The Wee Free Men d(-2 Read online

But Tiffany wasn’t frightened, just annoyed.

  ‘That was a nasty thing to say,’ she said.

  ‘Well, witches don’t have to be nice,’ said Miss Tick, pulling a large black bag from under the table. ‘I’m glad to see you pay attention.’

  ‘There really is a school for witches?’ said Tiffany.

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes,’ said Miss Tick.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Very close.’

  ‘It is magical?’

  ‘Very magical.’

  ‘A wonderful place?’

  ‘There’s nowhere quite like it.’

  ‘Can I go there by magic? Does, like, a unicorn turn up to carry me there or something?’

  ‘Why should it? A unicorn is nothing more than a big horse that comes to a point, anyway. Nothing to get so excited about,’ said Miss Tick. ‘And that will be one egg, please.’

  ‘Exactly where can I find the school?’ said Tiffany, handing over the egg.

  ‘Aha. A root vegetable question, I think,’ said Miss Tick. ‘Two carrots, please.’

  Tiffany handed them over.

  ‘Thank you. Ready? To find the school for witches, go to a high place near here, climb to the top, open your eyes…’ Miss Tick hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘…and then open your eyes again.’

  ‘But—’ Tiffany began.

  ‘Got any more eggs?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘No more education, then. But I have a question to ask you.’

  ‘Got any eggs?’ said Tiffany, instantly.

  ‘Hah! Did you see anything else by the river, Tiffany?’

  Silence suddenly filled the tent. The sound of bad spelling and erratic geography filtered through from outside as Tiffany and Miss Tick stared into one another’s eyes.

  ‘No,’ lied Tiffany.

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Miss Tick.

  ‘Yes.’

  They continued the staring match. But Tiffany could outstare a cat.

  ‘I see,’ said Miss Tick, looking away. ‘Very well. In that case, please tell me… when you stopped outside my tent just now you said “Aha” in what I considered to be a smug tone of voice. Were you thinking, This is a strange little black tent with a mysterious little sign on the door, so going inside could be the start of an adventure, or were you thinking, This could be the tent of some wicked witch like they thought Mrs Snapperly was, who’ll put some horrible spell on me as soon as I go in? It’s all right, you can stop staring now. Your eyes are watering.’

  ‘I thought both those things,’ said Tiffany, blinking.

  ‘But you came in anyway. Why?’

  ‘To find out.’

  ‘Good answer. Witches are naturally nosy,’ said Miss Tick, standing up. ‘Well, I must go. I hope we shall meet again. I will give you some free advice, though.’

  ‘Will it cost me anything?’

  ‘What? I just said it was free!’ said Miss Tick.

  ‘Yes, but my father said that free advice often turns out to be expensive,’ said Tiffany.

  Miss Tick sniffed. ‘You could say this advice is priceless,’ she said. ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tiffany.

  ‘Good. Now… if you trust in yourself…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘…and believe in your dreams…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘…and follow your star…’ Miss Tick went on.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye.’

  The tent seemed to grow darker. It was time to leave. Tiffany found herself back in the square where the other teachers were taking down their stalls.

  She didn’t look round. She knew enough not to look around. Either the tent would still be there, which would be a disappointment, or it would have mysteriously disappeared, and that would be worrying.

  She headed home, and wondered if she should have mentioned the little red-haired men. She hadn’t for a whole lot of reasons. She wasn’t sure, now, that she’d really seen them; she had a feeling that they wouldn’t have wanted her to; and it was nice to have something Miss Tick didn’t know. Yes. That was the best part. Miss Tick was a bit too clever, in Tiffany’s opinion.

  On the way home she climbed to the top of Arken Hill, which was just outside the village. It wasn’t very big, not even as high as the downs above the farm and certainly nothing like as high as the mountains.

  The hill was more… homely. There was a flat place at the top where nothing ever grew, and Tiffany knew there was a story that a hero had once fought a dragon up there and its blood had burned the ground where it fell. There was another story that said there was a heap of treasure under the hill, defended by the dragon, and another story that said a king was buried there in armour of solid gold. There were lots of stories about the hill; it was surprising it hadn’t sunk under the weight of them.

  Tiffany stood on the bare soil and looked at the view.

  She could see the village and the river and Home Farm, and the Baron’s castle and, beyond the fields she knew, she could see grey woods and heathlands.

  She closed her eyes and opened them again. And blinked, and opened them again.

  There was no magic door, no hidden building revealed, no strange signs.

  For a moment, though, the air buzzed, and smelled of snow.

  When she got home she looked up ‘incursion’ in the dictionary. It meant ‘invasion’.

  An incursion of major proportions, Miss Tick had said.

  And, now, little unseen eyes watched Tiffany from the top of the shelf…

  Chapter 3

  Hunt The Hag

  Miss Tick removed her hat, reached inside and pulled a piece of string. With little clicks and flapping noises the hat took up the shape of a rather elderly straw hat. She picked up the paper flowers from the ground and stuck them on, carefully.

  Then she said: ‘Phew!’

  ‘You can’t just let the kid go like that,’ said the toad, who was sitting on the table.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘She’s clearly got First Sight and Second Thoughts. That’s a powerful combination.’

  ‘She’s a little know-it-all,’ said Miss Tick.

  ‘Right. Just like you. She’s impressed you, right? I know she did because you were quite nasty to her, and you always do that to people who impress you.’

  ‘Do you want to be turned into a frog?’

  ‘Well, now, let me see…’ said the toad sarcastically. ‘Better skin, better legs, likelihood of being kissed by a princess one hundred per cent improved… why, yes. Whenever you’re ready, madam.’

  ‘There’re worse things than being a toad,’ said Miss Tick darkly.

  ‘Try it some time,’ said the toad. ‘Anyway, I rather liked her.’

  ‘So did I,’ said Miss Tick, briskly. ‘She hears about an old lady dying because these idiots thought she was a witch, and she decides to become a witch so that they don’t try that again. A monster roars up out of her river and she bashes it with a frying pan! Have you ever heard the saying “The land finds its witch”? It’s happened here, I’ll bet. But a chalk witch? Witches like granite and basalt, hard rock all the way down! Do you know what chalk is?’

  ‘You’re going to tell me,’ said the toad.

  ‘It’s the shells of billions and billions of tiny, helpless little sea creatures that died millions of years ago,’ said Miss Tick. ‘It’s… tiny, tiny bones. Soft. Soggy. Damp. Even limestone is better than that. But… she’s grown up on chalk and she is hard, and sharp, too. She’s a born witch. On chalk! Which is impossible!’

  ‘She bashed Jenny!’ said the toad. ‘The girl has got talent!’

  ‘Maybe, but she needs more than that. Jenny isn’t clever,’ said Miss Tick. ‘She’s only a Grade One Prohibitory Monster. And she was probably bewildered to find herself in a stream, when her natural home is in s
tagnant water. There’ll be much, much worse than her.’

  ‘What do you mean, “a Grade One Prohibitory Monster”?’ asked the toad. ‘I’ve never heard her called that.’

  ‘I am a teacher as well as a witch,’ said Miss Tick, adjusting her hat carefully. Therefore I make lists. I make assessments. I write things down in a neat, firm hand with pens of two colours. Jenny is one of a number of creatures invented by adults to scare children away from dangerous places.’ She sighed. ‘If only people would think before they make up monsters.’

  ‘You ought to stay and help her,’ said the toad.

  ‘I’ve got practically no power here,’ said Miss Tick. ‘I told you. It’s the chalk. And remember the redheaded men. A Nac Mac Feegle spoke to her! Warned her! I’ve never seen one in my life! If she’s got them on her side, who knows what she can do?’

  She picked up the toad. ‘D’you know what’ll be turning up?’ she continued. ‘All the things they locked away in those old stories. All those reasons why you shouldn’t stray off the path, or open the forbidden door, or say the wrong word, or spill the salt. All the stories that gave children nightmares. All the monsters from under the biggest bed in the world. Somewhere, all stories are real and all dreams come true. And they’ll come true here if they’re not stopped. If it wasn’t for the Nac Mac Feegle I’d be really worried. As it is, I’m going to try and get some help. That’s going to take me at least two days without a broomstick!’

  ‘It’s unfair to leave her alone with them,’ said the toad.

  ‘She won’t be alone,’ said Miss Tick. ‘She’ll have you.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the toad.

  Tiffany shared a bedroom with Fastidia and Hannah. She woke up when she heard them come to bed, and lay in the dark until she heard their breathing settle down and they started to dream of young sheep shearers with their shirts off.

  Outside, summer lightning flashed around the hills, and there was a rumble of thunder…

  Thunder and Lightning. She knew them as dogs before she knew them as the sound and light of a storm. Granny always had her sheepdogs with her, indoors and out. One moment they would be black and white streaks across the distant turf and then they were suddenly there, panting, eyes never leaving Granny’s face. Half the dogs on the hills were Lightning’s puppies, trained by Granny Aching.

  Tiffany had gone with the family to the big Sheepdog Trials. Every shepherd on the Chalk went to them, and the very best entered the arena to show how well they could work their dogs. The dogs would round up sheep, separate them, drive them into the pens—or sometimes run off, or snap at one another, because even the best dog can have a bad day. But Granny never entered with Thunder and Lightning. She’d lean on the fence with the dogs lying in front of her, watching the show intently and puffing her foul pipe. And Tiffany’s father had said that, after each shepherd had worked his dogs, the judges would look nervously across at Granny Aching to see what she thought.

  In fact all the shepherds watched her. Granny never, ever entered the arena because she was the Trials. If Granny thought you were a good shepherd—if she nodded at you when you walked out of the arena, if she puffed at her pipe and said ‘that’ll do’—you walked like a giant for a day, you owned the Chalk…

  When she was small and up on the wold with Granny, Thunder and Lightning would baby-sit Tiffany, lying attentively a few feet away as she played. And she’d been so proud when Granny had let her use them to round up a flock. She’d run about excitedly in all directions shouting ‘Come by!’ and ‘There!’ and ‘Walk up!’ and, glory be, the dogs had worked perfectly.

  She knew now that they’d have worked perfectly whatever she’d shouted. Granny was just sitting there, smoking her pipe, and by now the dogs could read her mind. They only ever took orders from Granny Aching…

  The storm died down after a while and there was the gentle sound of rain.

  At some point Ratbag the cat pushed open the door and jumped onto the bed. He was big to start with, but Ratbag flowed. He was so fat that, on any reasonably flat surface, he gradually spread out in a great puddle of fur. He hated Tiffany, but would never let personal feelings get in the way of a warm place to sleep.

  She must have slept, because she woke up when she heard the voices.

  They seemed very close but, somehow, very small.

  ‘Crivens! It’s a’ verra well sayin’ “find the hag”, but what should we be lookin’ for, can ye tell me that? All these bigjobs look just the same tae me!’

  ‘Not-totally-wee Geordie doon at the fishin’ said she was a big, big girl!’

  ‘A great help that is, I dinna think! They’re all big, big girls!’

  ‘Ye paira dafties! Everyone knows a hag wears a pointy bonnet!’

  ‘So they canna be a hag if they’re sleepin’, then?’

  ‘Hello?’ whispered Tiffany.

  There was silence, embroidered with the breathing of her sisters. But in a way Tiffany couldn’t quite describe, it was the silence of people trying hard not to make any noise.

  She leaned down and looked under the bed. There was nothing there but the guzunder.

  The little man in the river had talked just like that.

  She lay back in the moonlight, listening until her ears ached.

  Then she wondered what the school for witches would be like and why she hadn’t seen it yet.

  She knew every inch of the country for two miles around. She liked the river best, with the backwaters where striped pike sunbathed just above the weeds and the banks where kingfishers nested. There was a heronry a mile or so upriver and she liked to creep up on the birds when they came down here to fish in the reeds, because there’s nothing funnier than a heron trying to get airborne in a hurry…

  She drifted off to sleep again, thinking about the land around the farm. She knew all of it. There were no secret places that she didn’t know about.

  But maybe there were magical doors. That’s what she’d make, if she had a magical school. There should be secret doorways everywhere, even hundreds of miles away. Look at a special rock by, say, moonlight, and there would be yet another door.

  But the school, now, the school. There would be lessons in broomstick riding and how to sharpen your hat to a point, and magical meals, and lots of new friends.

  ‘Is the bairn asleep?’

  ‘Aye, I canna’ hear her movin’.’

  Tiffany opened her eyes in the darkness. The voices under the bed had a slightly echoey edge. Thank goodness the guzunder was nice and clean.

  ‘Right, let’s get oot o’ this wee pot, then.’

  The voices moved off across the room. Tiffany’s ears tried to swivel to follow them.

  ‘Hey, see here, it’s a hoose! See, with wee chairies and things!’

  They’ve found the doll’s house, Tiffany thought.

  It was quite a large one, made by Mr Block the farm carpenter when Tiffany’s oldest sister, who already had two babies of her own now, was a little girl. It wasn’t the most fragile of items. Mr Block did not go in for delicate work. But over the years the girls had decorated it with bits of material and some rough and ready furniture.

  By the sound of it the owners of the voices thought it was a palace.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey, we’re in the cushy stuff noo! There’s a beid in this room. Wi’ pillows!’

  ‘Keep it doon, we don’t want any o’ them to wake up!’

  ‘Crivens, I’m as quiet as a wee moose! Aargh! There’s sojers!’

  ‘Whut d’ye mean, sojers?’

  ‘There’s redcoats in the room!’

  They’ve found the toy soldiers, thought Tiffany, trying not to breathe loudly.

  Strictly speaking, they had no place in the doll’s house, but Wentworth wasn’t old enough for them and so they’d got used as innocent bystanders back in those days when Tiffany had made tea parties for her dolls. Well, what passed for dolls. Such toys as there were in the farmhouse had to be tough to survive intact through the generatio
ns and didn’t always manage it. Last time Tiffany had tried to arrange a party, the guests had been a rag doll with no head, two wooden soldiers and three-quarters of a small teddy bear.

  Thuds and bangs came from the direction of the doll’s house.

  ‘I got one! Hey, pal, can yer mammie sew? Stitch this! Aargh! He’s got a heid on him like a tree!’

  ‘Crivens! There’s a body here wi’ no heid at a’!’

  ‘Aye, nae wonder, ‘cause here’s a bear! Feel ma boot, ye washoon!’

  It seemed to Tiffany that although the owners of the three voices were fighting things that couldn’t possibly fight back, including a teddy bear with only one leg, the fight still wasn’t going all one way.

  ‘I got ‘im! I got ‘im! I got ‘im! Yer gonna get a gummer, ye wee hard disease!’

  ‘Someone bit ma leg! Someone bit ma leg!’

  ‘Come here! Ach, yer fightin’ yersels, ye eejits! Ah ‘m fed up wi’ the pairy yees!’

  Tiffany felt Ratbag stir. He might be fat and lazy, but he was lightning fast when it came to leaping on small creatures. She couldn’t let him get the… whatever they were, however bad they sounded.

  She coughed loudly.

  ‘See?’ said a voice from the doll’s house. ‘Yer woked them up! Ah‘m offski!’

  Silence fell again and this time, Tiffany decided after a while, it was the silence of no one there rather than the silence of people being incredibly quiet. Ratbag went back to sleep, twitching occasionally as he disembowelled something in his fat cat dreams.

  Tiffany waited a little while and then got out of bed and crept towards the bedroom door, avoiding the two squeaky floorboards. She went downstairs in the dark, found a chair by moonlight, fished the book of Faerie Tales off Granny’s shelf, then lifted the latch on the back door and stepped out into the warm midsummer night.

  There was a lot of mist around, but a few stars were visible overhead and there was a gibbous moon in the sky. Tiffany knew it was gibbous because she’d read in the Almanack that ‘gibbous’ meant what the moon looked like when it was just a bit fatter than half full, and so she made a point of paying attention to it around those times just so that she could say to herself: ‘Ah, I see the moon’s very gibbous tonight…’