They were so bloated as to be nearly spherical, and awash with breadcrumbs. They must have been eating bread, and doing nothing else, for quite some time. Compared to the pitiful thing that had died with its grey teeth bared to her ceiling, Floralinda was transfixed again by how big these goblins seemed, how grimy and verminous and grey. There was another noise from further off down the corridor, and something that sounded a great deal like chittering (if you have ever heard two squirrels argue over a conker, you have heard this sound) and the goblins startled—at a third goblin, who had appeared from the opposite direction, and was now staring at Floralinda.
Its two gluttonous fellows turned their heads to follow its gaze. The whites of their eyes shone in the darkness, thin rings around enormous black pupils. They both dropped their loaves.
This time Floralinda knew when to run for her life. She took to her heels with three goblins behind her, squabbling away in their own guttural talk, hot in pursuit as she sped down the corridor and flew up the staircase. They were much quicker than she, but did not work well in narrow quarters together. She made it up to her room just as the two biggest goblins thrust the third out of the way, and they crashed very hard against her door as she slammed it shut in a trice. She turned its key and locked it, and all three banged and shrieked and clattered the handle.
A light rain had started to fall outside, pattering on the windowsill. This was so welcome that Floralinda went with her injured hands and pinned the window-sash up as high as it could go, so that the cool wet breeze could circulate through the room. Before long the banging and shrieking and clattering ceased, and the sounds of wind and rain were all that was heard in the room. Eventually, the princess thought the goblins must have gone away, and went to check.
But the goblins were possessed of dumb cunning, and in any case were not at all afraid of Floralinda. When she tremulously turned the key and peeked out—they burst in on top of her!
There were only two, as the third had grown impatient and trundled off. Floralinda ran to stand stupidly on the bed, like a girl faced with two rats; one goblin caught her by her long unbrushed butter-coloured curls and tugged, meaning to drag her to the floor as the first goblin had. She leapt from the bed in a fright, dragging it with her, screaming with the goblin’s hands stuck fast in her hair, and her scalp feeling as though it must depart from her head entirely; she wheeled about, blind with panic and pain, trying to tear the goblin from her head; she shouldered her burden to the window, slapping at it aimlessly until it let go and fell from the sill. This would not have accomplished much except that it fell from the sill outwards, which made it, a few seconds later, the second goblin to die very close to the shining sword.
The other goblin—full of bread, and warier—turned and scampered back to the doorway, perhaps to go and call for more of its kind. In a panic Floralinda flew after it. She caught up with it just as it reached the head of the staircase down, and not knowing what else to do, she gave it a good push to the hunched shoulders with her foot. As she watched, it tumbled down each steep stair back to floor thirty-nine, which had the effect of breaking its neck.
Princess Floralinda then had the presence of mind to turn the key before being sick. She also had the presence of mind to be sick in her chamber-pot rather than anywhere else, which would have added insult to injury. She was ill until she could not bring up anything else, just nasty-tasting froth; then she sat on her bed. Her heart beat fast, and her brain beat faster. The rain had turned from a nice light pattering sound to a thick pelter, and this heralded a storm. The room shook with a full basso profundo of thunder—a deep, throaty roll somewhere quite close—and though the rain splashed in over the sill to the floor, Floralinda did not pull down the sash, but stood at the window as the storm broke over the trees and the tower, and stared down guessing at what must be the remains of her fresh dead goblin and its less fresh colleague. She stared out the window; she stared at the sky, and the feverish purple clouds; she stared down at the ground until she couldn’t look any more, as it wasn’t very nice. If you have ever stood at a great height in the rain, with a storm breaking all around you in a very effervescent way, you will know that it is a good time for having Ideas, even if you are a princess.
If Princess Floralinda had been the type of princess who got very still and pale when she was frightened, things would have happened differently. But she was the sort who shrieked and tried to run in three directions at once, which had exasperated everybody who had tried to teach her to keep a good seat on a horse. It was due to this, along with the Idea, that she unlocked the door and crept once again down the long steep flight of stairs to floor thirty-nine, bread-knife brandished woodenly before her, stepping over the dead goblin without much thought.
She retraced her steps to the alcove where the goblins had been eating her bread. There were no goblins there now, but there were the loaves, a little shabby but recognisable. She pulled a chunk off the white to press into her mouth immediately, but then thought better of it. Instead, Floralinda crept back to her room, crumbling bits of both the white and the wheat—just in case the goblins had a preference—to form a trail behind her, though being fresh the bread didn’t crumb very easily. Both loaves refilled themselves in her hands as she tore pieces off them, so that by the time she was back in her room they were as fresh and as whole as they had ever been; and she did not lock her door, nor did she even close it. She made a path of bread all the way to her window, then strewed more around the sill, just in case. Then she stuffed both loaves safely down the back of her armchair in an unusual access of good sense, and she hid under her bed.
The storm raged outside, and occasionally in through the window. Every so often there was a flash of lightning that lit up the whole room in hot white light, and then the answering peal of thunder to show how far away the storm was (each second counts for a mile; this is the truth, and you can check with a teacher). It did not die down after the sun set, but in fact got noisier. Floralinda’s plan came to fruition when two goblins crept into the room, very cautious, peering at their surroundings in the dark; though goblins have excellent night vision and a keen sense of smell, it was raining furiously and the fact that Floralinda had been sick earlier confused the scent. They did not seize on her beneath the bed, as they surely would have in better conditions. One goblin went to the window, conscientiously eating bread as it went: and from there she burst from her hiding-place, and pushed him out where the first two goblins had gone.
The last goblin sprang. Floralinda grappled with it, and it bit her savagely as the other goblins had, with those powerful fingers wrapping around her forearms to keep her still. But Floralinda took Monarchic Positions on Economic Models and brought it hard down on the goblin’s head. She hit it over and over, her hands bleeding with each blow, until it fell down dazed. Then she took her pillow and smothered it; and then it went the same way as its three fellows, down into the dark and the rain.
Princess Floralinda would later wonder at it. She would later be amazed at her need, and at how terrible a thing need was. It had all been dreadful; but she was beyond thought, which was also a blessing. She was running a temperature, she had re-opened all the sores on her hands, and she had her bread back. She ate of the white loaf until she was pretty sure it was sleep or be sick; so she lay down and slept as the preferable option.