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Now they all begin at once. ‘Oh Snowman, oh Snowman, can we have feathers too, please?’ ‘No,’ he says. ‘Why not, why not?’ sing the two smallest ones. ‘Just a minute, I'll ask Crake.’ He holds his watch up to the sky, turns it around on his wrist, then puts it to his ear as if listening to it. They follow each motion, enthralled. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Crake says you can't. No feathers for you. Now piss off.’ ‘Piss off? Piss off?’ They look at one another, then at him. He's made a mistake, he's said a new thing, one that's impossible to explain. Piss isn't something they'd find insulting. ‘What is piss off?’ ‘Go away!’ He flaps his sheet at them and they scatter, running along the beach. They're still not sure whether to be afraid of him, or how afraid. He hasn't been known to harm a child, but his nature is not fully understood. There's no telling what he might do.
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