Run to the Lifts Lifts, won’t you carry me? Run to the Walls, Walls, won’t you hide me? Run to the Truck, Truck, won’t you take me? All on that Day. From The Book of Nome, Exits Chap. 1, v. I. IT STARTED WITH silence when there should have been noise. All the nomes were used to the distant thumping and murmuring of the humans during the long daylight hours, so they didn’t notice it. Now that it was gone, they could hear the strange, oppressive silence. There were days, of course, when humans didn’t come into the Store—for instance, Arnold Bros (est. 1905) sometimes allowed them almost a week off between the excitement of Christmas Fayre and the hurly-burly of Winter Sale Starts Today! But the nomes were used to this; it was part of the gentle rhythm of Store life. This wasn’t the right day. After several hours of silence, they just stopped telling one another not to worry, it was probably just some special day or something, like that time when the Store had shut for a week for redecoration, and one or two of the braver or more inquisitive ones risked a quick glance above floor level.
