It�s raining on Saturday morning. Mark has never had much trouble with finding things to do, and he�s actually glad to see the rain. He loves those kids� TV shows where they make things from old washing-up liquid bottles and the sticks from ice creams and other things lying around the house. Mark always tries to make things that they really need out of things they don�t really need. Last weekend he saw a TV programme about the potato famine. Potatoes were the one thing they really needed back then. He tried to think of something they had plenty of but didn�t really need, and the thing that seemed most obvious was rain. So he decided to make potatoes out of rain.

He�s been waiting since last weekend for the rain. There�s a leak in the roof over the back porch, so he puts a bucket under that. He gets Jammy to stand next to the sink (Jammy is the name he gave to the strawberry jam � it was either that or Trixie, and the jam seemed happier with Jammy. The jam is actually sitting on the worktop next to the sink). Jammy is playing the butler. The rain will play� the rain will probably just play itself (Mark and Mr. Hollywood-Story Blanket will have to play that by ear). Mark and Mr. Hollywood-Story Blanket will definitely play themselves. The clock can be� Lady Something. Lady Something-Hat. Mark and Mr. Hollywood-Story Blanket will talk to Lady Something-Hat. Mark will say something about the peacocks on the lawns and Mr. Hollywood-Story Blanket will back him up. And then Derek will arrive with the potatoes.

An hour later there�s no sign of the potatoes and the rain is starting to clear. It�s Mr. Hollywood-Story Blanket who comes up with the idea of actually doing something, and that sounds appealing to Mark. He remembers when they made the TV out of an old box � they had to do something then. Same with the dog kennel � they did things. That�s what they�ll have to do to make the potatoes out of the rain, but what exactly do they have to do? That�s the problem. It�ll probably involve the bucket of rain water.

Mark decides to mix some glue in with the rain water, and then he adds in a few gold stars and a pipe cleaner. It�s still not quite potatoes, but they�re definitely moving in the right direction. It�s much more like potatoes than what Derek brought, which was nothing. Derek couldn�t even bring himself into existence.

Again, it�s Mr. Hollywood-Story Blanket who comes up with the idea of applying this �doing things� concept to other things. Mark comes up with the idea at about the same time. He says, �That�s exactly what I was thinking, Mr. Hollywood-Story Blanket.�

The first thing they apply it to is the red things. Mark has a feeling that the appearance of all these red things has something to do with the elk, possibly even the elf. If Jason is responsible, then he must have some interest in the red things, so Mr. Hollywood-Story Blanket comes up with the idea of leaving a bait in his path and seeing if he�d be tempted by it.

It has to be something red, and Mark remembers that they have a red cigarette lighter inside � that�d be perfect bait for an elk. So he puts the red cigarette lighter on one of the fence posts at the back of the garden, then he stands back and waits.

Joe, Steve and Emily are in the beer garden behind the pub at one o� clock. It�s a beautiful summer day now that the rain has cleared, a perfect day to be outside, but not the ideal time to be dressed in a Mini Mouse costume. Alfred got Maeve, an actress from the film, to play the part. Joe, Steve and Emily just see Mini�s smiling face when she walks into the beer garden behind Alfred, but the actress underneath isn�t smiling. A few years ago, she played Lady Macbeth and the director thought it would be a good idea for her to do a little dance every time she said something. At the time she thought her career couldn�t possibly sink any lower than that, but this is much worse. She could never have imagined playing Mini Mouse to three people so they can determine if she�s heavier than a brain. And the heat isn�t helping her see the bright side either. Alfred had to do a lot of persuading to talk her into this.

Alfred got an actor from the film to play Tom Thumb too � it�s the rust puppy who�ll be playing Little Kitty Fake Tan. The puppy is dressed in a Sherlock Holmes outfit. A dwarf would have been way too expensive for a minor role like this, and bees would be too much trouble. They only got the puppy this morning, and over the past few hours Alfred has been conditioning him to dislike pencils by showing him photos of cats having fun with pencils, and giving him a biscuit every time he growled at a pencil.

Alfred introduces them and says, �It�s definitely the pencil that reminds Tom Thumb most of the past.� He takes out a pencil and the rust puppy growls at it. Then he takes out a dagger and the puppy just stares blankly at it. He�s transfixed by the metal. When Alfred moves the dagger around, the puppy�s head follows. �There�s a very good reason why Tom Thumb would associate the pencil with his past. His father owned a huge pencil company � he was the biggest manufacturer of pencils in the world � Thumb Pencils � but he lost it when a rival company called �Thumb and Forefinger Pencils� was set up. Only people with a thumb and no fingers bought Thumb pencils, so sales plummeted, and all of the people who did buy them complained because they couldn�t use them with just a thumb. The Thumb family lost their home. Tom had always expected to go into the family business, but now he�s struggling to make his way as an actor.�

The puppy still stares blankly at the dagger. Alfred says, �Oh, and he does believe that he has free will. Don�t ya, Tom?�

He moves the dagger up and down and the puppy nods.

�Now, moving on to the other question. Is Mini Mouse heavier than Joe�s brain? I brought a weighing scales with me. Mini, would you mind going first?� He puts the scales on the ground and Mini steps onto it. �That�s about� twelve stone. Now it�s your turn, Joe.�

�Will I have to remove my brain for this?�

�No. You can remove your shoes if you want, but I have a feeling that Mini might just about be heavier than your whole body, and if she is, then she has to be heavier than your brain as well.�

Joe steps on the scales. He�s just under eleven stone.

�Well there you are, Joe,� Alfred says. �Definitive proof at last � Mini Mouse is heavier than your brain.�

�Can I try that again without my shoes?�

�No Joe, you�d be lighter without your shoes.�

Joe seems a bit disappointed with this result, but Steve thinks it�s hilarious. �You wouldn�t be any lighter if you tried it without your brain. You�re lighter than a female mouse! Imagine how tiny your brain must be if your whole body is lighter than a female mouse.�

�That doesn�t say anything about the size of my brain. It says much more about the size of the female mouse.�

�He�s got a point there, Mini,� Steve says. ��Mini� must be an ironic name. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. You must have eaten a hell of a lot of cheese. I bet you�re not even allowed into Switzerland. Ha ha ha ha ha��

Mini just smiles back at him. Alfred goes inside to talk to the barman about using the pub in the film. He wanted to use it as a location anyway, but it�s part of the film now. The �monkey� scene will be filmed in the beer garden where it happened. Alfred wants to film it tomorrow afternoon, and the barman agrees to that. When he goes back outside, Steve is on the ground. Mini Mouse is sitting on top of him, repeatedly hitting his head off the ground.

�Oh God!� Alfred says. �We�ve got to get this into the film.�

Joe really enjoys this scene. Tom Thumb seems to enjoy it too. Alfred convinces Mini to leave Steve alone, and she goes away with Tom. Alfred hands a tape to Joe and says, �When ye tell Cyril about Tom Thumb�s past, play this tape for him. It�s an interview that Tom�s father gave to a radio programme. He tells the story of the rise and fall of his pencil empire. It�s heart-breaking to listen to.�

Joe, Steve and Emily leave the pub and walk towards Cyril�s house. Joe says to Steve, �We�ve been able to answer another question today too. Mini Mouse could beat the shit out of you.�

�She�s a woman. How could I fight back against a woman?�

�So you wouldn�t have a problem hitting Mickey Mouse?�

�Of course not.�

�It�s just as well then.�

�Why do you say that?�

�Because you�re bound to get a chance to hit Mickey Mouse. He�ll be after you now.�

�Why would Mickey Mouse be after me?�

�Why do you think? You insulted his wife. If �Mini� refers to her capacity for violence. You�re in trouble.�

�But she already got me back. We�re even now. If anything, she got me back a bit too much. I never said anything to deserve that.�

�Yeah, but he�s her husband. Violence is the sort of things husbands do when their wives are insulted. He can�t let his wife carry out all the violence. He�ll look weak.�

�She might not even tell him about it if she expects him to get violent.�

�It sounds to me as if you�re afraid of Mickey Mouse.�

�Of course I�m not afraid. She might not tell him because she�d be afraid he�d get hurt.�

�I wouldn�t be so sure about that. She looks like a mouse who�s not afraid of violence. I bet she�s been in jail. She probably appreciates free will more than anyone now that she�s out of jail.�

�No Joe,� Emily says. �You seem to have a slight confusion about free will. It�s not the same thing as freedom. Mini Mouse would have just as much free will in jail as she has outside. Or Nelson Mandela � he wasn�t free when he was in jail, but he had free will. Or he didn�t have free will. But if he didn�t have free will in jail, he doesn�t have it now that he�s free.�

�Surely Nelson Mandela has free will.�

�If you believe Cyril, then no one has free will. I�m not sure I believe Cyril. It�s the same with the hedgehogs � just because they don�t do very much, you can�t say anything about whether or not they have free will. You can�t say that a key ring has more free will than a hedgehog just because it flies through the night sky. In fact, a key ring definitely does not have free will because it�s an inanimate object. It was your father who was throwing it.�

�What about Free Willy when he was alive?�

�When he was in captivity, he didn�t have any more or less free will than when he was set free. He was given his freedom, but not necessarily his free will.�

�What was the point of setting him free then?�

�I don�t know. To let him swim in the oceans, I suppose.�

�Where did he swim when he was in captivity?�

�I don�t know, like a huge tank or something. They set him free, but he had as much free will as the sharks or the barracudas back in the aquarium.�

�And they called that setting him free? That�s just moving to a bigger house. They only gave him more room to swim. He was a whale � all he�s going to do is swim and eat things. Estate agents must be saints. Look at all the people they liberate. Homeless people must be freer than anyone, sleeping outside in the cold. That�s what they did to Free Willy � they made him homeless by sending him to a freezing ocean. No wonder he died� What�s a barracuda?�

�It�s one of those things that flies by overhead, like the airplanes at night.�

�Oh right� I wonder if that woman in the nightclub will dance with me now that I can answer that question about my brain.�

Cyril just got out of bed. He only had a few hours sleep after spending most of the night in hospital. He isn�t surprised to hear that Mini Mouse is heavier than Joe�s brain, although he is a little bit surprised that they met her and she let them weigh her. They play the tape that Alfred gave them of Tom Thumb�s father on the radio. It�s just non-stop barking for about twenty minutes. The noise covers the sound of a technician from the film working on a socket in the kitchen.

At the end of the tape, Cyril says, �That certainly was powerful stuff.�

�Oh yeah,� Steve says, �Tom Thumb reckons he does have free will.�

�Maybe he does. Who can say for sure? But all I�m saying is that it doesn�t really make much difference to how we live our lives.�

�I�ve been thinking about this,� Emily says. �You look back over things and say that everything is determined by causes. You say that things couldn�t have happened any other way, but if things could have gone differently at a certain point, you�d still have said that they couldn�t go any other way. If someone with free will makes a choice and changes the course of events, you�ll say that it couldn�t have gone any differently because they were determined to make that choice, but if they�d chosen differently, you�d have said that that decision was determined too.�

�Maybe you�re right, but we still make decisions according to circumstances and who we are, and who we are is defined by our genes and our past experience. I don�t see how free will can change the course of events.�

�But what if we ourselves define who we are, and we influence the circumstances we find ourselves in.�

�There is no �I� apart from the �I� embedded in this world. We�re determined by this world. The world shape us rather than us shaping the world.�

�What if there�s something in us that�s completely independent of the world and all our experiences, something that isn�t determined by past events.�

�That�s basically religion, isn�t it? An independent soul. You need faith to believe something like that. If you think you�re acting independently of your experiences, how do you know that your experiences haven�t led you into thinking that? You can�t really say for sure whether or not we have free will, but if you believe that we do, that sounds like religion to me. If you want to believe that, that�s fine, but I don�t. Why would you want to be controlled by an independent soul? I�d rather be controlled by a rational brain that�s capable of understanding the world around it, and making choices based on that understanding. If you don�t understand the things that shape your life, or the reasons why you do certain things, that�s when God and free will make sense, but you�re not free at all then. If you understand the things that shape your life, then you can shape those forces. You have more control over your life. You�re much freer then because you�re not so much of a victim to circumstances. You�re free if you have the ability to control your destiny through knowledge of the things that shape your destiny, through knowledge of the world.�

�There�s one other thing I thought of,� Emily says. �If everything is determined by causes, then surely you should be able to predict the future.�

�There are too many factors that can influence the course of even the smallest events. It�s just too complex. And maybe chance does play some part. Maybe some of our actions are down to pure chance. But if you change the course of events because of pure chance, that�s not free will.�

Joe and Steve don�t really know what to say to that. Emily says, �I went to a fortune-teller a few weeks ago, and she told me that Little Kitty Fake Tan wanted a new fridge. How could she know something like that?�

�My grandmother was psychic,� Joe says, �and she used to say that people end up looking like their lawns.�

�I�ll make the tea,� Cyril says. That�s all he can think of saying to that.

He goes to the kitchen and turns on the switch at the socket where the kettle is plugged in, and he gets a shock from it. He pulls his hand away and says, �Ow!�

The others come into the kitchen to see what�s wrong. �I just got a shock from the socket,� Cyril says.

�It�s the bloody smoking ban again,� Joe says. �None of this would be happening if it hadn�t been introduced. I�d rather take my chances with passive smoking than get hit over the head with a weighing scales or get electrocuted.�

Emily stares at the socket and moves slowly towards it. She doesn�t even notice the paramedics trying to pin Cyril down. The paramedics take no notice of Emily as she touches the socket and gets a shock from it herself. They take Cyril away on the stretcher. Emily stares out of the kitchen window with a faint smile on her face. Two minor electrocutions in twenty-four hours. This must mean something. If this is just the first link in a chain of events, the end must be something spectacular.

She looks around the kitchen and realises she�s on her own. She goes into the hall. Joe and Steve are standing at the front door, looking out. She looks out too, but there�s nothing to see. �Where�s Cyril?�