Sleep Problems
A few stretches past… It must be noted here that in Cerbengese goblin circles, it is customary that time is measured by blinks of the eye, winks, stretches and yawns, but this is elaborated in another chapter of the Cerbengese Chronicle. So, as we said, a few stretches later, Tiny's opinion changed.
What happened, when they arrived, was that Strange Chap asked about some new wishes of Tiny. Tiny yawned a big one. She was over her daily run, so it was time to sleep according to her. She fell into her bed and said:
"I want to sleep!" and Strange Chap made her fall into a deep sleep within a blink of an eye. Tiny slept delightfully for another wink, when she was startled out of her sleep by the infernal sound of an alarm-clock. For that one blink of an eye, Strange Chap sat next to her bed as a regular alarm-clock.
"What? What happened?" she asked drowsily.
"I was just wondering, as a humble alarm-clock, what your next wish was."
"Is this why you woke me up?"
"I was compelled to," Strange Chap explained. "Because when you sleep, you can't tell me your wishes, while it could be that you want something very much, but unfortunately…"
"But unfortunately I still want to sleep," Tiny said in a slightly angry tone.
"And when do you want me to wake you up?"
"I don't want you to wake me up," Tiny raised her voice.
"You don't want to wake up?" Strange Chap wondered. "Let me call your attention to the fact that if you don't wake up, that can have horrible consequences…"
"I always woke up after sleeping before", Tiny said to him.
"Really?" the ghost lightened up. "And who waked you?"
"Usually no one, fortunately."
"You will never be exposed to such danger again!" Strange Chap swore. "I'll always wake you up, you only have to wish!"
Tiny closed her eyes. She thought about how she could get rid of this Strange, Very Servile and at the same time Very Annoying Chap, who had clearly no idea about the nature of sleep, and will never understand it until time immemorial. ("Until time immemorial" is a measurement of time used in Cerbengese circles, something like "the day after tomorrow" for bigger creatures.)
And he will not want to go away until then, either, which was a completely unbearable thought. Strange Chap didn't suspect any of this to be going on in Tiny's mind and started to worry that his new master is overcome by eagerness, so he started up again, like an alarm-clock. Tiny had a big sigh, and without opening her eyes, she grabbed Strange Chap, rattling in the figure of the alarm-clock. Then, very politely, very gently, very considerately and deeply feeling the full significance of the event, she threw it out of the open window.