The Lost Sock Department

Deep underneath the Bureau of Whimsy, below the boiler room and the spare stamp cupboard, there is a long, warm room that smells of clean washing. This is the Lost Sock Department. Every sock that has ever slipped down behind a washing machine, or wriggled out of a swimming bag, or been carried under the sofa by a cat, ends up here.

It is run by Mrs Darning, the Senior Sock Clerk, who wears half-moon glasses and a cardigan with forty-one pockets. She is helped by Sergeant Biscuit, a sausage dog with an excellent nose and very short legs. Biscuit can tell where any sock has been just by sniffing it. "Garden, wellington boot, a bit of strawberry yoghurt, Thursday," he will say.

One evening, just before closing time, the chute in the ceiling went fwump, and a single sock dropped into the In Tray. It was small and red, with a white heel and a green dinosaur on the ankle, and the dinosaur was wearing a party hat. Mrs Darning held it up to the lamp and read the little name label inside. "Hattie," she said. "Case number LS-4471, left foot."

"Right," said Mrs Darning, rolling up her sleeves. "Form S-2, please." Form S-2 is the Declaration of Being Odd, and every lost sock must fill one in. Socks cannot hold pens, so Mrs Darning asked the questions and Biscuit sniffed out the answers.

"Where were you last seen?" asked Mrs Darning. Biscuit sniffed. "Bedroom floor, next to a jigsaw puzzle." "And how did you get lost?" Sniff, sniff. "Fell out of a trouser leg on the way to the washing basket, rolled under the bed, met a crayon and stopped for a chat."

"And where," said Mrs Darning, "is your partner?" Biscuit sniffed, and sniffed again, and then he sat down and scratched behind his ear, which is what he does when he is thinking.

So they searched the Odd Sock Archive. It goes all the way up to the ceiling in rows of little pigeonholes, with a sock asleep in every one. There were stripy socks and spotty socks, football socks and fluffy bed socks, and one enormous woolly sock that belonged to a giant and had to be kept in a wardrobe. Mrs Darning climbed the ladder, and Biscuit checked the bottom shelves, which suited his legs. They found nine red socks, but not one of them had a dinosaur.

"Well," said Mrs Darning, coming down the ladder, "this is most irregular. A left foot with no right foot anywhere." Biscuit gave the dinosaur sock one last, very long sniff. Then his tail began to wag. "Mrs Darning," he said, "the other one isn't lost at all. It's at home in Hattie's top drawer, next to the pyjamas, and it's been waiting."

Mrs Darning took off her glasses and polished them, which is what she does when she is pleased. "Then this is not a lost sock," she said. "This is a sock that went the long way round. Form R-1, Biscuit, Return to Sender." Biscuit fetched the form in his mouth, only a little bit damp at one corner, and Mrs Darning stamped it with the big green stamp that says Homeward. THUMP.

They rolled the dinosaur sock into a neat little ball, the way socks like to travel, and tucked a note inside. The note said: Sorry for the delay, this sock stopped to chat with a crayon. Then Mrs Darning popped it into the Returns Pipe, and it went whoosh, up through the Bureau, past the clock tower and out into the evening air.

Far away, in a quiet house, Hattie was already asleep. She did not hear her drawer slide open, just a crack. She did not hear the small red sock unroll itself, stretch its heel and lie down beside its partner, toe to toe and dinosaur to dinosaur.

The two socks lay very still in the dark, warm and close, the way socks do when they are a pair again. The drawer slid shut without a sound, and the whole house was quiet.

And down underneath the Bureau, Mrs Darning switched off the lamp, and Biscuit curled up in the basket of clean odd socks, which is the softest bed in the whole department, and began to snore a small, sockish snore.