This is the fourth book in the 'Borrowers' series and it was the last for a couple of decades. Mary Norton published the original novel in 1952 and had expanded to four by 1961, but that was it for a couple of decades, the final volume, 'The Borrowers Avenged' not arriving until 1982. The only dip she made back into the series was a 1966 short story, 'Poor Stainless', which is included in my copy of this volume. The ending is therefore as frustrating as the ending of 'The Borrowers' in that we know this isn't the end but Norton leaves us on the hook wondering what's next for the characters and whether they're going to be OK. A two-decade wait for an answer must have been painful.

If you'll recall, the Clock family were heading to the model village at Little Fordham last time out in 'The Borrowers Afloat' but got caught up in all sorts of shenanigans in the river. Here, they've made it and it would appear to be a perfect home for them, but for once Norton spends far more time with human characters than Borrowers. And that's really cool, because it introduces us to a clearly neurodivergent gentleman who's having the time of his life and accidentally making a lot of people very happy.

He's Mr. Pott and the model village is his in the sense that he built it. There's no reason for it. It's just something he likes to do and so he does it. A lot. People started coming to see it and they pay a penny for the privilege that goes to charity. Kids get in for free. As it grew, Mr. Pott got a lot of help from villagers, like Miss Menzies who makes miniature clothes for the miniature figures that populate his miniature buildings. It's a real labour of love. Because it's all so detailed, it took him two years and seven months to build a railway station and then he started on the village around it. I absolutely adore this in every detail. Kudos, Mr. Pott!

Not far away, there's another gentleman called Mr. Platter, who's doing much the same thing but he's not doing it because he wants to. His wife sells teas as a business, so when he saw the success of Mr. Pott's model village, he copied it for commercial gain. There's no joy involved in making it. Nothing in it is unique or detailed or perfect. It's just a copy, nothing more, a cheap knockoff and it's only there as a roadside attraction to persuade passing cars to stop and have his wife's teas. It deserves absolutely no kudos whatsoever.

If it wasn't clear at this point that Mr. Pott is the good guy in a story that really isn't about him at all and Mr. Platter is the bad guy, Norton underlines that by building a one -ided rivalry. Mr. Pott, lost in his work, may not even realise that Mr. Platter even exists, let alone his model village, but Mr. Platter certainly knows that Mr. Pott exists. In fact, he has to pay very close attention indeed to what Mr. Pott is doing, because every time he adds something new, fewer people stop and the sale of teas drops off. Therefore, he's taken to spying on Mr. Pott to help stay ahead of whatever he'll do next. And that's when he sees Borrowers.

Every 'Borrowers' novel has started with regular people and then shifts to the perspective of the Clocks so that we can experience what's going on with them and this one is no different, except it takes a long time to shift. Most of the first nine chapters are told from the perspective of people while only one really features Borrowers. However, chapter ten is all theirs and we continue with them for most of the rest of the book. That truly begins when Mr. Platter steals them because he can't copy living people and places them into his attic while he improves his model village so they can become part of the attraction, like it's a zoo.

Now, the more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that there are plenty of clues in the titles of these books as to what's going to be happening in them. 'The Borrowers' was our introduction  to this tiny world, but 'The Borrowers Afield' saw them move out of a house and into a field, 'The Borrowers Afloat' took them onto the river and 'The Borrowers Aloft' takes them into the air, as they plan their escape from the Platters' attic. Incidentally, presumably deliberately, these titles aren't just descriptive but alliterative and alphabetical too. That holds true into the fifth volume, 'The Borrowers Avenged'.

There are many reasons to enjoy these books. The characters are well-drawn, especially the Clock family who are the protagonists throughout. The action is gripping and cleverly thought out. The interaction between Borrowers and human beans is fascinating, with all sorts of ramifications for how these tiny people see the world they live in. However, the one that comes to the fore here is probably my favourite, namely how they use the things that they find around them for their own benefit. I enjoyed that in the first book, with their postage stamp wall art and matchbox chests of drawers, but it really comes into its own in the Platters' attic.

This isn't about finding things they can use just for convenience, like seeking out cotton reels for stools or blotting paper for carpet. It's about finding things that will enable their escape from an awkward captivity at the very top of the Platters' house. Norton gets seriously detailed here and that's the biggest joy in this book. Arrietty finds the key in a large balloon, but there's a lot more work needed before they can use it to fly out and back to their home.

Some of it's basic borrowing, which Pod knows well, but some of it's pretty intricate engineering. After all, they have to harness that balloon to a basket, fill it with gas that they can control with valves, so that they don't just vanish up into the sky. They must be able to fly out of the window, rise into the air and then come back down again after navigating back to Mr. Pott's model village. They pick up a lot of this knowledge from a copy of the 'Illustrated London News' and its detailed glimpse at a revived sport of free ballooning. I enjoyed every discovery, every breakthrough and every practice trip up to the ceiling and back. It's glorious stuff.

In and amongst this urgency, there are some series arc progressions that went nowhere in 1961, because this was the final book for two decades, but I hope were addressed in the eventual fifth volume. For instance, it's been pretty obvious for some time that Pod and Homily want to locate somewhere that will be safe for them to live and borrow and not engage with human beans, but Arrietty is a wilder spirit. She likes Spiller and she likes Spiller's lifestyle, so it's hardly a surprise when she announces in the air most of the way into the novel that she's decided to marry him.

This may well be my favourite book in the series thus far. The first is wonderful and self-contained, but the Clocks had to move on and I wasn't sold on how that went first time out in 'The Borrowers Afield'. Each subsequent volume has got better and better though and this one may well surpass the original. I'm just incredibly happy right now that I don't have to wait twenty-one years for the next book to come out. It's already on my shelf. I'll be diving into that next month to wrap up the series. Mary Norton died in 1992, a decade after 'The Borrowers Avenged', so unless her estate's got unpublished manuscripts sitting in a drawer somewhere, that one is it. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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