The Difficult one grabs me by my shirt. It tears, and he grabs me by the neck. He's got a wild look in his eyes.

He does look kind of like Snidely Whiplash. All he needs is a hat.

"Dude. Doblerize, man. Chill."

"Listen!" He's freaking out on me. "We--are--leaving! And you, my odoriferous twin, are coming with us! Do you understand?"

"All right, all right. Take a pill, man. We'll go. It'll be a quest, like Final Fantasy. Only no saves, so don't get killed."

"Good advice," says the Do-Gooder. "You can let go of him now," he says.

As Difficult comples it strikes me that the Do-Gooder is like Dudley to Difficult's Snidely, and I laugh out loud. They both glare at me, only Snidely does it with a sneer.

I wonder if I should tell them about the monsters who live in the shadows and I decide it's not that big a deal.

"Let me grab my stuff," I say, and pick up the bag of Doritos. "OK, I'm ready." I scan the floor. "Wait."

"What?"

"Did one of you guys bring a teddy bear?"

I assess the situtation quickly. Three men, all with simliar apperances, wearing different colours of leather pants- and all backwards?

Yes, backwards. This must be a mirror universe, like Am used to go on about when she was studying Theocracker's History of Bizzarre and Twisted Circumstances. Oh dear. Better get this over with.

"Hi," I say, with the best smile I can manage. "Do any of you happen to know Clovis?"

On my way to Goblin Market with armloads of takeout food - pizza, salad, spring rolls, roast chicken, ribs, falafel and a quiche. My inner voice said bring food, but neglected to specify what kind it wanted. Ah, well. I can always fill the fridge at home if no guests show up.

I'm having a little trouble with my glasses. They always fall to the end of my nose the second my hands are full. I try to adjust the pizza box to push my glasses, and end up lurching into the street.

I feel an icy squelching in my right shoe, and a single word flashes across my mind: soaker!

Hee! I haven't used that one for years. I realize that I'm falling, and I haven't let go of the food, and it's going to be very messy.

For some odd reason, though, it isn't. I'm not even wet. Even better, I see a familiar face!

"Knut!"

I grab my glasses. Oh, dear.

"Knuts! What the hell? And what is that?"

I lean forward. It's a tiny teddy bear wearing a skirt. How sweet. Of course, the way things work around here, it's probably armed to its little button eyes.

I finish looking over the plans. The stadium looks great, perfect for all sorts of death sports but I'm informed that there is a zoning issue to deal with before the bulldozers can start tearing up the Old Quarter. Obviously, something will have to be done.

"What's the problem boss?" Asks my dim-witted minion.

"Too many rules. Looks like I'll need to summon another army and just take over this place." I sigh. "It's just I'm always summoning armies and taking over places, it gets boring."

"Why not just get rid of the rules boss?"

I consider this for a moment. What the hell, I can always raise an army later if I need to. "I just had a great idea, I'm going to be the next mayor of this sorry city. Get busy Deimos, I'll need to find a spell to summon an election and some demonic campaign consultants."

My collection of books doesn't appear to have a election summoning spell. A few minutes with the yellow pages and Deimos and I are off to Carl's Deli and Magic Supply Shop.

It's that friend of Am's again. Oh no. Quickly, I dive behind the human in white leather trousers, screaming, "Save me! Save me! She'll curse us all to pieces!"

I reach over to give the bear a comforting pat on the back, but the poor little thing screams, throws its paws in the air, and races towards WhitePants!Knut.

"Do you guys realize that your pants are on backwards? And that one of you is wearing plaid leather? How the hell do you get plaid leather."

PlaidPants!Knut shrugs. BlackPants sneers.

"You think we look ridiculous? Take a look in the nearest puddle, kiddo."

I look down at my clothes. What the hell? My pants are on backwards; thank goodness I wore a loose pair today. My bra is also backwards. Ick. My shirt is inside out. WhitePants! Knut blushes as I try to adjust myself with discretion.

I realize that there are serious ramifications to being in mirror land.

"Cripes! The food!"

I tip the carriage driver, then turn to the doors of Goblin Market. They pop open for me, which is extremely useful when your hands are full with thrift store loot and you just know your keys are at the very bottom of your lunchbox purse.

As the doors lock behind me, I set the two bags down. Pete puts his book down on the fainting couch.

"So, only one of you?"

"Aren't you going to ask if I'm the good twin or the bad twin?"

"No. Your evil twin has a slightly more ... feral look in her eye."

"Huh. Good to know. She vanished, I don't know why."

Clovis creeps out onto the counter with the antique cash register.

"jili jilli jilli? my jilli? jilli! not other jilli!"

I pick up my Devilbunny and rub noses with him.

"And just how can you tell that?"

"just can. obvious."

I look at Pete. He shrugs.

"No evil twin for you?" I ask.

"Nah. Why bother? One would be grumpy, the other surly", he teases me.

Clovis' ears suddenly zing straight up, thwaping me in the eye.

"What was that in aid of?!"

"edward. edward lost! must go find edward!"

I set my obviously agitated Devilbunny on the counter and look at him.

"Who is Edward?" I ask in a patient tone. If he tells me Edward is a gingerbread minion, I'm not playing along.

"bear. minion bear. lost! in mirror with all the knuts."

"In the ... mirror. Minion bear."

I sigh, then turn to Pete.

"I don't like the sound of 'in a mirror with all the knuts.' I'm gonna run by MiracleMan's, see if he knows anything about mirrors and evil twins."

Pete rolls his eyes. "Probably does. It's probably all his fault. Say hi to Hector for me. Oh, and take the rabbit. He was frantic while you were gone. Annoyingly frantic."

I scoop Clovis back up, give Pete a kiss, and head back out the door. Good thing I didn't have any deliveries scheduled for today.

Pete watches Jilli go and then heads back behind the curtain into his studio.

"Bloody hell. I left it open." Pete heads over to the far wall of his studio where a grandfather clock stands (not ticking, that's too bloody annoying). A slight crack in the wall beside the clock reveals a dark descending stairwell beyond. As Pete starts to push it closed the distant murmor of swearing and moaning can be heard, all in a distinct British accent.

"Quit your whining and get on with it!" he yells down the stairwell. "There's three more to do before next Monday. Get 'em done early and maybe I'll let you play with the PS2."

Pete closes the sliding wall and drops onto a recliner in front of a widescreen TV. The TV simply reads 'Paused'.

"Of course, I'll be buggered if I give you a TV to plug it into though. Heh."

And the day goes by in a blur of video violence...

"No, sorry. Not my fault."

Jilli looks skeptical. I can only shrug.

"I'm serious," I tell her. "It's not me. It's my nemesis who I trapped in a mountain for five hundred years come back to wreak vengeance and give everyone a headache. Or take over the town. Or hog all the nachos and imported beer. Who knows? He's crazy."

"Your nemesis", I repeat. Clovis wiggles his ears.

"So, do you have any guesses as to what your nemesis will next pull out of his bag of tricks? Or are we just winging it?"

I sit down in a convenient chair. Clovis looks up at me.

"edward! find edward!"

"We will, bunny. We will."

So Clovis already knows about Edward, but not where she is. That could be a small problem.

Now it appears that Miracleman isn't going to blast me into little bits- smithereens are so last season- I sit on the couch instead of behind it, and arrange my expansive skirt. It doesn't rival Jilli's, but a girl has to have some pride.

From here, I can see out of the window, to the gutter on the other side of the street. Is it my imagination, or is there a very large spider crawling out?