"Milk and cookies. Milk and cookies."

These words were spoken in an almost hypnotic way as if the speaker was trying to perform some act of mind control on herself.

"Not only sleepwalking but sleeptalking too. I'm impressed," Pinky Ponsonby said, sitting up in bed. It was close to midnight and the sudden reference to snacks desired at such a traditional time had drawn the attention of the occupants of Dormitory Sensation to one particular figure.

Petal Mara was up and wrapping a gown around herself dreamily.

"I'm awake actually," she said in a half whisper. "Sorry to disturb everyone, it's just that I have a sudden urge." Petal was well known to be a sugar worshipper in the most comprehensive meaning of the term. "I must resolve this craving else I will not be able to sleep."

"Nor us neither," came a double negative from Soo Toglak's bed, and which summed up her feelings perfectly.

Without responding to this tart comment the brown-haired girl from Greenvale, a land plagued with fairies, made a fairy-like tiptoe out of the room into a dimly lit corridor. She then skipped down several flights of stairs to a back kitchen where she knew a larder and refrigerator sat unguarded. With a sigh, Petal selected a mix of chocolate and butternut cookies, filled a tumbler with cool milk and resumed her climb back up to her dormitory, salivating at the prospect of such a feast. She would of course share and had stocked up on additional stores accordingly.

As she traversed an empty corridor, slippers softly scuffing along a rich embroidered carpet she heard the sounds of sobbing which startled her not a little. It came from a side passage way that led to store rooms and spare classroom areas. Unable to resist the universal cry of distress, soft-hearted Petal went to investigate.

She found a small plump man in a dark work apron sat upon one of the side chairs that were placed in passage ways for the convenience of those who wished to pause in their arduous journey every five yards or so. Beside him a mop had been rested against a column that supported the portrait of a female founder so that it looked as if she had suddenly grown a particularly bushy beard. Upon the floor a scoop sat, looking sparklingly clean and new.

Petal went up to the man, whom she recognised as one of the school cleaners.

"What's the matter sir?" she said, planting herself before him. He ceased his sobbings a moment and stared down at her fluffy slippers, before looking up. Politeness took over and he stood, attempting to remove his cap but remembering too late he was not wearing one.

"I'm sorry miss," he sniffed. "Didn't mean to disturb you."

"Why are you crying?" came the kind of direct question only a youngster was capable of.

"It's all such a shock," the man confided.

"Have you seen a ghost? It was probably Victoria Sponge. She's not really a ghost, just a little pale. Fresh air and sunshine will put her right in time," Petal chattered reassuringly. "Or was my dorm mate Danique up to her tricks again? She likes to hide in shadowy corners and jump out at unsuspecting victims. She's pale too, by choice I think, and has a tremendous mass of hair with a life of its own. Why only the other day she frightened some second years simply by leaping into their path late one evening out in the pinewoods. She's very good at it."

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"Well miss," the man said, sitting down again, ignoring the flow of words from the girl as he gathered his thoughts for a truer explanation. "It's my job to give these here corridors a bit of a sweep every now and then to keep them nice and clean for the likes of you scholars, only if I tried during the day I'd be in everyone's way, so's I do it nice and late when the place is quiet. Only, here I am trying to sweep up the dirt and dust and stuff and I can't find any. It's all gone!" and he dabbed his eyes with a crumpled cloth that might normally serve to polish things that needed polishing. It too looked otherwise unused. "Been wandering about for a good hour and can't find a speck anywhere," he snuffled.

"That's good though, isn't it?" Petal said, not understanding such grief.

"No, 'taint," came a quick reply. "If I got nothing to do I got no job."

"Would you like me to make a mess, if that would help?"

"That's very kind of you," the man smiled through his tears. "Best not though, besides where's such a neat thing like you going to find dirt to scatter about?"

"Have a cookie," and she proferred a chocolate one which the man took. She crunched upon one herself and crumbs inevitably tumbled to the floor. Having drunk some milk, Petal stood.

"Look," she said. "Needs cleaning, that," pointing imperiously at the carpet.

"I'll get right on it miss," and the man jumped up, shaved the founder's statue by retrieving his mop and bent to his task.

Happy with this outcome, Petal pursued her midnight way, pausing only when she heard a voice behind her.

"Thank you miss," came the soft grateful tones of the cleaner.

For answer the girl curtsied gracefully, balancing her plate of cookies and tumbler of milk with balletic skill and then she disappeared around the corner, smiling at the thought of her good deed, warmed also by the cookie she had already consumed and then somewhat startled by the next sight that greeted her.

There was an open space where several corridors met before a flight of stairs led up to the dormitories. It was floored by a honey coloured marble that made pretty patterns amid reflected light. Normally Petal would have skidded across its slippery surface for the fun of it but her hands were full so she approached more sedately. The square space had been empty when she traversed it earlier but now it was occupied.

"Oh, how sweet," Petal said as she found herself watching countless little grey furry shapes gliding across the polished surface this way and that. Some described circles and others wove in and out in intricate patterns like well conducted traffic. Occasionally two bumped together, a cloud of dust would briefly appear, and but one remain, slightly larger as if the collision had created a merger. All this was happening in perfect silence and Petal stood there watching, munching cookies and drinking milk as if the performance was for her benefit.

The show only ended when there was a loud prolonged scream from one of the other adjoining corridors and the clatter of dropped things.

"Mice!" came the warning shriek. "A plague of mice," and a female cleaner who like the gentleman on the floor below was in pursuit of elusive dust, appeared on the scene holding her mop threateningly. She had barely set foot upon the marble square when all the little scurrying things scattered off in every direction they could find which bespoke safety, some flowing around Petal's slippers and away down the corridor she had lately walked along. One paused to seemingly examine her footwear, as if recognising a kindred creature until Petal twitched her big toe which ended the socialising moment and the thing darted off to hide with the others. Petal's snigger and continued cookie crunching brought her to the attention of the cleaner.

"What, child, are you doing out of bed?" came the angry question, for the lady was still partly in shock at what she had just witnessed and under the influence of heightened emotion. And a little sherry possibly.

"Milk and cookies," came the happy reply. "Midnight snack. Allowed under emergency circumstances, especially for first years with a sweet tooth," she added, feeling sure there must be such a sensible school regulation somewhere that fit the description of her actions.

"Didn't you see the mice? We've an infestation," the cleaner then protested, as if this precluded any need for snacks.

"Oh, they weren't mice," Petal replied casually as she pondered nibbling upon a butternut cookie. "Didn't you notice? They had no tails, no whiskers, no feet and no eyes." She was an observant child, as her report card might note in the weeks to come.

"Then what in Founder Borromil's name were they?"

"Rather cute I thought," and with that Petal Mara resumed her journey back to the dorm.