Space swirled and distorted once more, and Rose found herself sitting in the storyteller's chair. The room was otherwise empty, littered with discarded toys. She checked her watch, and then the wall clock. By the look of things, the story had finished about a quarter of an hour ago, and she'd somehow skipped the time between then and now.

She got up. The storybook was lying open on a nearby table, turned to the last page of the story.

Yeah, she said to herself, glancing at the picture of the Duke. He does look like an Ood, doesn't he?

She closed the book, and returned it to the shelf. Then she looked round once again at the silent, empty nursery.

They can't have all gone home, she thought. Where are they? And where's—

"Hi," Mickey's voice said, behind her. Rose turned, relief swelling in her heart.

"Mickey! Where is everyone?"

"The kids are all playing in the garden. That Mara woman's keeping an eye on them — I just thought I'd check to see if you'd come back yet."

Rose smiled. "Here I am. Clean, dry, got my proper clothes back, and those blisters have gone. It's like Izzy said: things that happen to you in the stories aren't permanent."

"That's great."

"Still feel worn out, though. And next time we see Lynda I'm gonna give her what for." A thought struck her. "Why are the kids outside?"

"They were arguing about if you could tell which way a bike was going from the marks it left. You remember. All that stuff with one wheel crossing the other. One of those baby Doctors — you know, the blond one with curly hair and all the colours on his clothes — said you couldn't, and little Peri said how would he know, he'd never been on a bike in his life, and so on. Anyway, they're out there with a trike making trails in the mud. Only there wasn't any mud, so I let them use the garden hose to make some."

"You did what?" Rose stared at him in horror. "Mickey, we're supposed to be making sure these kids don't get up to mischief! And you let them turn the garden into a swamp?"

"Relax, Rose. Like I said, Mara's keeping an eye on them."

"Mara? You idiot! Mara's a demon! She'd probably watch the whole lot drown in front of her eyes! We need to get them back in here before there's some kind of disaster!"

She rushed off in the direction of the garden.

"Take care you don't trip over the—" Mickey called after her.

From the direction Rose had run in came an ear-splitting scream, cut short by a thunderous splash. This, in turn, was followed by childish laughter, several lesser splashes, more laughter, and an epithet-laden description of what Rose, given half a chance, would like to do to Lynda.

"— trike." Mickey shook his head sadly, and went to see just how bad the damage was.

"The children really seemed to enjoy your story," Izzy said, closing the side gate behind the three of them. "And several of them said how nice it was that you joined in with their games in the garden."

"Yeah, thanks," Rose said wearily. Even with Mickey's and Mara's help it had taken a Herculean effort to get all the toddlers cleaned up after they'd finally tired of playing in the sea of mud that the garden had been reduced to. She hadn't had the time or the energy to do anything about her own condition, which meant she was still soaked to the skin and plastered from head to toe with mud. Izzy was either pretending — superbly well — not to notice the state of her, or else didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary for a visitor to end up like this. Rose wasn't sure which alternative was more unsettling.

"Do feel free to come back any time you like. It's nice for the little ones to have different storytellers now and again."

"Will do," Mickey said. "Bye for now."

Izzy shook hands with Mickey, patted Rose on the shoulder, absent-mindedly wiped her hand on a cloth, and headed back into the crêche. Rose and Mickey turned away and walked, or in Rose's case squelched, down the road in silence for a while.

"You doing anything this evening?" Mickey asked, casually.

"I'm having a long hot bath," Rose said firmly. "And then I'm going to bed. And if the Doctor — any of him — shows up, tell him: whatever it is, I'm not interested."

Mickey grinned. "Not a problem. Oh, hi there, Lynda."

"Lynda?" Rose spun round. Sure enough, Lynda was crossing the road to greet them.

"Hi there yourself," she said, and held up a camera phone. "Smile, please."

"You wouldn't—" Rose began.

"I did." Lynda held the screen just out of her reach, showing the picture she'd just taken — Rose, full-length, in all her mud-splattered glory, with an expression of pure horror on her face. "You look like a million credits. Today must have been so much fun for you."

"Give me that!"

"Sorry, it's already uploaded. Got to dash."

She suited her action to her words, darting lightly away down the pavement. Rose tried to give chase, but managed only half a dozen slow, squelching steps before she realised it was pointless.

"This is officially the fifty-ninth worst day of my life," she said. "Come on, let's get out of here."