A few months ago we bought a set of eight dragons. They're all no larger than perhaps seven inches tall, and so far they've lined the window sills in the breakfast nook, lending a little bit of bright color to the otherwise still undecorated room. They're very cool dragons, and if the company ever makes more, we'll be adding to our collection.

But the point of the dragons is that they are stuffed dragons, and as such, one might expect them to be fairly immobile. Occasionally some cat decides that there's only room on the sill for one fuzzy creature, and so down the dragons go, but they flop directly to the floor and stay there.

This has recently changed. One small red dragon, with crooked felt teeth and tiny plush wings, has made it upstairs. Richard found it in the bathroom yesterday, just sitting there, playing dumb. I think he must have taken it by surprise - perhaps it wasn't expecting to be caught so far from its window ledge.

There are suspicious tooth holes in the back of the little stuffed toy, but none of the cats can offer any information. They claim it's because they're too busy following all their toys upstairs and down. For example, several super balls have somehow migrated upstairs lately, and seem to prefer it there, no matter how many times Richard might search them out and toss them back to the first floor, where they can be pounced and chased in the middle of the night without waking us up (remind me again why I thought a carpet-free house was a good idea?).

Add to this the fact that the guest room door has been standing ajar the past two mornings when I got up (it doesn't latch - a situation we will have the contractor remedy when he comes for the one-year walkthrough), and the door to my antique sewing machine cabinet was also open, the contents strewn across the floor. There were small shapes darting madly away out of the room and melting into the shadows in the hall when I went to investigate, but by the time I turned on the light, the room was empty, save for the furniture and the teddy bears that line the window seat.

It must be poltergeists. The cats are all innocent - I've asked them and they alternately flopped, purred, or otherwise performed their most adorable acts of cuteness to convince me they knew nothing of this situation. So if it isn't the cats, then how else do we explain everything that's been happening? Stuffed animals that move. Small rubber balls that defy gravity and jump up the stairs. And now doors that open by themselves and shadows in the corners that disappear when I try to see what they are.

We put a bookshelf in front of the self-opening door so it can't swing in anymore. And tonight I'm going to move the little red dragon back down to its windowsill where it belongs, with warnings to stay put. Tomorrow morning, we'll see if it paid attention. I'm not holding my breath though. Despite Richard's best efforts the bat continues to travel on a regular basis. What's to stop a small red plush dragon from joining in? After all, they both have wings.