Wintersmith

Page 8

"And which one of them do you think I am?" asked Miss Tick icily. "Ah, well, right, well, human is kind of like animal, right? I mean, look at monkeys, right?"
"I have no wish to look at monkeys," said Miss Tick. "I have seen the sort of things they do." The coachman clearly spotted that this was a road not to go down, and turned the pages furiously. Then he beamed. "Ah, ah, ah!" he said. "How much do you weigh, miss?"
"Two ounces," said Miss Tick. "Which by chance is the maximum weight of a letter that can be sent to the Lancre and Near Hinterland area for ten pence." She pointed to the two stamps gummed to her lapel. "I have already purchased my stamps."
"You never weigh two ounces!" said the coachman. "You're a hundred and twenty pounds at least!" Miss Tick sighed. She'd wanted to avoid this, but Twoshirts wasn't Dogbend, after all. It lived on the highway, it watched the world go past. She reached up and pressed the button that worked her hat. "Would you like me to forget you just said that?" she asked. "Why?" said the coachman. There was a pause while Miss Tick stared blankly at him. Then she turned her eyes upward. "Excuse me," she said. "This is always happening, I'm afraid. It's the duckings, you know. The spring rusts." She reached up and banged the side of the hat. The hidden pointy bit shot up, scattering paper flowers. The coachman's eyes followed it. "Oh," he said. And the thing about pointy hats was this: The person under one was definitely a witch or a wizard. Oh, someone who wasn't could probably get a pointy hat and go out wearing it, and they'd be fine right up until the moment when they met a real pointy-hat owner. Wizards and witches don't like impostors. They also don't like being kept waiting. "How much do I weigh now, pray?" she asked. "Two ounces!" said the coachman quickly. Miss Tick smiled. "Yes. And not one scruple more! A scruple being, of course, a weight of twenty grains, or one twenty-fourth of an ounce. I am in fact…unscrupulous!" She waited to see if this extremely teachery joke was going to get a smile but didn't mind when it didn't. Miss Tick rather liked being smarter than other people. She got on the coach. As the coach climbed up into the mountains, snow started to fall. Miss Tick, who knew that no two snowflakes are alike, didn't pay them any attention. If she had done so, she'd have felt slightly less smart. Tiffany slept. A fire glowed in the bedroom grate. Downstairs, Miss Treason's loom wove its way through the night…. Small blue figures crept across the bedroom floor and, by forming a Feegle pyramid, reached the top of the little table Tiffany used as a desk. Tiffany turned over in bed and made a little snfgl noise. The Feegles froze, just for a moment, and then the bedroom door swung gently shut behind them. A blue blur raised a trail of dust on the narrow stairs, across the loom-room floor, out into the scullery, and through a strange cheese-shaped hole in the outside door. From then on it was a trail of disturbed leaves leading deep into the woods, where a small fire burned. It lit the faces of a horde of Feegles, although it may not have wanted to. The blur stopped and became about six Feegles, two of them carrying Tiffany's diary. They laid it down carefully. "We're well oot o' that hoose," said Big Yan. "Dija see dem bigjob skulls? There's a hag ye wouldna want tae cross in a hurry!"
"Ach, I see she's got one o' they paddly locks again," said Daft Wullie, walking around the diary. "Rob, I canna help thinkin' that it's no' right tae read this," said Billy Bigchin, as Rob put his arm into the keyhole. "It's pers'nal!"
"She's oor hag. What's pers'nal tae her is pers'nal tae us," said Rob matter-of-factly, fishing around inside the lock. "Besides, she must want someone tae read it, 'cuz she wrote things doon. Nae point in writin' stuff doon if ye dinna want it read! It's a sheer waste o' pencil!"
"Mebbe she wanted tae read it hersel'," said Billy doubtfully. "Oh, aye? Why'd she want tae do that?" said Rob scornfully. "She already kens what's in it. An' Jeannie wants tae know what she's thinkin' aboot the Baron's lad." There was a click, and the padlock opened. The assembled Feeglehood watched carefully. Rob turned the rustling pages and grinned. "Ach, she's writ here: Oh, the dear Feegles ha' turned up again," he said. This met with general applause. "Ach, what a kind girl she is tae write that," said Billy Bigchin. "Can I see?" He read: Oh dear, the Feegles have turned up again. "Ah," he said. Billy Bigchin had come with Jeannie all the way from the Long Lake clan. The clan there was more at home with the reading and writing, and since he was the gonnagle, he was expected to be good at both. The Chalk Hill Feegles, on the other hand, were more at home with the drinkin', stealin', and fightin', and Rob Anybody was good at all three. But he'd learned to read and write because Jeannie had asked him to. He did them with a lot more optimism than accuracy, Billy knew. When he was faced with a long sentence, he tended to work out a few words and then have a great big guess. "The art o' readin' is all aboot understandin' whut the wurds is tryin' tae say, right?" said Rob. "Aye, mebbe," said Big Yan, "but is there any wurd there tae tell us that the big wee hag is sweet on that heap o' jobbies doon in the stone castle?"
"Ye ha' a verra ro-mantic nature," said Rob. "And the answer is: I canna tell. They writes some bits o' their letters in them wee codies. That's a terrible thing tae do to a reader. It's hard enough readin' the normal words, wi'oot somebody jumblin' them all up."
"It'll be a baaaad look-oot fra' us all if the big wee hag starts mindin' boys instead o' gettin' the knowin' o' the hagglin'," said Big Yan. "Aye, but the boy willna be interested in marryin'," said Slightly Mad Angus. "He might be one day," said Billy Bigchin, who'd made a hobby of watching humans. "Most bigjob men get married."
"They do?" said a Feegle in astonishment. "Oh, aye."
"They want tae get married?"
"A lot o' them do, aye," said Billy. "So there's nae more drinkin', stealin', an' fightin'?"
"Hey, ah'm still allowed some drinkin' an' stealin' an' fightin'!" said Rob Anybody. "Aye, Rob, but we canna help noticin' ye also have tae do the Explainin', too," said Daft Wullie. There was a general nodding from the crowd. To Feegles, Explaining was a dark art. It was just so hard. "Like, when we come back from drinkin', stealin', an' fightin', Jeannie gives ye the Pursin' o' the Lips," Daft Wullie went on. A moan went up from all the Feegles: "Ooooh, save us from the Pursin' o' the Lips!"
"An' there's the Foldin' o' the Arms," said Wullie, because he was even scaring himself. "Oooooh, waily, waily, waily, the Foldin' o' the Arms!" the Feegles cried, tearing at their hair. "Not tae mention the Tappin' o' the Feets…." Wullie stopped, not wanting to mention the Tappin' o' the Feets. "Aargh! Oooooh! No' the Tappin' o' the Feets!" Some of the Feegles started to bang their heads on trees. "Aye, aye, aye, BUT," said Rob Anybody desperately, "what youse dinna ken is that this is part o' the hiddlins o' husbandry." Feegles looked at one another. There was silence except for the creak of a small tree as it fell over. "We never heard o' any sich thing, Rob," said Big Yan. "Well, an' ah'm no' surprised! Who'd tell ye? Ye ain't married! Ye dinna get the po-et-ic symmi-tree o' the whole thing. Gather roound 'til I tell ye…." Rob looked around to see if anyone apart from about five hundred Feegles was watching him, and went on: "See…first ye get the drinkin' an' the fightin' an' the stealin', okay. An' when you get back tae the mound, it's time for the Tappin' o' the Feets—"
"Ooooooo!"
"—an' the Foldin' o' the Arms—"
"Aaaargh!"
"—an', o' course, the Pursin' o' the Lips an' will ye scunners knock it off wi' the groanin' before I starts bangin' heids together! Right?" All the Feegles fell silent, except for one: "Oh, waily, waily, waily! Ohhhhhhh! Aaarrgh! The Pursin'…o'…the…" He stopped and looked around in embarrassment. "Daft Wullie?" said Rob Anybody with icy patience. "Aye, Rob?"
"Ye ken I told yez there wuz times ye should listen to whut I was sayin'?"
"Aye, Rob?"
"That wuz one o' them times." Daft Wullie hung his head. "Sorry, Rob."
"Aye! Now, where wuz I…Oh, aye…we get the lips an' the arms an' the feets, okay? An' then—"
"It's time for the Explainin'!" said Daft Wullie. "Aye!" snapped Rob Anybody. "Any one o' youse mudlins want to be the one who dares tae do the Explainin'?" He looked around. The Feegles shuffled backward. "Wi' the kelda a-pursin' an' a-foldin' an' a-tappin'," Rob went on in a voice of Doom, "an' that look in her bonny eye that says: 'This Explanation had better be really guid'? Well? Do ye?" By now Feegles were crying and chewing the edges of their kilts in terror. "No, Rob," they murmured. "No, aye!" said Rob Anybody triumphantly. "Ye wouldna! That's because you don't have the knowin' o' the husbandry!"
"I heard Jeannie say ye come up with Explanations no other Feegle in all the world would try," said Daft Wullie admiringly. "Aye, that's quite likely," said Rob, swelling with pride. "An' Feegles has got a fine tradition o' huge Explanations!"
"She said some of your Explainin' is so long an' twisty, by the time ye've got to the end, she canna recall how they started," Daft Wullie went on. "It's a nat'ral gift—I wouldna wanta boast," said Rob, waving his hand modestly. "I can't see bigjobs bein' good at Explainin'," said Big Yan. "They're verra slow thinkers."
"They still get wed, though," said Billy Bigchin. "Aye, and yon boy in the big castle is bein' too friendly wi' the big wee hag," said Big Yan. "His da is gettin' old an' sick, and soon yon boy will own a big stone castle an' the wee bittie papers that says that he owns the hills."
"Jeannie's afeared that if he's got the wee bittie papers that says he owns the hills," Billy Bigchin continued, "he might go daft and think they belong to him. An' we know where that'll lead, right?"
"Aye," said Big Yan. "Plowin'." It was a dreaded word. The old Baron had once planned to plow a few of the flatter areas of the Chalk, because wheat was fetching high prices and there was no money in sheep, but Granny Aching had been alive then and had changed his mind for him. But some pastures around the Chalk were being plowed up already. There was money in wheat. The Feegles took it for granted that Roland would take to the plow, too. Wasn't he brought up by a couple of vain, scheming, and unpleasant aunts? "I dinna trust him," said Slightly Mad Angus. "He reads books an' such. He disna care aboot the land."
"Aye," said Daft Wullie, "but if he wuz wed tae the big wee hag, he'd no' think o' the plow, 'cuz the big wee hag would soon gi'e him the Pursin' o' the Arms—"
"It's the Foldin' o' the Arms!" snapped Rob Anybody. All the Feegles looked around fearfully. "Ooooooh, not the Foldin' o' th—"