‘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 stagnant 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’ vena 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 thefishin’ said she was a big, big girl!’
‘A great help that is, I dinnae think! They ‘re all big, big girls!’
‘Ye pair a 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.