think of me as one -‘
‘- person with four arms and -‘
‘- four legs and -‘
‘- four eyes.’
All four of those eyes now watched Tiffany nervously.
‘And two noses,’ said Tiffany.
‘That’s right. You’ve got it. My right body is slightly clumsier than my left body, but I
have better eyesight in my right pair of eyes. I’m human, just like you, except that
there’s more of me.’
‘But one of you – that is, one half of you – came all the way to Twoshirts for me,’ said
Tiffany.
‘Oh yes, I can split up like that,’ said Miss Level. ‘I’m quite good at it. But if there’s a
gap of more than
twenty miles or so, I get rather clumsy. And now a cup of tea would do us both good, I think.’
Before Tiffany could move both the Miss Levels stood up and crossed the kitchen.
Tiffany watched one person make a cup of tea using four arms.
There are quite a few things that need to be done to make a cup of tea and Miss Level
did them all at once. The bodies stood side by side, passing things from hand to hand to
hand, moving kettle and cups and spoon in a sort of ballet.
‘When I was child they thought I was twins,’ she said over one of her shoulders.
‘And then . . . they thought I was evil,’ she said over another shoulder.
‘Are you?’ said Tiffany.
Both of Miss Level turned round, looking shocked.
‘What kind of question is that to ask anyone?’ she said.
‘Um . . . the obvious one?’ said Tiffany. ‘I mean, if they said “Yes I am! Mwahahaha!”,
that would save a lot of trouble, wouldn’t it?’
Four eyes narrowed.
‘Mistress Weatherwax was right,’ said Miss Level. ‘She said you were a witch to your
boots.’
Inside, Tiffany beamed with pride.
‘Well, the thing about the obvious,’ said Miss Level, ‘is that it so often isn’t . . . Did
Mistress Weatherwax really take off her hat to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘One day perhaps you’ll know how much honour she did you,’ said Miss Level.
‘Anyway . . . no, I ‘ m n o t e v i l . B u t I n e a r l y b e c a m e e v i l , I think. Mother died not long after I was born, my father was at sea and never came back-‘
‘Worse things happen at sea,’ said Tiffany. It was something Granny Aching had told
her.
‘Yes, right, and probably they did, or possibly he never wanted to come back in any
case,’ said Miss Level dryly. ‘And I was put in a charity home, bad food, horrible
teachers, blah, blah, and I fell into the worst company possible, which was my own. It’s
amazing the tricks you can get up to when you’ve got two bodies. Of course, everyone
thought I was twins. In the end I ran away to join the circus. Me! Can you imagine that?’
Topsy and Tipsy, The Astounding Mind-Reading Act?’ said Tiffany.
Miss Level stood stock still, her mouth open.
‘It was on the posters over the stairs,’ Tiffany added.
Now Miss Level relaxed.
‘Oh, yes. Of course. Very . . . quick of you, Tiffany. Yes. You do notice things, don’t
you . . .’
‘I know I wouldn’t pay money to see the egress,’ said Tiffany. ‘It just means “the way
out”.’ [Knowing the dictionary all the way through does have some uses.]
‘Clever!’ said Miss Level. ‘Monty put that on a sign to keep people moving though the
Believe-It-or-Not tent. “This way to the Egress!” Of course, people thought it was a female eagle or something, so Monty had a big man with a dictionary outside to
show them they got exactly what they paid for! Have you ever been to a circus?’
Once, Tiffany admitted. It hadn’t been much fun. Things that try too hard to be
funny often aren’t. There had been a moth-eaten lion with practically no teeth, a tight-rope walker who was never more than a few feet above the ground, and a knife-
thrower who threw a lot of knives at an elderly woman in pink tights on a big spinning
wooden disc and completely failed to hit her every time. The only real amusement was
afterwards, when a cart ran over the clown.
‘My circus was a lot bigger,’ said Miss Level when Tiffany mentioned this. ‘Although as
I recall our knife-thrower was also very bad at aiming. We had elephants and camels
and a lion so fierce it bit a man’s arm nearly off.’
Tiffany had to admit that this sounded a lot more entertaining.
‘And what did you do?’ she said.
‘Well, I just bandaged him up while I shoo’d the lion off him-‘
‘Yes, Miss Level, but I meant in the circus. Just reading your own mind?’
Miss Level beamed at Tiffany. ‘That, yes, and nearly everything else, too,’ she said.
‘With different
wigs on I was the Stupendous Bohunkus Sisters. I juggled plates, you know, and
wore costumes covered in sequins. And I helped with the high wire act. Not walking
the wire, of course, but generally smiling and glittering at the audience. Everyone
assumed I was twins, and circus people don’t ask too many personal questions in any
case. And then what with one thing and another, this and that. . . I came up here and
became a witch.’
Both of Miss Level watched Tiffany carefully.
That was quite a long sentence, that last sentence,’ said Tiffany.
‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it,’ said Miss Level. ‘I can’t tell you everything. Do you still want to stay? The last three girls didn’t. Some people find me slightly . . . odd.’
‘Urn . . . I’ll stay,’ said Tiffany, slowly. The thing that moves things about is a bit
strange, though.’
Miss Level looked surprised, and then said, ‘Oh, do you mean Oswald?’
There’s an invisible man called Oswald who can get into my bedroom?’ said Tiffany,
horrified.
‘Oh, no. That’s just a name. Oswald isn’t a man, he’s an ondageist. Have you heard of
poltergeists?’
‘Er . . . invisible spirits that throw things around?’
‘Good,’ said Miss Level. ‘Well, an ondageist is the opposite. They’re obsessive about
tidiness. He’s quite handy around the house but he’s absolutely dreadful if he’s in the
kitchen when I’m cooking. He keeps putting things away. I think it makes him happy.
Sorry, I should have warned you, but he normally
hides if anyone comes to the cottage. He’s shy.’ ‘And he’s a man? I mean, a male
spirit?’ ‘How would you tell? He’s got no body and he doesn’t speak. I just called
him Oswald because I always picture him as a worried little man with a dustpan and
brush.’ The left Miss Level giggled when the right Miss Level said this. The effect was odd
and, if you thought that way, also creepy.
‘Well, we are getting on well,’ said the right Miss Level nervously. ‘Is there anything
more you want to know, Tiffany?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Tiffany. ‘What do you want me to do? What do you do?’
And mostly, it turned out, what Miss Level did was chores. Endless chores. You could
look in vain for much broomstick tuition, spelling lessons or pointy-hat management.
They were, mostly, the kind of chores that are just. . . chores.
There was a small flock of goats, technically led by Stinky Sam who had a shed of his
own and was kept on a chain, but really led by Black Meg, the senior nanny, who
patiently allowed Tiffany to milk her and then, carefully and deliberately, put a hoof in
the milk bucket. That’s a goat’s idea of getting to know you. A goat is a worrying thing
if you’re used to sheep, because a goat is a sheep with brains. But Tiffany had met
goats before, because a few people in the village kept them for their milk, which was very
nourishing. And she knew that with goats you had
to use persykology.[Tiffany knew what psychology was, but it hadn’t been a pronunciation dictionary.]
If you got excited, and shouted, and hit them (hurting your hand, because it’s like
slapping a sack full of coat hangers) then they had Won and sniggered at you in goat
language, which is almost all sniggering anyway.
By day two, Tiffany learned that the thing to do was reach out and grab Black Meg’s
hind leg just as she lifted it up to kick the bucket, and lift it up further. That made her
unbalanced and nervous and the other goats sniggered at her and Tiffany had Won.
Next there were the bees. Miss Level kept a dozen hives, for the wax as much as the
honey, in a little clearing that was loud with buzzing. She made Tiffany wear a veil