A Hat Full Of Sky

Chapter Four The PLN

At dawn Rob Anybody, watched with awe by his many brothers, wrote the word:

PLN

…on a scrap of paper bag. Then he held it up.

‘Plan, ye ken,’ he said to the assembled Feegles. ‘Now we have a Plan, all we got tae do is work out what tae do. Yes, Wullie?’

‘Whut was that about this geese Jeannie hit ye with?’ said Daft Wullie, lowering his hand.

‘Not geese, geas,’ said Rob Anybody. He sighed. ‘I told yez. That means it’s serious. It means I got tae bring back the big wee hag, an’ no excuses, otherwise my soul gaes slam-bang intae the big cludgie in the sky. It’s like a magical order. ‘Tis a heavy thing, tae be under a geas.’

‘Well, they’re big birds,’ said Daft Wullie.

‘Wullie,’ said Rob, patiently, ‘ye ken I said I would tell ye when there wuz times you should’ve kept your big gob shut?’

‘Aye, Rob.’

‘Weel, that wuz one o’ them times.’ He raised his voice. ‘Now, lads, ye ken all aboot hivers. They cannae be killed! But ‘tis oor duty to save the big wee hag, so this is, like, a sooey-side mission and yell probably all end up back in the land o’ the living doin’ a borin’ wee job. So… I’m askin’ for volunteers!’

Every Feegle over the age of four automatically put his hand up.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Rob. ‘You cannae all come! Look, I’ll tak’… Daft Wullie, Big Yan and… you, Awf’ly Wee Billy Bigchin. An’ I’m takin’ no weans, so if yez under three inches high ye’re not comin’! Except for ye, o’course, Awf’ly Wee Billy. As for the rest of youse, we’ll settle this the traditional Feegle way. I’ll tak’ the last fifty men still standing!’

He beckoned the chosen three to a place in the corner of the mound while the rest of the crowd squared up cheerfully. A Feegle liked to face enormous odds all by himself, because it meant you didn’t have to look where you were hitting.

‘She’s more’n a hundret miles awa’,’ said Rob as the big fight started. ‘We cannae run it, ‘tis too far. Any of youse scunners got any ideas?’

‘Hamish can get there on his buzzard,’ said Big Yan, stepping aside as a cluster of punching, kicking Feegles rolled past.

‘Aye, and he’ll come wi’ us, but he cannae tak’ more’n one passenger,’ shouted Rob over the din.

‘Can we swim it?’ said Daft Wullie, ducking as a stunned Feegle hurtled over his head.

The others looked at him. ‘Swim it? How can we swim there fra’ here, yer daftie?’ said Rob Anybody.

‘It’s just worth consid’ring, that’s all,’ said Wullie, looking hurt. ‘I wuz just tryin’ to make a contribution, ye ken? Just wanted to show willin’.’

‘The big wee hag left in a cart,’ said Big Yan.

‘Aye, so what?’ said Rob.

‘Weel, mebbe we could?’

‘Ach, no!’ said Rob. ‘Showin’ oursels tae hags is one thing, but not to other folks! You remember what happened a few years back when Daft Wullie got spotted by that lady who wuz painting the pretty pictures doon in the valley? I dinnae want to have them Folklore Society bigjobs pokin’ aroound again!’

‘I have an idea, Mister Rob. It’s me, Awf’ly Wee Billy Bigchin Mac Feegle. We could disguise oursels.’

Awf’ly Wee Billy Bigchin Mac Feegle always announced himself in full. He seemed to feel that if he didn’t tell people who he was, they’d forget about him and he’d disappear. When you’re half the size of most grown pictsies you’re really short; much shorter and you’d be a hole in the ground.

He was the new gonnagle. A gonnagle is the clan’s bard and battle poet, but they don’t spend all their lives in the same clan. In fact, they’re a sort of clan all by themselves. Gonnagles move around among the other clans, making sure the songs and stories get spread around all the Feegles. Awf’ly Wee Billy had come with Jeannie from the Long Lake clan, which often happens. He was very young for a gonnagle, but as Jeannie had said, there was no age limit to gonnagling. If the talent was in you, you gonnagled. And Awf’ly Wee Billy knew all the songs and could play the mousepipes so sadly that outside it would start to rain.

‘Aye, lad?’ said Rob Anybody kindly. ‘Speak up, then.’

‘Can we get hold o’ some human clothes?’ said Awf’ly Wee Billy. ‘Because there’s an old story about the big feud between the Three Peaks clan and the Windy River clan and the Windy River boys escaped by making a tattie-bogle walk, and the men o’ Three Peaks thought it was a bigjob and kept oot o’ its way.’

The others looked puzzled, and Awf’ly Wee Billy remembered that they were men of the Chalk and had probably never seen a tattie-bogle.

‘A scarecrow?’ he said. ‘It’s like a bigjob made o’ sticks, wi’ clothes on, for to frighten away the birdies fra’ the crops? Now, the song says the Windy River’s kelda used magic to make it walk, but I reckon it was done by cunnin’ and strength.’

He sang about it. They listened.

He explained how to make a human that would walk. They looked at one another. It was a mad, desperate plan, which was very dangerous and risky and would require tremendous strength and bravery to make it work.

Put like that, they agreed to it instantly.

Tiffany found that there was more than chores and the research, though. There was what Miss Level called ‘filling what’s empty and emptying what’s full’.

Usually only one of Miss Level’s bodies went out at a time. People thought Miss Level was twins, and she made sure they continued to do so, but she found it a little bit safer all round to keep the bodies apart. Tiffany could see why. You only had to watch both of Miss Level when she was eating. The bodies would pass plates to one another without saying a word, sometimes they’d eat off one another’s forks, and it was rather strange to see one person burp and the other one say ‘Oops, pardon me’.

‘Filling what’s empty and emptying what’s full’ meant wandering round the local villages and the isolated farms and, mostly, doing medicine. There were always bandages to change or expectant mothers to talk to. Witches did a lot of midwifery, which is a kind of ‘emptying what’s full’, but Miss Level, wearing her pointy hat, had only to turn up at a cottage for other people to suddenly come visiting, by sheer accident. And there was an awful lot of gossip and tea-drinking. Miss Level moved in a twitching, iving world of gossip, although Tiffany noticed that she picked up a lot more than she passed on.

It seemed to be a world made up entirely of women, but occasionally, out in the lanes, a man would strike up a conversation about the weather and somehow, by some sort of code, an ointment or a potion would get handed over.

Tiffany couldn’t quite work out how Miss Level got paid. Certainly the basket she carried filled up more than it emptied. They’d walk past a cottage and a woman would come scurrying out with a fresh-baked loaf or a jar of pickles, even though Miss Level hadn’t stopped there. But they’d spend an hour somewhere else, stitching up the leg of a farmer who’d been careless with an axe, and get a cup of tea and a stale biscuit. It didn’t seem fair.

‘Oh, it evens out,’ said Miss Level, as they walked on through the woods. ‘You do what you can. People give what they can, when they can. Old Slapwick there, with the leg, he’s as mean as a cat, but there’ll be a big cut of beef on my doorstep before the week’s end, you can bet on it. His wife will see to it. And pretty soon people will be killing their pigs for the winter, and I’ll get more brawn, ham, bacon and sausages turning up than a family could eat in a year.’

‘You do? What do you do with all that food?’

‘Store it,’ said Miss Level.

‘But you—’

‘I store it in other people. It’s amazing what you can store in other people.’ Miss Level laughed at Tiffany’s expression. ‘I mean, I take what I don’t need round to those who don’t have a pig, or who’re going through a bad patch, or who don’t have anyone to remember them.’

‘But that means they’ll owe you a favour!’

‘Right! And so it just keeps on going round. It all works out.’

‘I bet some people are too mean to pay—’

‘Not pay,’ said Miss Level, severely. ‘A witch never expects payment and never asks for it and just hopes she never needs to. But, sadly, you are right.’

‘And then what happens?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You stop helping them, do you?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Miss Level, genuinely shocked. ‘You can’t not help people just because they’re stupid or forgetful or unpleasant. Everyone’s poor round here. If I don’t help them, who will?’

‘Granny Aching… that is, my grandmother said someone has to speak up for them as has no voices,’ Tiffany volunteered after a moment.

‘Was she a witch?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Tiffany. ‘I think so, but she didn’t know she was. She mostly lived by herself in an old shepherding hut up on the downs.’

‘She wasn’t a cackler, was she?’ said Miss Level, and when she saw Tiffany’s expression she said hurriedly, ‘Sorry, sorry. But it can happen, when you’re a witch who doesn’t know it. You’re like a ship with no rudder. But obviously she wasn’t like that, I can tell’

‘She lived on the hills and talked to them and she knew more about sheep than anybody!’ said Tiffany hotly.

‘I’m sure she did, I’m sure she did—’

‘She never cackled!’

‘Good, good,’ said Miss Level soothingly. ‘Was she clever at medicine?’

Tiffany hesitated. ‘Um… only with sheep,’ she said, calming down. ‘But she was very good. Especially if it involved turpentine. Mostly if it involved turpentine, actually. But always she… was… just… there. Even when she wasn’t actually there…’

‘Yes,’ said Miss Level.

‘You know what I mean?’ said Tiffany.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Miss Level. ‘Your Granny Aching lived down on the uplands—’

‘No, up on the downland,’ Tiffany corrected her.

‘Sorry, up on the downland, with the sheep, but people would look up sometimes, look up at the hills, knowing she was there somewhere, and say to themselves “What would Granny Aching do?” or “What would Granny Aching say if she found out?” or “Is this the sort of thing Granny Aching would be angry about?” ’ said Miss Level. ‘Yes?’

Tiffany narrowed her eyes. It was true. She remembered when Granny Aching had hit a pedlar who’d overloaded his donkey and was beating it. Granny usually used only words, and not many of them. The man had been so frightened by her sudden rage that he’d stood there and taken it.

It had frightened Tiffany, too. Granny, who seldom said anything without thinking about it for ten minutes beforehand, had struck the wretched man twice across the face in a brief blur of movement. And then news had got around, all along the Chalk. For a while, at least, people were a little more gentle with their animals… For months after that moment with the pedlar, carters and drovers and farmers all across the downs would hesitate before raising a whip or a stick, and think: Suppose Granny Aching is watching?

But—

‘How did you know that?’ she said.

‘Oh, I guessed. She sounds like a witch to me, whatever she thought she was. A good one, too.’

Tiffany inflated with inherited pride.

‘Did she help people?’ Miss Level added.

The pride deflated a bit. The instant answer ‘yes’ jumped onto her tongue, and yet… Granny Aching hardly ever came down off the hills, except for Hogswatch and the early lambing. You seldom saw her in the village unless the pedlar who sold Jolly Sailor tobacco was late on his rounds, in which case she’d be down in a hurry and a flurry of greasy black skirts to cadge a pipeful off one of the old men.

But there wasn’t a person on the Chalk, from the Baron down, who didn’t owe something to Granny. And what they owed to her, she made them pay to others. She always knew who was short of a favour or two.

‘She made them help one another,’ she said. ‘She made them help themselves.’

In the silence that followed, Tiffany heard the birds singing by the road. You got a lot of birds here, but she missed the high scream of the buzzards.

Miss Level sighed. ‘Not many of us are that good,’ she said. ‘If I was that good, we wouldn’t be going to visit old Mr Weavall again.’

Tiffany said ‘Oh dear’ inside.

Most days included a visit to Mr Weavall. Tiffany dreaded them.

Mr Weavall’s skin was paper-thin and yellowish. He was always in the same old armchair, in a tiny room in a small cottage that smelled of old potatoes and was surrounded by a more or less overgrown garden. He’d be sitting bolt upright, his hands on two walking sticks, wearing a suit that was shiny with age, staring at the door.

‘I make sure he has something hot every day, although he eats like a bird,’ Miss Level had said. ‘And old Widow Tussy down the lane does his laundry, such as it is. He’s ninety-one, you know.’

Mr Weavall had very bright eyes and chatted away to and at them as they tidied up the room. The first time Tiffany had met him he’d called her Mary. Sometimes he still did. And he’d grabbed her wrist with surprising force as she walked past… It had been a real shock, that claw of a hand suddenly gripping her. You could see blue veins under the skin.

‘I shan’t be a burden on anyone,’ he’d said urgently. ‘I got money put by for when I go. My boy Toby won’t have nothin’ to worry about. I can pay my way! I want the proper funeral show, right? With the black horses and the plumes and the mutes and a knife-and-fork tea for everyone afterwards. I’ve written it all down, fair and square. Check in my box to make sure, will you? That witch woman’s always hanging around here!’

Tiffany had given Miss Level a despairing look. She’d nodded, and pointed to an old wooden box tucked under Mr Weavall’s chair.

It had turned out to be full of coins, mostly copper, but there were quite a few silver ones. It looked like a fortune, and for a moment she’d wished she had as much money.

‘There’s a lot of coins in here, Mr Weavall,’ she’d said.

Mr Weavall relaxed. ‘Ah, that’s right,’ he’d said. ‘Then I won’t be a burden.’

Today Mr Weavall was asleep when they called on him, snoring with his mouth open and his yellow-brown teeth showing. But he awoke in an instant, stared at them and then said, ‘My boy Toby’s coming to see I Sat’day.’

‘That’s nice, Mr Weavall,’ said Miss Level, plumping up his cushions. ‘We’ll get the place nice and tidy.’

‘He’s done very well for hisself, you know,’ said Mr Weavall, proudly. ‘Got a job indoors with no heavy lifting. He said he’ll see I all right in my old age, but I told him, I told him I’d pay my way when I go—the whole thing, the salt and earth and tuppence for the ferryman, too!’

Today, Miss Level gave him a shave. His hands shook too much for him to do it himself. (Yesterday she’d cut his toenails, because he couldn’t reach them; it was not a safe spectator sport, especially when one smashed a windowpane.)

‘It’s all in a box under my chair,’ he said as Tiffany nervously wiped the last bits of foam off him. ‘Just check for me, will you, Mary?’

Oh, yes. That was the ceremony, every day.

There was the box, and there was the money. He asked every time. There was always the same amount of money.

‘Tuppence for the ferryman?’ said Tiffany, as they walked home.

‘Mr Weavall remembers all the old funeral traditions,’ said Miss Level. ‘Some people believe that when you die you cross the River of Death and have to pay the ferryman. People don’t seem to worry about that these days. Perhaps there’s a bridge now.’

‘He’s always talking about… his funeral.’

‘Well, it’s important to him. Sometimes old people are like that. They’d hate people to think that they were too poor to pay for their own funeral. Mr Weavall’d die of shame if he couldn’t pay for his own funeral.’

‘It’s very sad, him being all alone like that. Something should be done for him,’ said Tiffany.

‘Yes. We’re doing it,’ said Miss Level. ‘And Mrs Tussy keeps a friendly eye on him.’

‘Yes, but it shouldn’t have to be us, should it?’

‘Who should it have to be?’ said Miss Level.

‘Well, what about this son he’s always talking about?’ said Tiffany.

‘Young Toby? He’s been dead for fifteen years. And Mary was the old man’s daughter, she died quite young. Mr Weavall is very short-sighted, but he sees better in the past.’

Tiffany didn’t know what to reply except: ‘It shouldn’t be like this.’

‘There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do.’

‘Well, couldn’t you help him by magic?’

‘I see to it that he’s in no pain, yes,’ said Miss Level.

‘But that’s just herbs.’

‘It’s still magic. Knowing things is magical, if other people don’t know them.’

‘Yes, but you know what I mean,’ said Tiffany, who felt she was losing this argument.

‘Oh, you mean make him young again?’ said Miss Level. ‘Fill his house with gold? That’s not what witches do.’

‘We see to it that lonely old men get a cooked dinner and cut their toenails?’ said Tiffany, just a little sarcastically.

‘Well, yes,’ said Miss Level. ‘We do what can be done. Mistress Weatherwax said you’ve got to learn that witchcraft is mostly about doing quite ordinary things.’

‘And you have do what she says?’ said Tiffany.

‘I listen to her advice,’ said Miss Level, coldly.

‘Mistress Weatherwax is the head witch, then, is she?’

‘Oh no!’ said Miss Level, looking shocked. ‘Witches are all equal. We don’t have things like head witches. That’s quite against the spirit of witchcraft.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Tiffany.

‘Besides,’ Miss Level added, ‘Mistress Weatherwax would never allow that sort of thing.’

Suddenly, things were going missing from the households around the Chalk. This wasn’t the occasional egg or chicken. Clothes were vanishing off washing lines. A pair of boots mysteriously disappeared from under the bed of Nosey Hinds, the oldest man in the village—‘And they was damn good boots, they could walk home from the pub all by themselves if I but pointed they in the right direction,’ he complained to anyone who would listen. ‘And they marched off wi’ my old hat, too. And I’d got he just as I wanted he, all soft and floppy!’

A pair of trousers and a long coat vanished from a hook belonging to Abiding Swindell, the ferret-keeper, and the coat still had ferrets living in the inside pockets. And who, who climbed through the bedroom window of Clem Doins and shaved off his beard, which had been so long that he could tuck it into his belt? Not a hair was left. He had to go around with a scarf over his face, in case the sight of his poor pink chin frightened the ladies…

It was probably witches, people agreed, and made a few more curse-nets to hang in their windows.

However…

On the far side of the Chalk, where the long green slopes came down to the flat fields of the plain, there were big thickets of bramble and hawthorn. Usually, these were alive with birdsong, but this particular one, the one just here, was alive with cussing.

‘Ach, crivens! Will ye no’ mind where ye’re puttin’ yer foot, ye spavie!’

‘I cannae help it! It’s nae easy, bein’ a knee!’

‘Ye think ye got troubles? Ye wannae be doon here in the boots! That old man Swindell couldnae ha’ washed his feet in years! It’s fair reekin’ doon here!’

‘Reekin’, izzit? Well, you try bein’ in this pocket! Them ferrets ne ‘er got oot to gae to the lavie, if you get my meanin’!’

‘Crivens! Will ye dafties no’ shut up?’

‘Oh, aye? Hark at him! Just ‘cuzye’re up in the heid, you think you know everythin’? Fra’ doon here ye’re nothing but dead weight, pal!’

‘Aye, right! I’m wi’ the elbows on this one! Where’d you be if it wuzn’t for us carryin’ ye aroound? Who’s ye think ye are?’

‘I’m Rob Anybody Feegle, as you ken well enough, an’ I’ve had enough o’ the lot o’ yez!’

‘OK, Rob, but it’s real stuffy in here!’

‘Ach, an’ I’m fed up wi’ the stomach complainin’, too!’

‘Gentlemen.’ This was the voice of the toad; no one else would dream of calling the Nac Mac Feegle gentlemen. ‘Gentlemen, time is of the essence. The cart will be here soon! You must not miss it!’

‘We need more time to practise, Toad! We’re walkin’ like a feller wi’ nae bones and a serious case o’ the trots!’ said a voice a little higher up than the rest.

‘At least you are walking. That’s good enough. I wish you luck, gentlemen.’

There was a cry from further along the thickets, where a lookout had been watching the road.

‘The cart’s comin’ doon the hill!’

‘OK, lads!’ shouted Rob Anybody. ‘Toad, you look after Jeannie, y’hear? She’ll need a thinkin’ laddie to rely on while I’m no’ here! Right, ye scunners! It’s do or die! Ye ken what to do! Ye lads on the ropes, pull us up noo!’ The bushes shook. ‘Right! Pelvis, are ye ready?’

‘Aye, Rob!’

‘Knees? Knees? I said, knees!’

‘Aye, Rob, but—’

‘Feets?’

‘Aye, Rob!’

The bushes shook again.

‘Right! Remember: right, left, right, left! Pelvis, knee, foot on the groond! Keep a spring in the step, feets! Are you ready? Altogether, boys… walk!’

It was a big surprise for Mr Crabber the carter. He’d been staring vaguely at nothing, thinking only of going home, when something stepped out of the bushes and into the road. It looked human or, rather, looked slightly more human than it looked like anything else. But it seemed to be having trouble with its knees, and walked as though they’d been tied together.

However, the carter didn’t spend too much time thinking about that because, clutched in one gloved hand that was waving vaguely in the air, was something gold.

This immediately identified the stranger, as far as the carter was concerned. He was not, as first sight might suggest, some old tramp to be left by the roadside, but an obvious gentleman down on his luck, and it was practically the carter’s duty to help him. He slowed the horse to a standstill.

The stranger didn’t really have a face. There was nothing much to see between the droopy hat brim and the turned-up collar of the coat except a lot of beard. But from somewhere within the beard a voice said:

‘…Shudupshudup… will ye all shudup while I’m talkin’… Ahem. Good day ta’ ye, carter fellow my ol’ fellowy fellow! If ye’ll gie us—me a lift as far as ye are goin’, we—I’ll gie ye this fine shiny golden coin!’

The figure lurched forward and thrust its hand in front of Mr Crabber’s face.

It was quite a large coin. And it was certainly gold. It had come from the treasure of the old dead king who was buried in the main part of the Feegles’ mound. Oddly enough, the Feegles weren’t hugely interested in gold once they’d stolen it, because you couldn’t drink it and it was difficult to eat. In the mound, they mostly used the old coins and plates to reflect candlelight and give the place a nice glow. It was no hardship to give some away.

The carter stared at it. It was more money than he had ever seen in his life.

‘If… sir… would like to… hop on the back of the cart, sir,’ he said, carefully taking it.

‘Ach, right you are, then,’ said the bearded mystery man after a pause. ‘Just a moment, this needs a wee bitty organizin’… OK, youse hands, you just grab the side o’ the cart, and’ you leftie leg, ye gotta kinda sidle along… ach, crivens! Ye gotta bend! Bend! C’mon, get it right!’ The hairy face turned to the carter. ‘Sorry aboot this,’ it said. ‘I talk to my knees, but they dinnae listen to me.’

‘Is that right?’ said the carter weakly. ‘I have trouble with my knees in the wet weather. Goose grease works.’

‘Ah, weel, these knees is gonna get more’n a greasin’ if I ha’ to get doon there an’ sort them oot!’ snarled the hairy man.

The carter heard various bangs and grunts behind him as the man hauled himself onto the tail of the cart.

‘OK, let’s gae,’ said a voice. ‘We’ hav enae got all day. And youse knees, you’re sacked! Crivens, I’m walkin’ like I got a big touch of the stoppies! You gae up to the stomach and send doon a couple of good knee men!’

The carter bit the coin thoughtfully as he urged the horse into a walk. It was such pure gold that he left toothmarks. That meant his passenger was very, very rich. That was becoming very important at this point.

‘Can ye no’ go a wee bitty faster, my good man, my good man?’ said the voice behind him, after they had gone a little way.

‘Ah, well, sir,’ said the carter, ‘see them boxes and crates? I’ve got a load of eggs, and those apples mustn’t be bruised, sir, and then there’s those jugs of—’

There were some bangs and crashes behind him, including the sploosh that a large crate of eggs makes when it hits a road.

‘Ye can gae faster noo, eh?’ said the voice.

‘Hey, that was my—’ Mr Crabber began.

‘I’ve got another one o’ they big wee gold coins for ye!’ And a heavy and smelly arm landed on the carter’s shoulder. Dangling from the glove on the end of it was, indeed, another coin. It was ten times what the load had been worth.

‘Oh, well…’ said the carter, carefully taking the coin. ‘Accidents do happen, eh, sir?’

‘Aye, especially if I dinnae think I’m goin’ fast enough,’ said the voice behind him. ‘We—I mean I’m in a big hurry tae get tae yon mountains, ye ken!’

‘But I’m not a stagecoach, sir,’ said the carter reproachfully as he urged his old horse into a trot.

‘Stagecoach, eh? What’s one o’ them things?’

‘That’s what you’ll need to catch to take you up into the mountains, sir. You can catch one in Twoshirts, sir. I never go any further than Twoshirts, sir. But you won’t be able to get the stage today, sir.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve got to make stops at the other villages, sir, and it’s a long way, and on Wednesdays it runs early, sir, and this cart can only go so fast, sir, and—’

‘If we—I dinnae catch yon coach today I’ll gi’e ye the hidin’ o’ yer life,’ growled the passenger. ‘But if I do catch yon coach today, I’ll gie ye five o’ them gold coins.’

Mr Crabber took a deep breath, and yelled:

‘Hi! Hyah! Giddyup, Henry!’

All in all, it seemed to Tiffany, most of what witches did really was very similar to work. Dull work. Miss Level didn’t even use her broomstick very much.

That was a bit depressing. It was all a bit… well, goody-goody. Obviously that was better than being baddy-baddy, but a little more… excitement would be nice. Tiffany wouldn’t like anyone to think she’d expected to be issued with a magic wand on Day One but, well, the way Miss Level talked about magic, the whole point of witchcraft lay in not using any.

Mind you, Tiffany thought she would be depressingly good at not using any. It was doing the simplest magic that was hard.

Miss Level patiently showed her how to make a shamble, which could more or less be made of anything that seemed a good idea at the time provided it also contained something alive, like a beetle or a fresh egg.

Tiffany couldn’t even get the hang of it. That was… annoying. Didn’t she have the virtual hat? Didn’t she have First Sight and Second Thoughts? Miss Tick and Miss Level could throw a shamble together in seconds, but Tiffany just got a tangle, dripping with egg. Over and over again.

‘I know I’m doing it right but it just twists up!’ Tiffany complained. ‘What can I do?’

‘We could make an omelette?’ said Miss Level cheerfully.

‘Oh, please, Miss Level!’ Tiffany wailed.

Miss Level patted her on the back. ‘It’ll happen. Perhaps you’re trying too hard. One day it’ll come. The power does come, you know. You just have to put yourself in its path.’

‘Couldn’t you make one that I could use for a while, to get the hang of it?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ said Miss Level. ‘A shamble is a very tricky thing. You can’t even carry one around, except as an ornament. You have to make it for yourself, there and then, right where and when you want to use it.’

‘Why?’ said Tiffany.

‘To catch the moment,’ said the other part of Miss Level, coming in. ‘The way you tie the knots, the way the string runs—’

‘—the freshness of the egg, perhaps, and the moisture in the air—’ said the first Miss Level.

‘—the tension of the twigs and the kinds of things that you just happen to have in your pocket at that moment—’

‘—even the way the wind is blowing,’ the first Miss Level concluded. ‘All these things make a kind of… of picture of the here and now when you move them right. And I can’t tell you how to move them, because I don’t know.’

‘But you do move them,’ said Tiffany, getting lost. ‘I saw you—’

‘I do it but I don’t know how I do,’ said Miss Level, picking up a couple of twigs and taking a length of thread. Miss Level sat down at the table opposite Miss Level, and all four hands started to put a shamble together.

‘This reminds me of when I was in the circus,’ she said. ‘I was—’

‘—walking out for a while with Marco and Falco, the Flying Pastrami Brothers,’ the other part of Miss Level went on. ‘They would do—’

‘—triple somersaults fifty feet up with no safety net. What lads they were! As alike as two—’

‘—peas, and Marco could catch Falco blindfolded. Why, for a moment I wondered if they were just like me—’

She stopped, went a bit red on both faces and coughed. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘one day I asked them how they managed to stay on the high wire and Falco said, “Never ask the tight-rope walker how he keeps his balance. If he stops to think about it, he falls off.” Although actually—’

‘—he said it like this, “Nev-ah aska tightaroper walkerer…” because the lads pretended they were from Brindisi, you see, because that sounds foreign and impressive and they thought no one would want to watch acrobats called The Flying Sidney and Frank Cartwright. Good advice, though, wherever it came from.’

The hands worked. This was not a lone Miss Level, a bit flustered, but the full Miss Level, all twenty fingers working together.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘it can be helpful to have the right sort of things in your pocket. I always carry a few sequins—’

‘—for the happy memories they bring back,’ said Miss Level from the other side of the table, blushing again.

She held up the shamble. There were sequins, and a fresh egg in a little bag made of thread, and a chicken bone and many other things hanging or spinning in the threads.

Each part of Miss Level put both its hands into the threads and pulled…

The threads took up a pattern. Did the sequins jump from one thread to another? It looked like it. Did the chicken bone pass through the egg? So it seemed.

Miss Level peered into it.

She said: ‘Something’s coming…’

The stagecoach left Twoshirts half full and was well out over the plains when one of the passengers sitting on the rooftop tapped the driver on the shoulder.

‘Excuse me, did you know there’s something trying to catch us up?’ he said.

‘Bless you, sir,’ said the driver, because he hoped for a good tip at the end of the run, ‘there’s nothing that can catch us up.’

Then he heard the screaming in the distance, getting louder.

‘Er, I think he means to,’ said the passenger as the carter’s wagon overtook them.

‘Stop! Stop, for pity’s sake stop!’ yelled the carter as he sailed past.

But there was no stopping Henry. He’d spent years pulling the carrier’s cart around the villages, very slowly, and he’d always had this idea in his big horse head that he was cut out for faster things. He’d plodded along, being overtaken by coaches and carts and three-legged dogs, and now he was having the time of his life.

Besides, the cart was a lot lighter than usual, and the road was slightly downhill here. All he was really having to do was gallop fast enough to stay in front. And, finally, he’d actually overtaken the stagecoach. Him, Henry!

He only stopped because the stagecoach driver stopped first. Besides, the blood was pumping through Henry now, and there were a couple of mares in the team of horses pulling the coach who he felt he’d really like to get to know—find out when was their day off, what kind of hay they liked, that kind of thing.

The carter, white in the face, got down carefully and then lay on the ground and held on tight to the dirt.

His one passenger, who looked to the coach driver like some sort of scarecrow, climbed unsteadily down from the back and lurched towards the coach.

‘I’m sorry, we’re full up,’ the driver lied. They weren’t full, but there was certainly no room for a thing that looked like that.

‘Ach, and there wuz me willin’ to pay wi’ gold,’ said the creature. ‘Gold such as this here,’ it added, waving a ragged glove in the air.

Suddenly there was plenty of space for an eccentric millionaire. Within a few seconds he was seated inside and, to the annoyance of Henry, the coach set off again.

Outside Miss Level’s cottage, a broomstick was heading through the trees. A young witch—or, at least, someone dressed as a witch: it never paid to jump to conclusions—was sitting on it side-saddle.

She wasn’t flying it very well. It jerked sometimes and it was clear the girl was no good at making it turn corners because sometimes she stopped, jumped off and pointed the stick in a new direction by hand. When she reached the garden gate she got off again quickly and tethered the stick to it with string.

‘Nicely done, Petulia!’ said Miss Level, clapping with all four hands. ‘You’re getting quite good!’

‘Um, thank you, Miss Level,’ said the girl, bowing. She stayed bowed, and said, ‘Um, oh dear…’

Half of Miss Level stepped forward.

‘Oh, I can see the problem,’ she said, peering down. ‘Your amulet with the little owls on it is tangled up with your necklace of silver bats and they’ve both got caught around a button. Just hold still, will you?’

‘Um, I’ve come to see if your new girl would like come to the sabbat tonight,’ said the bent Petulia, her voice a bit muffled.

Tiffany couldn’t help noticing that Petulia had jewellery everywhere; later she found that it was hard to be around Petulia for any length of time without having to unhook a bangle from a necklace or, once, an earring from an ankle bracelet (nobody ever found out how that one happened). Petulia couldn’t resist occult jewellery. Most of the stuff was to magically protect her from things, but she hadn’t found anything to protect her from looking a bit silly.

She was short and plump and permanently red-faced and slightly worried.

‘Sabbat? Oh, one of your meetings,’ said Miss Level. That would be nice, wouldn’t it, Tiffany?’

‘Yes?’ said Tiffany, not quite sure yet.

‘Some of the girls meet up in the woods in the evenings,’ said Miss Level. ‘For some reason the craft is getting popular again. That’s very welcome, of course.’

She said it as if she wasn’t quite sure. Then she added: ‘Petulia here works for Old Mother Blackcap, over in Sidling Without. Specializes in animals. Very good woman with pig diseases. I mean, with pigs that’ve got diseases, I don’t mean she has pig diseases. It’ll be nice for you to have friends here. Why don’t you go? There, everything’s unhooked.’

Petulia stood up and gave Tiffany a worried smile.

‘Um, Petulia Gristle,’ she said, holding out a hand.

‘Tiffany Aching,’ said Tiffany, shaking it gingerly in case the sound of all the bangles and bracelets jangling together deafened everyone.

‘Um, you can ride with me on the broomstick, if you like,’ said Petulia.

‘I’d rather not,’ said Tiffany.

Petulia looked relieved, but said: ‘Um, do you want to get dressed?’

Tiffany looked down at her green dress. ‘I am.’

‘Um, don’t you have any gems or beads or amulets or anything?’

‘No, sorry,’ said Tiffany.

‘Um, you must at least have a shamble, surely?’

‘Um, can’t get the hang of them,’ said Tiffany. She hadn’t meant the ‘um’, but around Petulia it was catching.

‘Um… a black dress, perhaps?’

‘I don’t really like black. I prefer blue or green,’ said Tiffany. ‘Um…’

‘Um. Oh well, you’re just starting,’ said Petulia generously. ‘I’ve been Crafty for three years.’

Tiffany looked desperately at the nearest half of Miss Level.

‘In the craft,’ said Miss Level helpfully. ‘Witchcraft.’

‘Oh.’ Tiffany knew she was being very unfriendly, and Petulia with her pink face was clearly a nice person, but she felt awkward in front of her and she couldn’t work out why. It was stupid, she knew. She could do with a friend. Miss Level was nice enough, and she managed to get along with Oswald, but it would be good to have someone around her own age to talk to.

‘Well, I’d love to come,’ she said. ‘I know I’ve got a lot to learn.’

The passengers inside the stagecoach had paid good money to be inside on the soft seats and out of the wind and the dust and, therefore, it was odd that so many got out at the next stop and went and sat on the roof. The few who didn’t want to ride up there or couldn’t manage the climb sat huddled together on the seat opposite, watching the new traveller like a group of rabbits watching a fox and trying not to breathe.

The problem wasn’t that he smelled of ferrets. Well, that was a problem, but compared to the big problem it wasn’t much of one. He talked to himself. That is, bits of him talked to other bits of him. All the time.

‘Ah, it’s fair boggin’ doon here. Ah’m tellin ye! Ah’m sure it’s my turn to be up inna heid!’

‘Hah, at least youse people are all cushy in the stomach, it’s us in the legs that has tae do all the work!’

At which the right hand said: ‘Legs? Youse dinnae know the meanin’ of the word “work”! Ye ought tae try being stuck in a glove! Ach, blow this forra game o’ sojers! Ah ‘m gonna stretch ma legs!’

In horrified silence the other passengers watched one of the man’s gloved hands drop off and walk around on the seat.

‘Aye, weel, it’s nae picnic doon here inna troosers, neither. A ‘m gonna let some fresh air in right noo!’

‘Daft Wullie, don’t you dare do that–’

The passengers, squeezing even closer together, watched the trousers with terrible fascination. There was some movement, some swearing-under-the-breath in a place where nothing should be breathing, and then a couple of buttons popped and a very small red-headed blue man stuck his head out, blinking in the light.

He froze when he saw the people.

He stared.

They stared.

Then his face widened into a mad smile.

‘Youse folks all right?’ he said, desperately. ‘That’s greaaat! Dinnae worry aboout me, I’m one o’ they opper-tickle aloosyon’s, ye ken?’

He disappeared back into the trousers, and they heard him whisper: ‘I’m thinkin’ I fooled ‘em easily, no problemo!’

A few minutes later, the coach stopped to change horses. When it set off again, it was minus the inside passengers. They got off, and asked for their luggage to be taken off, too. No thank you, they did not want to continue their ride. They’d catch the coach tomorrow, thank you. No, there was no problem in waiting here in this delightful little, er, town of Dangerous Corner. Thank you. Goodbye.

The coach set off again, somewhat lighter and faster. It didn’t stop that night. It should have done, and the rooftop passengers were still eating their dinner in the last inn when they heard it set off without them. The reason probably had something to do with the big heap of coins now in the driver’s pocket.