“I’ll go!” David said, without hesitation. The eight-year-old was the only one out of 12 grandchildren who really enjoyed staying at his grandmother’s house in Mdina, even though none of the children had any specific reason for not wanting to go there.

She was now in her 80s and living alone, and David’s father worried about leaving her on her own at night. Most of his children were too young to be of any use to her should she need anything but David was one of the eldest.

He slept in a little gallery overlooking the large sitting room and he could pretend he was anything he wanted to be: a sea captain, a soldier, a fireman.

Below him, the room was large and quiet. Huge paintings in thick, heavy frames virtually lined the walls and he looked at them with the hushed awe of childhood.

He was quite happy playing on his own in the silent time until he fell asleep. And he certainly did not expect to be awakened.

But one night something did disturb him and he opened his eyes. There was someone in the room. He could hear him moving around. He sat up in his little bed and peered over into the room. A little dwarf was leaping around the room, jumping from the top of one portrait to the other, working his way around the room. He was only about two feet tall and seemed weightless.

He was wearing green trousers and a white shirt, with a sash around his waist. He had no hat on, so David could see his pointed ears quite clearly. And his shoes had long, curling tips to them.

To this day, David, now in his 40s, wonders whether anyone else ever saw the little man with the pointedears again

David rubbed his eyes, certain that he was still asleep, but the dwarf ignored him. Eventually, David grew bored watching him and fell asleep, in the way that only a child could.

The next day, he was sure that he had dreamed the whole thing and he did not mention it to his grandmother. But the following week, when he went back there to spend the night, he was once again woken up by the little dwarf, skipping merrily from portrait to portrait.

This time, the dwarf noticed David. It stopped and with a cheeky grin, hopped down on to the ground. It wandered over to one of the large floor slabs and beckoned David down. At first David did not move. The dwarf kept jumping up and down excitedly, and eventually David’s curiosity got the better of him and he wandered down.

The dwarf pointed at the slab once again. The slab looked like any other but when David got down on his hands and knees, he realised that it was loose. He lifted it up and found, underneath, a lovely, shiny coin.

He had never seen such a valuable coin and grabbed it, replacing the slab carefully, but when he got up again, the dwarf was gone. He waited for a while but the dwarf did not reappear and he went back to bed, falling asleep soon after with the coin clutched in his fist.

The next day, he remembered his dream as soon as he woke up. Except that it couldn’t have been a dream, because in the palm of his hand was the large, shiny coin.

David gave the coin to his grandmother. She had never seen anything untoward in the room and there were no other coins stashed under the floor slab.

Old wives’ tales do say that if you tell anyone about secret gifts of money that you will never find anymore.

To this day, David, now in his 40s, wonders whether anyone else ever saw the little man with the pointed ears again.

Another family still lives in the house, in one of the rambling alleys behind the cathedral. Perhaps they have never said anything, worried that their source of money might dry up. Perhaps not.

This is the 30th in a series of short stories The Sunday Times of Malta is running every Sunday. It is taken from The Unexplained Plus (Allied Publications) by Vanessa Macdonald. The first edition was published in 2001 and reprint ed twice. It was republished, with added stories, as The Unexplained Plus. The Maltese version of the book, Ta’ Barra Minn Hawn (Klabb Kotba Maltin), is available from all leading bookstores and stationers and from www.bdlbooks.com.