Overheard by a goblin (shoved behind fridge)

Margo (High Queen Claire's bestest friend): You can't take this lying down, Claire! Get on to your local councillor or something. You'll have the same one as me... what's his name... Smith?

High Queen Claire: Smythe. Vincent Smythe.

Margo : Not... you mean your awful landlord is your local councillor?

High Queen Claire: Yup.

Margo: But he owns this house and half the others on the street! He won't want to have his properties knocked down for some supermarket...

High Queen Claire: He will if the price is right. He's already sent out eviction notices.

Margo: Smythe's just going to put you and the kids out on the street?

High Queen Claire: Slough Council will buy the houses off him. They won't care that he's let them fall apart or that the electrics are lethal or the plumbing leaks – he'll get buckets of cash and laugh his way to the bank.

Margo: It's some kind of scam. It's got to be! He's let these places go to ruin knowing he's fixed it to have them bought up by the council and knocked flat. It's criminal. That's what it is!

High Queen Claire: Probably... but what can I do? Me and my kids, we're little people and when there's big money to be made people like us get trampled.

Margo (bestest friend): But...

High Queen Claire: We've lost before we started, Margo... I can hardly raid the council planning offices for evidence now can I?

Chapter 7

You won't believe how much good stuff there is to eat behind a fridge. The best bits are underneath of course, but those grill things up the back get covered with the wonderful fluff. It's just hanging there waiting to be gobbled. Like candyfloss... almost. Dry, dusty, sugar-free candyfloss. Yum. With stuff on the floor I tend to operate on the six month rule. If it's been there less than six months it's fine to eat. To be honest though some of the things I pulled out from under that fridge had probably been there six years – but hey, rules are made to be broken.

I think Princess Pukey shoved me behind the fridge as an apology for sitting on me the other day. Anyway, it knocks the socks off lying dead still on the floor playing first-one-to-move-is-a-pixie. I spent the whole day fishing old peas out from underneath, coating them with grime (the black kind) and eating until no more would go down my throat. Delicious. It also meant I got to spend some more time training Fluffy. She'd been herding peas under the fridge when I arrived. Fluffy often spends the day under the fridge when her coat is getting patchy. At the moment I'm teaching her to roll-over, and she's pretty good at it, but mostly if there's a slope.

I'm a little late to roll call. Captain Bort is calling out my number as I hurry in from the kitchen, and it sounds as though it's not the first time he's called it.

"Here!" I take my place in line, still munching a floor-pea. I wipe spare fluff from my lips. "Sir."

"Right." Captain Bort has his battle helmet on tonight. He only wears that when expecting serious trouble! "Right," he repeats. "We're meeting up with Prince Stupid's forces in half an hour. Then we're going to find out what the Grimster's plan is and laugh at it. After that it will probably be war.

A ragged cheer goes up among us goblins. We're built for war. Also for eating. As it happens I'd rather be munching old peas than fighting the Grimster's troops. Those little ponies have got a hell of a kick on them. Also I can't see how bashing Killerella will help us defeat Vincent Smythe and the council and stop them covering the park in tarmac and knocking the house down. Still, I guess that's why I'm a lowly minion and not a captain.

We wrap up warm cos it's a cold night out there, and head off for the battle. I'm wearing one of Lord Thurgo's old socks. It's a great honour, and my head sticks out neatly through the hole worn by his mighty toenail, praise be his name. I've got Fluffy cosied away under one arm. Alfonso and Oooof are wearing a pair of Princess Pukey's mittens. It's a tight fit for both of them and they hop along at the rear like a pair of horribly mutated woollen octopi.

Before we reach the gate Alfonso and Oooof have tripped up Gut-ripper and Jabber with the long piece of elastic joining the mittens. Jabber just laughs, but Gut-ripper gets up with a mean look in her eye... though to be honest that was there to start with.

Frost glitters on the lamppost at the corner of Victoria Street and George Street. The robot horde are waiting in the shadow of a garden wall, huddled around their captain, Steel Jaws. We draw up to them just as Killerella rounds the corner, surrounded by a boiling sea of little ponies, rainbow hued and mean-eyed.

The bosses square up. I'd say eye to eye but Killerella towers over Captain Bort and Steel Jaws. Our proper commanders, Sir Terror-Knight and Power-Bot Nine haven't even bothered to come.

"DELIVER PLAN." Steel Jaws booms.

"Yes," Captain Bort nods. "What's this master plot then?" He hesitates and adds, "Ma'am."

I check the goblins to either side of me, One-Eye and Gobber. They're ready to laugh scornfully on command.

Killerella narrows her eyes at all of us, which takes some doing cos we've come in force. Her ice-water stare sends shivers down my spine. In that moment I'm sure that if anyone can defeat the Slough Council and the forces of good it's her. In the next moment she slumps, unexpectedly and says, "I don't have one."

We swallow our scornful laughs, unused. A ripple of fear runs through our ranks. No plan? No plot?

"What?" Captain Bort asks the question for all of us.

"I don't have a plan," Killerella says. "Do you?"

"Well..." Captain Bort tries to look down at his feet but his belly gets in the way. He stands there scratching his tummy. "Um..." The plan was to laugh at Killerella's plot, but he doesn't seem to want to tell her that. Somehow having no plot to laugh at has left us all worried. What will we do? Are all the houses going to be knocked down? The park replaced with tarmac. Will we be left behind? Where will Lord Thurgo and Prince Stupid go? What about the ducks?

"You don't have a plan either," says Killerella. "Vincent Smythe isn't going to be worried by us. He's got minions of his own and each of those minions is much bigger than our overlords. And anyway, the council isn't just one person. It's lots of people. How can we fight that?"

"Anyone got any ideas?" Captain Bort says.

I don't think the captain is including us minions in his 'anyone' but Odo holds his hand up.

"What?"

"I haven't said anything since chapter 2," says Odo.

"That's your idea?" Bort signals in Sergeant Yellow-Fang to drag him away.

Odo nods. We all look at him until he hangs his head in shame and saves sarge the effort of dragging him by sloping off on his own accord muttering.

"Any good ideas?" Captain Bort turns away from us and looks at Steel Jaws.

We all hold our breath so our breathing won't distract the higher ranks from thinking important thoughts. Three seconds later Oooof manages to fall over. He was just standing in line. It's not like he had to go up some steps or thread a path through the doorway or anything... but even so he manages to mess it up. I wouldn't mind but he falls over into me and sends me stumbling out of the front rank right in between Captain Bort and the lovely, I mean deadly, Killerella.

"Uh," I say. And then, "We can hardly raid the council planning offices for evidence now can we?" I'm not sure what makes me say this – I think I heard it recently, and perhaps Oooof's impact just dislodged it from the part of my brain where memories go to hide instead of being forgotten.

They all look at me as if I'm something Princess Pukey left behind. Steel Jaws grinds his metal hands into metal fists. Killerella bends down toward me with a murderous scowl...

"Your ugly little one might have a point, Bort," Killerella says.

"What?" I say.

"What?" says Captain Bort.

"The council planning offices. That's where they keep their plans. If there's any evidence that Smythe's up to something we might find it there – he is in charge of town planning after all. And if not, at least we can destroy the plans and slow them down!"

"Do you even know where the council planning offices are?" I ask.

Killerella fishes in her skirts and after a few moments pulls out a ragged piece of plastic-covered cardboard. It's part of the sign they took off the park railings. She taps a long finger to the words under the clear plastic. "That's the address."

"METHOD OF TRANSPORTATION?" Steel Jaws demands.

"It would be easier if you just spoke normally," Killerella tells him.

The robot sighs, sags slightly at the hip sprockets, and says, "How are we all going to get there? It's a hell of a long way to..." He cocks his head to look at the fragment of sign. "Kings House, Arlingdon Road."

We all stop and stare at Steel Jaws. He closes his great metal jaw with a snap, upper teeth meshing with lower teeth like interlocking daggers. "What?" he says.

"You can read?" asks Captain Bort.

"Sure," says Steel Jaws. "It's just a matter of putting the letters together to make words."

"I knew it!" I cry out. I'm learning to read as soon as we get back from the mission. If a Mark III Flesh-Rending robotoid can do it then I'm sure I can. Shouldn't take more than an hour. Two hours tops!

"So how are we going to get there?" Captain Bort brings us back to the question. He flutters his fingers at me while he asks it, shooing me back into line.

Killerella turns toward her sea of ponies, sweeping her arm out as she does.

"Robots can't ride," Steel Jaws complains.

"Get the carriages!" Killerella commands, and a dozen little ponies peel off from the rear of the herd and gallop away toward the Grimster's house. She turns back to stare at Captain Bort. "Well?"

Captain Bort eyes the ponies with suspicion and using his mistrustful eye. His hopeful eye is pointing back at us. "Mount up, goblins!" he roars.

They may be little for ponies but I can tell you they are quite tall enough for riding, thank you very much. Perched on my own colourful little nightmare with Lord Thurgo's sock rucked up around my hips, and Fluffy held awkwardly under one arm, I feel very unsafe. And then the pony starts to move and I suddenly need to add a lot more 'very's in front of that 'unsafe'.

In the time it's taken all of us goblins to get mounted. Well, all apart from Oooof who is still lying on the pavement exactly where he fell after his thirteenth try. Anyway, in that time, the ponies who ran off have returned pulling two large and ornate pink carriages of the type used to take scullery maids to royal balls where they dance the night away with princes. We all watch as an unlikely number of battle droids and assorted robots pack themselves into the vehicles. Oooof joins Steel Jaws, Frank and half a dozen other robots in the larger and more fancy of the two carriages.

And we're off!