It has been a long, racket-filled day of workers repairing fences. After a quiet dinner, I settled down for some dessert (an orange, nothing to get excited about) when I heard what sounded like a team of roof rats with high heels walking around on the patio. After a bit, it sounded like a few had managed to get inside. Very soon, the phone would ring and I would hear a hollow but ominous squeaking at the other end.

But then something very large flew across the room to the lamp, bounced off and careened to a wall, bounced off, went to the window, bounced . . . well, you get the idea. I didn’t get a good look, but went outside, because it’s not everyday you see a bunch of rats wearing clackety heels. The insect came outside as well. When I went in the garage, it followed, throwing itself against surfaces.

Perhaps it was the gnome, angry that I’d written of its supposed theft of apricots.

The little apricot tree suffered in the spring. Buffeted by unseasonal rains, high winds, and life in general, it could only muster the energy for half a dozen fruits. Three of these were on a single branch, which I covered with swaths of white garden fabric.

On Sunday, the fabric was tossed aside (it was not a windy night), the three apricots gone and the branch broken. When I blamed large varmints, a family member recalled that we suspected gnomes in the past for various misdeeds.

It stands to reason that a hungry gnome might go for the apricots, leaving us an equal amount, although the ones left have brown spots on them, obviously passed over.

Now I’m wondering if my green but rapidly growing tomatoes might be the next casualties. Just because someone likes apricots doesn’t mean they will also pick tomatoes before their time.

There was the bag of lemons that had turned a dark, forbidding green. Spinach and scallions that were just this side of completely dissolved. Old, squishy apples. Liquid lettuce. In my rush to get them out fast, I moved the wastebasket right next to the crisper and started flipping stuff out.

Of course my zeal backfired and I got a frontal splash of brown goo. Not quite the mess that Clive Owen got in Greenfingers when he plunged a toilet too enthusiastically. Nor was it the ungodly consistency of the measles medicine Nanny McPhee doled out. But still.