you have!'

'Tell me! Say it!'

We were shouting now. Millie had woken up and was pacing nervily. Lonnie patted the couch beside him and she jumped up, resting her head on his lap.

'You have achondroplasia,' I said, hating the sound of the word.

'What are the symptoms?' Lonnie asked, absently stroking Millie's head.

What killed me as I recited the scientific terminology was that, yet again, he was right. Tristan had a thick file detailing Lonnie's personal and medical history, including the specifics of his particular form of genetic abnormality. And I had made a point of visiting the medical section of the library of a local college where I taught an occasional cla.s.s to see if I could learn anything extra. I told myself it was so I could help the angry little man, but it was nothing more than intellectual curiosity. And arrogance.

'What are the symptoms, Shane?' Lonnie repeated. 'I know you're well aware of them.'

'It's the most recognizable and the commonest form of dwarfism,' I said slowly, trying desperately to maintain eye contact. Looking away would just aggravate my embarra.s.sment. 'It accounts for seventy per cent of dwarfism cases internationally. The physical manifestations are short limbs, but in some cases, like yours, abnormally long ones too.'

'Flattered you noticed,' Lonnie said, smiling.

'Also there can be increased spinal curvature like in your ... um ... shoulder. And distortion of skull growth.'

'So how does one end up with achondroplasic dwarfism, then?' Lonnie asked. He was not going to let up.

'Achondroplasia is an autosomal dominant disorder caused by the presence of a faulty allele in a person's genome,' I said. 'If a pair of achondroplasia alleles are present, the result is fatal. One, though, causes the disorder in a live birth. Achondroplasia itself is a mutation in the fibroblast growth-factor receptor gene three, I think, but don't quote me.'

'You're right,' Lonnie said. 'Explain how this mutated gene works.'

'Well, it's an inhibitor that regulates bone growth. In cases of achondroplasia, the gene is too aggressive, negatively impacting on bone growth. Tristan told me that it may be exclusively inherited from the father and becomes more common with paternal age, specifically males reproducing after thirty-five.'

'Funny, isn't it?' Lonnie said, as if he didn't find it funny at all. 'I never even knew the man who made me this way.'

I reached over for the bottle and poured myself a stiff drink, which I downed in two swallows. I needed to wash the taste of the conversation from my mouth.

'Why are you doing this, Lonnie?' I asked. 'How have I made you angry?'

'I'm not angry with you, you big lug,' he said. 'What hurts is that every single one of you my friends and colleagues have dissected me in just the way you did there. I am, to them, a medical display. Something to be a.n.a.lysed and tested.'

This was not going anywhere good.

'The reason I'm so set on getting a job somewhere other than Drumlin is that I want an opportunity to work somewhere where all that baggage doesn't exist, where I might actually be seen as a real person and not as an oddity at least, no more so than I truly have to be.'

'You're not an oddity, Lonnie,' I said.

'Of course I am. My real complaint is that I'm so often seen as an oddity without a brain.'

'It would be great to say that was never the case,' I said slowly, trying to pick my words as carefully as possible, 'but, in truth, it probably was at one time. But it's not now. People see you not your disorder, if you even want to call dwarfism a disorder. And let's be honest, Lonnie, you don't think of yourself like that.'