Twyla Gaiter

Twyla Gaiter is Susan Sto Helit's charge as Nanny/Governess in Hogfather. She is five in years but thirty-five in cynicism. She is sister to Gawain Gaiter.

She belongs to the category of children who see Death as a skeleton, something most adults avoid doing. However, she also sees the monsters her first governess used to scare her with. Susan has discovered that if she cannot persuade Twyla that monsters do not exist, because they patently do, then she can at least make her also believe in the power of the poker to deal with them.

Twyla is not squeamish about the idea of monsters being beaten to death, indeed is prepared to wait around to see it happen. She does not go so far as her brother Gawain in deliberately stepping on the cracks between paving stones in order to get the tear you to bits bears into trouble. She is correct in believing that the nursery poker only kills monsters.

When Twyla told Susan that other children in the park said that the Hogfather did not exist, Susan asked her, “Does it matter if you get the presents anyway?” Twyla’s answer, from somewhere under the blankets, was ‘es. In this respect she is the same as Banjo Lilywhite, another five year old, and in the big scheme of things they seem to be proved right. Twyla concedes that she is consistently urged by Susan not to lithp in order to sound ingratiatingly cute.