The girls just stood there in the doorway looking at the mysterious accumulation, each trying to fathom its origin as it watched them in its turn, wondering what they were going to do next.

The sound of rapid footsteps broke this surreal moment.

"Twin!" came a familiar voice and an identical version of Fizzy Massking right down to the colour of her pigtail hair ribbons hove into sight round a corner of the empty corridor. "I thought they had buried you, absent so long you were."

"It's okay. I told Victoria here that I'm Fizzy," as if this was as much a reference to her personality as her actual name.

"Hi," came a bright smile from Divvy Massking. "Why are you both staring at that empty room with the exceedingly dull carpet?"

"It's not a carpet," Victoria explained. "We left this room spotless but moments ago and when we came back a layer of dust so thick you could drown in it appeared from nowhere. Miss says we've got to clear it all out in an hour or face further punishment."

"The prospect of that must haunt you," Divvy said and sniggered. In spite of herself Fizzy sniggered too and Victoria gave them a glare, one angry eye for each twin. Then the new arrival took the meagre brush from her sister and batted it at the edge of the dust, which curiously ended neatly at the door as if someone had cleaned thoroughly up to that point and then gave up abruptly on seeing such an appalling prospect. The gesture had an unexpected result. A little dust puffed up and floated around but at the exact spot where Divvy had planted the broom the grey mass seemed to slither away as if attempting to dodge the impact.

"Seems quite cowardly for dust," she observed.

"Let's get to it," Victoria Sponge sighed and with her hairy brush and her bruise, waded gamefully into the midst of the enemy.

Great battles have been commemorated in song for generations, daring deeds and exploits of bold warriors painted in glowing words that sometimes even rhymed telling in glorious details just why such and such an action was worth remembering. Of course it tended to be the victors who were sung of, the reasons for the battle praised in terms shaped to justify their violence and the outcome always seemed to change the course of history for ever, all for the best naturally enough.

When those warriors were three dusty school girls, two with weapons of proof that only fine detail would reveal later as closet brooms, and one bravely entering the fray weaponless, using the stomping and kicking of feet in effectual ways, then the blind story tellers gathering around them eager listeners in some far away market square would have their work cut out to weave a magical tale of daring and endeavour fit for the subject. Imagine the difficulty in shaping the tale of victory around the deadly consequences of failure, detention and extra home work. Or the glory striven for, a nice clean floor.

Yet warriors of old whose tireless sword arms mowed down countless ravening enemies fought with no greater determination than Victoria Sponge that day when she found herself cornered near crates packed with priceless text books as the grey mass reared up in an attempt to smother her. Never was a battle phalanx more determined to cut through masses of opposing forces with such vigour as the Massking twins, back to back, hurled dust clouds from them repeatedly with feet and fists and desperate sweeps of hairless wooden weapons.

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It was a long and exhausting hour the brave warriors fought, brushing and scraping and pushing the writhing mass of protesting debris this way and that around the small space. They were at the very limit of their powers when it seemed the enemy lost heart for the struggle and scattered, leaving but a few pockets of unresisting matter dead upon the field and little bits of fluff floating annoyingly in the air.

"Quick," gasped one of the twins, "scrape up those bits there and put them in that bucket." The other twin scooped up the stuff by hand from various spots on the floor and scurrying around managed to grab it all and deposit the remains in the bucket just as determined clopping sounds could be heard, the footsteps of angry authority.

The three collapsed upon the floor, a little smudged, but a lot more weary, and awaited their fate as the teacher appeared in the doorway to check on their progress.

She frowned at sight of an addition to their number. Divvy waved weakly.

"Water," she gasped.

"All in good time," came the heartless reply. Clearly the blind story teller might have bent the truth a bit at this point and replaced an angry teacher with a crowd of cheering supporters who carried the victorious girls shoulder high from the room, adding to Victoria's bruise no doubt due to the low arched ceiling.

In reality the stern task mistress marched around the room, peered into corners, waved away some floating fluff that threatened to invade a flared nostril, and then she coughed.

"Considering the amount of dust I saw earlier," she began, softening her hard heart, or as the story teller might have it, melting the frozen steel of fierce pride, "I feel you have made an acceptable attempt at cleaning the dirt away. I must say in all the time I've been here I do not recall this room ever getting as filthy as it appeared earlier. Clearly need more punishment detail if such accumulations of dust ever threaten the cellars again." It appeared this particular correctional task was a favourite of hers.

"We're free to go?" Victoria staggered to her feet hopefully, pulling a twin up with her.

"Water," Divvy repeated from the floor where she lay.

"Just one thing," and the mistress peered into the small bucket uncertainly. "What happened to all that dust? You could fill fifty buckets like that with the stuff."

"It ran off," Fizzy said unadvisedly.

"Ran off?"

"It put up quite a fight at first but we wore it down, so it retreated in good order, um, in that direction," Victoria explained. "I have three bruises now," she decided to admit as an attempt at sympathy.

The teacher looked at the three slightly smudgy girls, then her eyes roamed the now clean cellar floor so the evidence of her own sight acted as a stopper on a rising volcano of annoyance at such story telling. She was perplexed indeed, but the task had been accomplished and that was something she could not deny.

"You're free to go," she nodded. "Clean yourselves up and I hope today's experience will be a lesson to you."

Divvy was the last to leave of course, still gasping for water but managing to stagger out and away. As soon as she was out of sight she raced after the others in high glee.

The teacher stood there alone in the gloomy cellar, feeling herself somewhat a victim of some indefinable punishment, putting herself in the shoes of her pupils a moment. She made a further inspection of the cellar, satisfying herself it really was cleaned up most impressively and then she made to depart.

"Where did that curious ghostly girl say the dust ran off to? Such an imaginative child," she laughed to herself as she followed the direction indicated. "Perhaps they shovelled it all in a corner where they hoped no one would find it."

There was a lower level still among the cellars of Miss Plazenby's, the school having been built atop old mine workings. Some rough cut steps in a very dark and very narrow corner that at first glance looked like a dead end drew the teacher's attention toward it. She peered into the darkness and had a very unpleasant sensation that something else was peering back at her. She could see nothing, but it could most definitely see her.

She fled.