A Hat Full Of Sky d(-3 Page 3

  You couldn’t slip words past Tiffany, not even if you were Miss Tick.

  ‘So there’s someone else there already?’ she said.

  ‘Er… no. Not exactly,’ said Miss Tick.

  ‘Then she’s got four arms?’ said Tiffany. Miss Tick had sounded like someone trying to avoid a subject.

  Miss Tick sighed. It was difficult to talk to someone who paid attention all the time. It put you off.

  ‘It’s best if you wait until you meet her,’ she said. ‘Anything I tell you will only give you the wrong idea. I’m sure you’ll get along with her. She’s very good with people, and in her spare time she’s a research witch. She keeps bees—and goats, the milk of which, I believe, is very good indeed, owing to homogenized fats.’

  ‘What does a research witch do?’ Tiffany asked.

  ‘Oh, it’s a very ancient craft. She tries to find new spells by learning how old ones were really done. You know all that stuff about “ear of bat and toe of frog”? They never work, but Miss Level thinks it’s because we don’t know exactly what kind of frog, or which toe—’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not going to help anyone chop up innocent frogs and bats,’ said Tiffany firmly.

  ‘Oh, no, she never kills any!’ said Miss Tick hurriedly. ‘She only uses creatures that have died naturally or been run over or committed suicide. Frogs can get quite depressed at times.’

  The cart rolled on, down the white, dusty road, until it was lost from view.

  Nothing happened. Skylarks sang, so high up they were invisible. Grass seeds filled the air. Sheep baa’d, high up on the Chalk.

  And then something came along the road. It moved like a little slow whirlwind, so it could be seen only by the dust it stirred up. As it went past, it made a noise like a swarm of flies.

  Then it, too, disappeared down the hill…

  After a while a voice, low down in the long grass, said: ‘Ach, crivens! And it’s on her trail, right enough!’

  A second voice said: ‘Surely the old hag will spot it?’

  “Whut? The teachin’ hag? She’s nae a proper hag!’

  ‘She’s got the pointy hat under all them flowers, Big Yan,’ said the second voice, a bit reproachfully. ‘I seen it. She presses a wee spring an’ the point comes up!’

  ‘Oh, aye, Hamish, an’ I daresay she does the readin’ and the writin’ well enough, but she disnae ken aboot stuff that’s no’ in books. An’ I’m no’ showin’ meself while she’s aroond. She’s the kind of a body that’d write things doon about a man! C’mon, let’s go and find the kelda!’

  The Nac Mac Feegle of the Chalk hated writing for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest one was this: Writing stays. It fastens words down. A man can speak his mind and some nasty wee scuggan will write it down and who knows what he’ll do with those words? Ye might as weel nail a man’s shadow tae the wall!

  But now they had a new kelda, and a new kelda brings new ideas. That’s how it’s supposed to work. It stopped a clan getting too set in its ways. Kelda Jeannie was from the Long Lake clan, up in the mountains—and they did write things down.

  She didn’t see why her husband shouldn’t, either. And Rob Anybody was finding out that Jeannie was definitely a kelda.

  Sweat was dripping off his forehead. He’d once fought a wolf all by himself, and he’d cheerfully do it again with his eyes shut and one hand tied behind him rather than do what he was doing now.

  He had mastered the first two rules of writing, as he understood them.

  1. Steal some paper.

  2. Steal a pencil.

  Unfortunately there was more to it than that.

  Now he held the stump of pencil in front of him in both hands and leaned backwards as two of his brothers pushed him toward the piece of paper pinned up on the chamber wall (it was an old bill for sheep bells, stolen from the farm). The rest of the clan watched, in fascinated horror, from the galleries around the walls.

  ‘Mebbe I could kind o’ ease my way inta it gently,’ he protested as his heels left little grooves in the packed-earth floor of the mound. ‘Mebbe I could just do one o’ they commeras or full stoppies—’

  ‘You’re the Big Man, Rob Anybody, so it’s fittin’ ye should be the first tae do the writin’,’ said Jeannie. ‘I canna hae a husband who canna even write his ain name. I showed you the letters, did I not?’

  ‘Aye, wumman, the nasty, loopy, bendy things!’ growled Rob. ‘I dinnae trust that Q, that’s a letter that has it in for a man. That’s a letter with a sting, that one!’

  ‘You just hold the pencil on the paper and I’ll tell ye what marks to make,’ said Jeannie, folding her arms.

  ‘Aye, but ‘tis a bushel of trouble, writin’,’ said Rob. ‘A word writ doon can hang a man!’

  ‘Wheest, now, stop that! ‘Tis easy!’ snapped Jeannie. ‘Bigjob babbies can do it, and you’re a full-growed Feegle!’

  ‘An’ writin’ even goes on sayin’ a man’s wurds after he’s deid!’ said Rob Anybody, waving the pencil as if trying to ward off evil spirits. ‘Ye cannae tell me that’s right!’

  ‘Oh, so you’re afeared o’ the letters, is that it?’ said Jeannie, artfully. ‘Ach, that’s fine. All big men fear something. Take the pencil off’f him, Wullie. Ye cannae ask a man to face his fears.’

  There was silence in the mound as Daft Wullie nervously took the pencil stub from his brother. Every beady eye was turned to Rob Anybody. His hands opened and shut. He started to breathe heavily, still glaring at the blank paper. He stuck out his chin.

  ‘Ach, ye’re a harrrrd wumman, Jeannie Mac Feegle!’ he said at last. He spat on his hands and snatched back the pencil stub from Daft Wullie. ‘Gimme that tool o’ perdition! Them letters won’t know whut’s hit them!’

  ‘There’s my brave lad!’ said Jeannie as Rob squared up to the paper. ‘Right, then. The first letter is an R. That’s the one that looks like a fat man walking, remember?’

  The assembled pictsies watched as Rob Anybody, grunting fiercely and with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, dragged the pencil through the curves and lines of the letters. He looked at the kelda expectantly after each one.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said, at last. ‘A bonny effort!’

  Rob Anybody stood back and looked critically at the paper.

  ‘That’s it?’ he said.

  ‘Aye,’ said Jeannie. ‘Ye’ve writ your ain name, Rob Anybody!’

  Rob stared at the letters again. ‘I’m gonna go to pris’n noo?’ he said.

  There was a polite cough from beside Jeannie. It had belonged to the Toad. He had no other name, because toads don’t go in for names. Despite sinister forces that would have people think differently, no toad has ever been called Tommy the Toad, for example. It’s just not something that happens.

  This toad had once been a lawyer (a human lawyer; toads manage without them) who’d been turned into a toad by a fairy godmother who’d intended to turn him into a frog but had been a bit hazy on the difference. Now he lived in the Feegle mound, where he ate worms and helped them out with the difficult thinking.

  ‘I’ve told you, Mr Anybody, that just having your name written down is no problem at all,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing illegal about the words “Rob Anybody”. Unless, of course,’ and the toad gave a little legal laugh, ‘it’s meant as an instruction!’

  None of the Feegles laughed. They liked their humour to be a bit, well, funnier.

  Rob Anybody stared at his very shaky writing. ‘That’s my name, aye?’

  ‘It certainly is, Mr Anybody.’

  ‘An’ nothin’ bad’s happenin’ at a’,’ Rob noted. He looked closer. ‘How can you tell it’s my name?’

  ‘Ah, that’ll be the readin’ side o’ things,’ said Jeannie.

  ‘That’s where the lettery things make a sound in yer heid?’ said Rob.

  ‘That’s the bunny,’ said the toad. ‘But we thought you’d like to start with the more physical aspect of the procedure.’


  ‘Could I no’ mebbe just learn the writin’ and leave the readin’ to someone else?’ Rob asked, without much hope.

  ‘No, my man’s got to do both,’ said Jeannie, folding her arms. When a female Feegle does that, there’s no hope left.

  ‘Ach, it’s a terrible thing for a man when his wumman gangs up on him wi’ a toad,’ said Rob, shaking his head. But, when he turned to look at the grubby paper, there was just a hint of pride in his face.

  ‘Still, that’s my name, right?’ he said, grinning.

  Jeannie nodded.

  ‘Just there, all by itself and no’ on a Wanted poster or anything. My name, drawn by me.’

  ‘Yes, Rob,’ said the kelda.

  ‘My name, under my thumb. No scunner can do anythin’ aboot it? I’ve got my name, nice and safe?’

  Jeannie looked at the toad, who shrugged. It was generally held by those who knew them that most of the brains in the Nac Mac Feegle clans ended up in the women.

  ‘A man’s a man o’ some standin’ when he’s got his own name where no one can touch it,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘That’s serious magic, that is—’

  ‘The R is the wrong way roond and you left the A and a Y out of “Anybody”,’ said Jeannie, because it is a wife’s job to stop her husband actually exploding with pride.

  ‘Ach, wumman, I didna’ ken which way the fat man wuz walking’,’ said Rob, airily waving a hand. ‘Ye canna trust the fat man. That’s the kind of thing us nat’ral writin’ folk knows about. One day he might walk this way, next day he might walk that way.’

  He beamed at his name:

  ЯOB NybOD

  ‘And I reckon you got it wrong wi’ them Y’s,’ he went on. ‘I reckon it should be N E Bo D. That’s Enn… eee… bor… dee, see? That’s sense!’

  He stuck the pencil into his hair, and gave her a defiant look.

  Jeannie sighed. She’d grown up with seven hundred brothers and knew how they thought, which was often quite fast while being totally in the wrong direction. And if they couldn’t bend their thinking around the world, they bent the world around their thinking. Usually, her mother had told her, it was best not to argue.

  Actually, only half a dozen Feegles in the Long Lake clan could read and write very well. They were considered odd, strange hobbies. After all, what—when you got out of bed in the morning—were they good for? You didn’t need to know them to wrestle a trout or mug a rabbit or get drunk. The wind couldn’t be read and you couldn’t write on water.

  But things written down lasted. They were the voices of Feegles who’d died long ago, who’d seen strange things, who’d made strange discoveries. Whether you approved of that depended on how creepy you thought it was. The Long Lake clan approved. Jeannie wanted the best for her new clan, too.

  It wasn’t easy, being a young kelda. You came to a new clan, with only a few of your brothers as a bodyguard, where you married a husband and ended up with hundreds of brothers-in-law. It could be troubling if you let your mind dwell on it. At least back on the island in the Long Lake she’d had her mother to talk to, but a kelda never went home again.

  Except for her bodyguard brothers, a kelda was all alone.

  Jeannie was homesick and lonely and frightened of the future, which is why she was about to get things wrong…

  ‘Rob!’

  Hamish and Big Yan came tumbling through the fake rabbit hole that was the entrance to the mound.

  Rob Anybody glared at them. ‘We wuz engaged in a lit’try enterprise,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Rob, but we watched the big wee young hag safe awa’, like you said, but there’s a hiver after her!’ Hamish blurted out.

  ‘Are ye sure?’ said Rob, dropping his pencil. ‘I never heard o’ one of them in this world!’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Big Yan. ‘Its buzzin’ fair made my teeths ache!’

  ‘So did you no’ tell her, ye daftie?’ said Rob.

  ‘There’s that other hag wi’ her, Rob,’ said Big Yan. ‘The educatin’ hag.’

  ‘Miss Tick?’ said the toad.

  ‘Aye, the one wi’ a face like a yard o’ yoghurt,’ said Big Yan. ‘An’ you said we wuzna’ to show ourselves, Rob.’

  ‘Aye, weel, this is different—’ Rob Anybody began, but stopped.

  He hadn’t been a husband for very long, but upon marriage men get a whole lot of extra senses bolted into their brain, and one is there to tell a man that he’s suddenly neck deep in real trouble.

  Jeannie was tapping her foot. Her arms were still folded. She had the special smile women learn about when they marry, too, which seems to say ‘Yes, you’re in big trouble but I’m going to let you dig yourself in even more deeply.’

  ‘What’s this about the big wee hag?’ she said, her voice as small and meek as a mouse trained at the Rodent College of Assassins.

  ‘Oh, ah, ach, weel, aye…’ Rob began, his face falling. ‘Do ye not bring her to mind, dear? She was at oor wedding, aye. She was oor kelda for a day or two, ye ken. The Old One made her swear to that just afore she went back to the Land o’ the Livin’,’ he added, in case mentioning the wishes of the last kelda would deflect whatever storm was coming. ‘It’s as well tae keep an eye on her, ye ken, her being oor hag and a’…’

  Rob Anybody’s voice trailed away in the face of Jeannie’s look.

  ‘A true kelda has tae marry the Big Man,’ said Jeannie. ‘Just like I married ye, Rob Anybody Feegle, and am I no’ a good wife tae ye?’

  ‘Oh, fine, fine,’ Rob burbled. ‘But—’

  ‘And ye cannae be married to two wives, because that would be bigamy, would it not?’ said Jeannie, her voice dangerously sweet.

  ‘Ach, it wasnae that big,’ said Rob Anybody, desperately looking around for a way of escape. ‘And it wuz only temp’ry, an’ she’s but a lass, an’ she wuz good at thinkin’—’

  ‘I’m good at thinking, Rob Anybody, and I am the kelda o’ this clan, am I no’? There can only be one, is that not so? And I am thinking that there will be no more chasin’ after this big wee girl. Shame on ye, anyway. She’ll no’ want the like o’ Big Yan a-gawpin’ at her all the time, I’m sure.’

  Rob Anybody hung his head. ‘Aye… but…,’ he said.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘A hiver’s chasin’ the puir wee lass.’

  There was a long pause before Jeannie said, ‘Are ye sure?’

  ‘Aye, Kelda,’ said Big Yan. ‘Once you hear that buzzin’ ye never forget it.’

  Jeannie bit her lip. Then, looking a little pale, she said, ‘Ye said she’s got the makin’s o’ a powerful hag, Rob?’

  ‘Aye, but nae one in his’try has survived a hiver! Ye cannae kill it, ye cannae stop it, ye cannae—’

  ‘But wuz ye no’ tellin’ me how the big wee girl even fought the Quin and won?’ said Jeannie. ‘Wanged her wi’ a skillet, ye said. That means she’s good, aye? If she is a true hag, she’ll find a way herself. We all ha’ to dree our weird. Whatever’s out there, she’s got to face it. If she cannae, she’s no true hag.’

  ‘Aye, but a hiver’s worse than—’ Rob began.

  ‘She’s off to learn hagglin’ from other hags,’ said Jeannie. ‘An’ I must learn keldarin’ all by myself. Ye must hope she learns as fast as me, Rob Anybody.’

  Chapter Two

  Twoshirts and Two Noses

  Twoshirts was just a bend in the road, with a name. There was nothing there but an inn for the coaches, a blacksmith’s shop, and a small store with the word SOUVENIRS written optimistically on a scrap of cardboard in the window. And that was it. Around the place, separated by fields and scraps of woodland, were the houses of people for whom Twoshirts was, presumably, the big city. Every world is full of places like Twoshirts. They are places for people to come from, not go to.

  It sat and baked silently in the hot afternoon sunlight. Right in the middle of the road an elderly spaniel, mottled brown and white, dozed in the dust.

  Twoshirts was bigger than the village back home and Tiffany had nev
er seen souvenirs before. She went into the store and spent half a penny on a small wood carving of two shirts on a washing line, and two postcards entitled ‘View of Twoshirts’ which showed the souvenir shop and what was quite probably the same dog sleeping in the road. The little old lady behind the counter called her ‘young lady’ and said that Twoshirts was very popular later in the year, when people came from up to a mile around for the Cabbage-Macerating Festival.

  When Tiffany came out she found Miss Tick standing next to the sleeping dog, frowning back the way they’d come.

  ‘Is there something the matter?’ said Tiffany.

  ‘What?’ said Miss Tick, as if she’d forgotten that Tiffany existed. ‘Oh… no. I just… I thought I… look, shall we go and have something to eat?’

  It took a while to find someone in the inn, but Miss Tick wandered into the kitchens and found a woman who promised them some scones and a cup of tea. She was actually quite surprised she’d promised that, since she hadn’t intended to, it strictly speaking being her afternoon free until the coach came, but Miss Tick had a way of asking questions that got the answers she wanted.

  Miss Tick also asked for a fresh egg, not cooked, in its shell. Witches were also good at asking questions that weren’t followed by the other person saying ‘Why?’

  They sat and ate in the sun, on the bench outside the inn. Then Tiffany took out her diary.

  She had one in the dairy too, but that was for cheese and butter records. This one was personal. She’d bought it off a pedlar, cheap, because it was last year’s. But, as he said, it had the same number of days.

  It also had a lock, a little brass thing on a leather flap. It had its own tiny key. It was the lock that had attracted Tiffany. At a certain age, you see the point of locks.

  She wrote down ‘Twoshirts’, and spent some time thinking before adding ‘a bend in the road’.

  Miss Tick kept staring at the road.

  ‘Is there something wrong, Miss Tick?’ Tiffany asked again, looking up.

  ‘I’m… not sure. Is anyone watching us?’