My Dear Lady Misericordia,

I hope this letter finds you well. I hope that you will at least be happy that I have evidently survived the night more or less intact.

But, oh, what a night! Was it really only those few hours ago? The whole thing seems already like some fantastic dream, a strange and wonderful fairy tale that could not, surely, have happened to me.
 
 
We worked like fiends all day yesterday, Harry and Alf and Tom and I. But work as we might, we could not hold back the hands of the clock. The day seemed to pass too quickly and we soon found ourselves gathering what we had created into the dining hall as everyone else gathered for supper.
 
Nicholas greeted us with amusement.
 
"Stop all that fussing and come and have something to eat, you two, you must be famished," he ushered us to our seats, although I, for one, was feeling so nervous about what the night might bring, that I could barely think of food.
 
"I do like these clockwork soldiers," he knelt down between the tables and wound one up, letting it march along the flagstones as the people around him watched, "Simply marvellous, have you seen these, your Lordship?"
 
Soon both he and Lord Daunt were on their hands and knees among the eating workers, arranging their soldiers into ranks and preparing their artillery.
 
"I say, Hope," offered Daunt from under a chair, "These steam powered peashooter things are really quite a thing." His head popped up from behind a table, "Imagine one full size - an armoured engine with a steam-powered gun, quite a thing, eh? Quite a thing. Smart thinking, lad, smart thinking." And he disappeared once again.
 
Harry and I watched them open-mouthed, unable to understand how anyone could play so happily with toys knowing that the madman Oxshott could attack us at any moment. And, indeed, before Nicholas or his Lordship  could even try any small skirmishes, a terrified worker came rushing into the room and ran to Nicholas to whisper in his ear.
 
"Ah," he said, straightening up, "Apparently someone has broken into the stables. I think perhaps your friend has come to visit us again. I don't suppose you'd like to see what he wants?"
 
"No, I wouldn't," I said, "I already know! Quick, everyone: to your places!"
 
At this all the assembled workers jumped up and, following orders from Alf and Tom, cleared the long tables away to either side of the hall, upending them to make shields of the table tops, lining a passage down the middle of the room with wooden walls, as more of them clambered up the columns to the galleries that overhung three sides of the room.
 
As the tables went Daunt's and Nicholas' toy armies were revealed - two wings of clockwork soldiers, steam driven artillery and tin cavalry drawn up in serried ranks, facing the doors. And in the middle knelt Nicholas, still arranging horsemen into a V formation, ready for the charge.
 
Harry and I had swept the cutlery and place settings from our top table and turned it over in the archway that led to Nicholas's smaller dining room, sealing off the room as a last line of defence. I leant over the barrier and called  to our host.
 
"Nicholas! Back here, behind the table - it'll be the safest place!"
 
"But I'll miss the battle," he replied, smiling, and then gestured to Alf, "One moment, please."
 
He whispered something to the little man who nodded and scurried away out of the room carrying a plate of food. Soon, however, I felt a breeze of cold air that must mean a door had been opened somewhere - thank goodness! At least he was taking the danger seriously enough to prepare an escape route.
 
Nicholas showed no signs of wanting to escape, though, as he continued shuffling toy soldiers about on the floor. All else was silent apart from the clicking as he wound up the clockwork. The workers, hidden behind their wooden walls, held their breath, waiting, listening for whatever was coming.
 
And it was coming, we could hear it - at first nothing more than a dim, far off banging and crashing, but gradually the sound came nearer. Something heavy and careless was coming blundering through Joulutontti and it was singing as it came.
 
At first I thought it was just a roaring, howling noise, but gradually I began to make out words, if not really quite a tune. Words bellowed with a ghastly cheerfulness, the same refrain, repeated over and over again.
 
"All I want for Christmas is his two front teeth, his two front teeth, his two front teeth. All I want for Christmas is his two front teeth, his two front teeth, his two front teeth..."
 
And then with a resounding rattle and boom, the doors to the dining hall burst open and there, monstrous in the flaring light, stood Oxshott.
 
If possible he looked even more wild than he had the previous evening. His hair and beard were now rimed with frost, so that a jagged crown of icicles stuck out around his head, glittering. The fur lining of his clothes stuck out all over, making him look like some wooly wild man of the mountains. Steam rose of him in the warm room, wreathing him in a mist that moved with him, curling about his legs, making him seem to appear in a puff of smoke, like an evil magician in a pantomime.
 
He stopped in the doorway, appearing not to notice the walls of wood or the toy army, having eyes only for Nicholas as the old man knelt in the middle of the room.
 
"You!" Oxshott roared, "I've changed my mind! I don't want a train set anymore! I want your head!" and with that, he leapt forward into the room.
 
"Nicholas!" I shouted and, without thinking, clambered over the table top and fell into the dining hall, scrambling towards our new friend, desperate to pull him back to safety.
 
Behind me, fortunately, I heard Harry, with much greater presence of mind than I, shout out: "Open fire!" and at that our allies swing into action.
 
Down from the galleries all around us dropped a storm of paper planes, all tipped with the sharp points from compass sets, all swooping down towards Oxshott in a great white flurry. For a moment he disappeared in a rustling cloak of paper, but then, with a thunderous yell, he shook them all off, leaving himself spotted about with little red dots of pin pricks.
 
Then a great shower of arrows sprang up from behind the tables, curving over our heads at him, covering him, with each hit, in a light dusting of itching powder. But this only made him more angry, and he flicked them away,  roaring and shaking his head wildly.
 
Finally Nicholas released the steam driven cannons around him and they puffed forward, popping out hard peas that rattled off the ice that sheathed Oxshott with a sound like gravel on glass. Growling he waded forward as the clockwork soldiers stabbed at his ankles, kicking out left and right and sending tin horses and riders scattering across the flagstones.
 
As Oxshott advanced, I finally got hold of Nicholas' coat and tried to drag him back, away from the lunatic, but the man must have been rooted to the spot with fear, as he wouldn't budge. There was nothing for it and I quickly scrambled in front of him, shielding him with my body, as Oxshott, snorting out steam like an engine, came stomping up to us.
 
"Out of my way, teacher!" he roared, his face savage and contorted.
 
"Never," I gulped.
 
Oxshott's face twisted into a smile.
 
"A brave teacher! Well, I never. That'll make an interesting head for my collection!" and with that he slapped me across the face with the back of his hand, sending me sprawling back against Nicholas' broad chest.
 
Then he reached behind him and pulled out from his belt a long, keen machete that sparkled with ice all along it's blade.
 
"Lift your chin up, man!" he yelled, "I want to try and do this in one blow!"
 
"You'll have to go through me first!" shouted a voice and, to my horror, Harry leapt over the table wall and bounded in between us, glaring at Oxshott in defiance.
 
Oxshott laughed in his face.
 
"You think I'd worry about killing a boy?" he snarled.
 
"Perhaps not," said Harry, "But what about... a woman?" And with that he swept off his cap and down fell a great glowing sweep of red hair. And in that moment I realised where I had seen Harry before: Harry wasn't Harry at all, she was Henrietta, Professor Cumulus' daughter!
 
Oxshott reeled back in surprise. In fact, I think everyone did. I certainly heard Lord Daunt gasp and the Professor himself shout out in fright. But I had no time to think about them. I had just had one of the realisations that I spoke about earlier and, without a moments hesitation, sprang forward, catching hold of Henrietta, the marvellous, brave Henrietta, and pushing her behind me.
 
Oxshott shook his head and gathered himself.
 
"Teachers, schoolgirls, none of you can stop me!" he snarled, "Nothing can stop me now!" And he roared like a bear.
 
No, no, he didn't. He stood, frozen to the spot and something else roared again, like a bear. Just like a bear. Just like, in fact, the gigantic polar bear that reared up behind him in the doorway, snuffing the air. Then it dropped to all fours again with a thump that rocked the room and roared once more.
 
Oxshott swung round, a crazed look in his eye, but before he could raise his machete, the bear, with an off hand, careless movement, swung out with one massive paw and punched him neatly on the nose.
 
The Baronet went flying sideways, bouncing off an upturned table and collapsing, headlong, among the ruins of the defeated tin army on the floor.
 
The bear sniffed at him, curiously, but then turned its head as someone whistled from the corridor behind it, and there was Alf, carrying a steaming pot of stew. The bear turned with astonishing adroitness and shambled after him as Alf led the way out of the room.
 
A sudden silence flooded the room after the tempest of the battle, the only noise the ticking of fallen soldiers and the hissing of crushed artillery.
 
And in that silence, Baronet Oxshott raised his bloodied head and said:
 
"Hallo, I'm Roderick. Is that your steam engine? I've always wanted one of them. Can I have a go?"
 
And I felt a small, friendly, womanly hand slip into mine and welcome head of red hair on my shoulder as the room burst into thunderous applause.

Everyone has gone to bed now, but my mind is still all to much of a whirl - and my nose throbs something fierce where Oxshott hit it. What an extraordinary, wild night we have had, but how many mysteries still remain: how did Henrietta manage to pull off such a brilliant disguise right under our noses, why has the Professor brought us here, what peculiar plan is our host carrying out, and who, exactly, is the wonderful Nicholas?

But for all my confusion, I have been working and thinking hard for the last two days and fighting for my life for the last two hours and I think, perhaps, I ought to try and rest a little.

Yours

Exhausted by still breathing