Nero wasn’t given to fanciful ideas like you and me. Although he’d turned over a new leaf and had become a model citizen, he still lacked imagination. He was a very down-to-earth rat, particularly when he practiced singing. What’s more, he’d nerves of steel. He had to have otherwise he’d never had coped with the horror of his own voice. Yet a thought passed through his mind which sent cold shivers down his spine. That thought was ‘Grozzy’- a word which terrified every Mellowmarkian.      It had the same effect on the Mellowmark folk that ‘ghosts’ or ‘goblins’ might have on you if you thought you were going to meet them. No one had actually seen a Grozzy, just as I suspect no one has ever seen a real ghost or goblin. Nevertheless, they were spoken about in Mellowmark with the same knowledgeable air that certain people discuss ghosts or goblins in our part of the world.

When all’s said and done, just because we haven’t seen a ghost or had the pleasure of being introduced to a goblin, that doesn’t mean to say they don’t exist. I’ve never seen Santa Claus fill my stocking on Christmas Eve, but it’s always full on Christmas morning. So I’m certainly not going to stop believing in him at my time of life . . . what’s more, my Christmas presents might stop if I did.