041. The Little Red Hat

The man from Johnson & Puck's Pest Control crouched in the dirt next to Meg's tulips and shone a flashlight underneath her porch. 

"Hmm", he said. He went inside the house, knocked on Meg's walls, examined the living room floor and scribbled in a notepad. "Mhm, yup, less than 1ft probably", he muttered to himself as he measured a small hole beneath the kitchen sink. When he crawled around on the attic Meg waited below with a big glass of water. She could hear him shuffle around up there. At one point the shuffling stopped and Meg heard a muffled

"Aha!"

Shortly thereafter he came down the ladder again. His blue dungaree, the brown uniform below and his black hair were tinted grey by a thick layer of dust.

"Yup", said he and slapped at his arms and legs to clear some of the dust off, "it's what I thought". He took the glass from Meg and poured half of the water down his throat.

"What is it?" asked Meg as the man reached into one of the pockets of his dungaree and dug out a tiny red, felt object. He handed the scrumpled up thing to Meg. It was a little red hat. Meg studied it as it lay in the palm of her hand, the width almost that of a tennis ball, too small even to be worn by an infant human child.

"You've got gnomes, miss", said the man.

"Oh", said Meg. 

It made sense in a way. The last couple of months she'd heard weird sounds, small creatures moving around at night. She always seemed to be out of milk and her cat, Steven, had run away. Weirder than that, though, was that the house was always clean. Immaculate. She found clothes she swore she'd thrown on the floor folded up and put neatly in drawers. The dishes magically made themselves and flowers bloomed in her garden even though she rarely tended to them.

The Pest Control-man finished his glass of water and handed it back to Meg. He took the little red hat from her hand, pulled out a pair of reading glasses from another pocket and examined the hat closely.

"Mm", he said, "See how well-kept it is? Almost spotless?" Meg agreed that yes, the hat was in very good shape.

"That means you've probably got house gnomes."

"There are different kinds of gnomes?", inquired Meg.

"Sure. There are house gnomes, dune gnomes, creek gnomes, garden gnomes." He gave Meg a puzzled look, "Have you felt a little down lately, miss? Had the urge to drink whiskey in the middle of the week, stare at old pictures and listen excessively to Johnny Cash?"

Meg shook her head and the man nodded. "So it's definitely not garden gnomes, then. They spread melancholy around like pollen. Could be milk gnomes, dandy gnomes, rodeo gnomes, pentatonic scale-blues gnomes".

"But I don't live close to the rodeo", said Meg.

"Oh, it's just names, miss. Gnomes are sensitive creatures, very easily offended. They only socialize with like-minded gnomes. Worst case scenario", he said and shuddered, "it's Siberian gnomes."

"Surely, it could be worse than that, right?" said Meg, trying to lighten the mood, "At least I don't have dragons."

"Spend a month with Siberian Death Squad gnomes, ma'am, and you'll find yourself wishing it'd been dragons."

"Oh"

"My best advice is to invest in a couple of toadstools, put out some milk and cookies every night and hope they take a shining to you". He handed the little red hat back to Meg. "House gnomes can be real helpful if they like you".