Hamgar never really noticed the fat little Cherubs flying around, or sitting on the beams above him. For as long as he could remember, Cherubs had always been everywhere, so common that he no longer saw them, and if he had, well, they were nothing to do with him at this time in his life. The Cherubs, he would have thought, if he did think about them, which really he didn’t, were looking at the young ones, the pretty girls and the handsome boys, not interested in him at all.

And to tell you the truth, they weren’t.

Now Bertrand was a special kind of Cherub called a Cupid. And he was trying really hard to be a good Cupid and to remember all of the instructions he had been taught by his tutors and his mum. But the trouble was, you see, that being that special kind of Cherub called a Cupid he didn’t just have to remember how to fly around and sit in the rafters and on the top of columns. He had to manage a little bow and arrow as well. And he had to do that while he was flying.

You can imagine how difficult it would be for you, remembering to flap your little wings and watch where you were going all the while holding on to a tiny bow in one hand and your fistful of fiddly little arrows in the other. It wouldn’t be easy for anyone and it was all the more difficult because, being a Cupid, and very young, and very new to it all, and his fingers being a bit Cherub-cute and pudgy, holding his little bow and arrow with his fat little fingers was difficult. I mean, had the bow and the arrows been a little larger it might have been easier for a novice Cupid to manage them. But Bertrand wanted so much to get it right. Every chance he got, he’d sit and practise with his little bow and arrow. But it was so hard. He’d take an arrow out of his quiver and try to hold it in place on the bowstring. He’d even flutter his tiny wings as he tried to pull the arrow back a little. But almost always it just went “plop!” onto the floor.

So on this particular day, Bertrand was sitting in Hamgar’s workshop practising as usual and not getting very far as usual, his arrows plopping about into the nets and hangings that were suspended about the workshop. Down below him Hamgar was, as usual, working away, teaching his pupils and now and again chatting to his fellow artisans. It was just a normal day and Hamgar was quite unconscious of Bertrand’s presence above him. Had he looked down, Bertrand could not have seen very much of Hamgar but his grey hair and his shoulders.

Also in the workshop that day were many others as always. Among them Maria the seamstress was there this day, and Alad the painter, and Melina, his voluptuous artist’s model, and ElenoraTrulov, the sculptor of perfect Russian miniatures, and Kira the romantic poet, all busily pursuing their crafts.

When it happened, Hamgar was idly admiring the fine decorative brushstrokes of Elenora’s miniatures, as he often admiringly did. Above him, distracted and frustrated, Bertrand was struggling with his bow and arrow.

And today Bertrand, unnoticed by the artisans below, was beginning to get it.

If only, for Hamgar’s sake, that he hadn’t only almost got it