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Leaving It ca Movement without a body tired it, and it drifted very slowly It wasn 't thinking now It had been ht, because the brain that was doing the thinking for it had died They always died So noas naked again, and frightened It could hide in one of the blobby white creatures that baa 'd nervously as it crawled over the turf But they had useless brains, capable of thinking only about grass and s that went baa No They would not do It needed, needed so mind, a mind with power, a mind that could keep it safe It searchedThe new boots were all wrong They were stiff and shiny Shiny boots! That was disgraceful Clean boots, that was different There was nothing wrong with putting a bit of a polish on boots to keep the wet out But boots had to work for a living They shouldn't shine Tiffany Aching, standing on the rug in her bedroos as soon as possible Then there was the new straw hat, with a ribbon on it She had some doubts about that, too She tried to look at herself in the er than her hand, and cracked and blotchy She had to move it around to try and see as much of herself as possible and reether But todaywell, she didn't usually do this sort of thing in the house, but it was important to look smart today, and since no one was around

She put the mirror down on the rickety table by the bed, stood in the , shut her eyes and said: 'Seewith no body and no er and a bottomless fear, felt the power It would have sniffed the air, if it had a nose It searched It found Such a strangesed direction slightly, and went a little faster As it moved, it made a noise like a swar they couldn 't see, hear or srass Tiffany opened her eyes There she was, a few feet away from herself She could see the back of her own head Carefully, shedown at the 'her' that was , because she found that if she did that then the trick was over It was quite difficult,like that, but at last she was in front of herself and looking herself up and down Brown hair toshe could do about that At least her hair was clean and she'd washed her face

She had a new dress on, which is a bit It was so unusual to buy new clothes in the Aching farow into it' But at least it was pale green, and it didn't actually touch the floor With the shiny new boots and the straw hat she lookedlike a far off to her first job It'd have to do From here she could see the pointy hat on her head, but she had to look hard for it It was like a glint in the air, gone as soon as you saw it That's why she'd been worried about the new straw hat, but it had sih it as if the new hat wasn't there This was because, in a way, it wasn't It was invisible, except in the rain Sun and ent straight through, but rain and snow soiven it by the greatest witch in the world, a real witch with a black dress and a black hat and eyes that could go through you like turpentine goes through a sick sheep It had been a kind of reward Tiffany had done ic Before she had done it she hadn't known that she could; when she had been doing it she hadn't known that she was; and after she had done it she hadn't kno she had Now she had to learn how 'See me not,' she said The vision of heror whatever it was, because she was not exactly sure about this trickvanished It had been a shock, the first time she'd done this But she'd always found it easy to see herself, at least in her head All her s or watching things, rather than the view from the two holes in the front of her head There was a part of her that was alatching her Miss Tick - another witch, but one as easier to talk to than the witch who'd given Tiffany the hat - had said that a witch had to kno to 'stand apart', and that she'd find out rew, so Tiffany supposed the 'see ht to talk to Miss Tick about 'seeout of her body, but still had a sort of ghost body that could walk around It all worked as long as her ghost eyes didn't look down and see that she was just a ghost body If that happened, some part of her panicked and she found herself back in her solid body immediately Tiffany had, in the end, decided to keep this to herself You didn't have to tell a teacher everything

Anyway, it was a good trick for when you didn't have a mirror Miss Tick was a sort of witch-finder That seeical lookout for girls who showed pro They didn't teach you how to do it They taught you how to knohat you were doing Witches were a bit like cats They didn't much like one another's company, but they did like to knohere all the other witches were, just in case they needed theht need the to cackle Witches didn't fear much, Miss Tick had said, but what the powerful ones were afraid of, even if they didn't talk about it, hat they called 'going to the bad' It was too easy to slip into careless little cruelties because you had power and other people hadn't, too easy to think other people didn'tdidn't apply to you At the end of that road was you dribbling and cackling to yourself all alone in a gingerbread house, groarts on your nose Witches needed to know other witches atching theht, hy the hat was there She could touch it any time, provided she shut her eyes It was a kind of reminderTiffany!' her mother shouted up the stairs

'Miss Tick's here!' Yesterday, Tiffany had said goodbye to Granny AchingThe iron wheels of the old shepherding hut were half buried in the turf, high up on the hills The potbellied stove, which still stood lopsided in the grass, was red with rust The chalk hills were taking the The rest of the hut had been burned on the day she'd been buried No shepherd would have dared to use it, let alone spend the night there Granny Aching had been too big in people's ht and day, in all seasons, she was the Chalk country: its best shepherd, its wisest woreen downland had a soul that walked about in old boots and a sacking apron and smoked a foul old pipe and dosed sheep with turpentine The shepherds said that Granny Aching had cussed the sky blue They called the fluffy little white clouds of suhed when they said these things, part of the No shepherd would have dared presume to live in that hut, no shepherd at all So they had cut the turf and buried Granny Aching in the Chalk, watered the turf afterwards to leave no mark, then they burned her hut Sheep's wool, Jolly Sailor tobacco and turpentinehad been the s Such things have a hold on people that goes right to the heart Tiffany only had to smell them now to be back there, in the warmth and silence and safety of the hut It was the place she had gone to when she was upset, and the place she had gone to when she was happy

And Granny Aching would always s bad could happen in the shepherding hut It was a fort against the world Even now, after Granny had gone, Tiffany still liked to go up there Tiffany stood there, while the wind blew over the turf and sheep bells clonked in the distance 'I've got' She cleared her throat I've got to go away II've got to learn proper witching, and there's no one here now to teach ot toto look after the hills like you did I cando things but I don't know things, and Miss Tick says what you don't know can kill you I want to be as good as you were I will come back!

I will come back soon! I promise I will come back, better than I went!' A blue butterfly, blown off course by a gust, settled on Tiffany's shoulder, opened and shut its wings once or twice, then fluttered away Granny Aching had never been at home ords She collected silence like other people collected string But she had a way of saying nothing that said it all Tiffany stayed for a while, until her tears had dried, and then went off back down the hill, leaving the everlasting wind to curl around the wheels and whistle down the chimney of the pot-bellied stove Life went on It wasn't unusual for girls as young as Tiffany to go 'into service' Itas aan old lady who lived by herself; she wouldn't be able to pay much, but since this was your first job you probably weren't worth much, either In fact Tiffany practically ran Ho milk churns, and her parents had been surprised she had wanted to go into service at all But as Tiffany said, it was soot out into the world a little bit You met new people

You never knehat it could lead to That, rather cunningly, got her one off to be a scullery maid, and then a parlour maid, and had worked her way up until she was a housekeeper and married to a butler and lived in a fine house It wasn't her fine house, and she only lived in a bit of it, but she was practically a lady Tiffany didn't intend to be a lady This was all a ruse, anyway And Miss Tick was in on it You weren't allowed to charge , so all witches did souised as a teacher She travelled around with the other wandering teachers ent in bands froe for food or old clothes It was a good way to get around, because people in the chalk country didn't trust witches They thought they danced around on hts without their drawers on (Tiffany had htly relieved to find out that you didn't have to do this to be a witch You could if you wanted to, but only if you were certain where all the nettles, thistles and hedgehogs were) But if it ca teachers, too

They were said to pinch chickens and steal away children (which was true, in a way) and they went fro robes with leather pads on the sleeves and strange flat hats and talked ao no one could understand, like 'Aha jacta esf and 'Quid pro quo' It was quite easy for Miss Tick to lurk ast them Her pointy hat was a stealth version, which looked just like a black straw hat with paper flowers on it until you pressed the secret spring Over the last year or so Tiffany's mother had been quite surprised, and a little worried, at Tiffany's sudden thirst for education, which people in the village thought was a good thing in moderation but if taken unwisely could lead to restlessness Then a e had come: Be ready Miss Tick, in her flowery hat, had visited the far that an elderly lady up in the mountains had heard of Tiffany's excellent proith cheese and illing to offer her the post of maid at four dollars a month, one day off a week, her own bed and a week's holiday at Hogswatch Tiffany knew her parents Three dollars a month was a bit low, and five dollars would be suspiciously high, but proith cheese orth the extra dollar And a bed all to yourself was a very nice perk

ng It ca Movement without a body tired it, and it drifted very slowly It wasn 't thinking now It had been ht, because the brain that was doing the thinking for it had died They always died So noas naked again, and frightened It could hide in one of the blobby white creatures that baa 'd nervously as it crawled over the turf But they had useless brains, capable of thinking only about grass and s that went baa No They would not do It needed, needed so mind, a mind with power, a mind that could keep it safe It searchedThe new boots were all wrong They were stiff and shiny Shiny boots! That was disgraceful Clean boots, that was different There was nothing wrong with putting a bit of a polish on boots to keep the wet out But boots had to work for a living They shouldn't shine Tiffany Aching, standing on the rug in her bedroos as soon as possible Then there was the new straw hat, with a ribbon on it She had some doubts about that, too She tried to look at herself in the er than her hand, and cracked and blotchy She had to move it around to try and see as much of herself as possible and reether But todaywell, she didn't usually do this sort of thing in the house, but it was important to look smart today, and since no one was around

She put the mirror down on the rickety table by the bed, stood in the , shut her eyes and said: 'Seewith no body and no er and a bottomless fear, felt the power It would have sniffed the air, if it had a nose It searched It found Such a strangesed direction slightly, and went a little faster As it moved, it made a noise like a swar they couldn 't see, hear or srass Tiffany opened her eyes There she was, a few feet away from herself She could see the back of her own head Carefully, shedown at the 'her' that was , because she found that if she did that then the trick was over It was quite difficult,like that, but at last she was in front of herself and looking herself up and down Brown hair toshe could do about that At least her hair was clean and she'd washed her face

She had a new dress on, which is a bit It was so unusual to buy new clothes in the Aching farow into it' But at least it was pale green, and it didn't actually touch the floor With the shiny new boots and the straw hat she lookedlike a far off to her first job It'd have to do From here she could see the pointy hat on her head, but she had to look hard for it It was like a glint in the air, gone as soon as you saw it That's why she'd been worried about the new straw hat, but it had sih it as if the new hat wasn't there This was because, in a way, it wasn't It was invisible, except in the rain Sun and ent straight through, but rain and snow soiven it by the greatest witch in the world, a real witch with a black dress and a black hat and eyes that could go through you like turpentine goes through a sick sheep It had been a kind of reward Tiffany had done ic Before she had done it she hadn't known that she could; when she had been doing it she hadn't known that she was; and after she had done it she hadn't kno she had Now she had to learn how 'See me not,' she said The vision of heror whatever it was, because she was not exactly sure about this trickvanished It had been a shock, the first time she'd done this But she'd always found it easy to see herself, at least in her head All her s or watching things, rather than the view from the two holes in the front of her head There was a part of her that was alatching her Miss Tick - another witch, but one as easier to talk to than the witch who'd given Tiffany the hat - had said that a witch had to kno to 'stand apart', and that she'd find out rew, so Tiffany supposed the 'see ht to talk to Miss Tick about 'seeout of her body, but still had a sort of ghost body that could walk around It all worked as long as her ghost eyes didn't look down and see that she was just a ghost body If that happened, some part of her panicked and she found herself back in her solid body immediately Tiffany had, in the end, decided to keep this to herself You didn't have to tell a teacher everything

Anyway, it was a good trick for when you didn't have a mirror Miss Tick was a sort of witch-finder That seeical lookout for girls who showed pro They didn't teach you how to do it They taught you how to knohat you were doing Witches were a bit like cats They didn't much like one another's company, but they did like to knohere all the other witches were, just in case they needed theht need the to cackle Witches didn't fear much, Miss Tick had said, but what the powerful ones were afraid of, even if they didn't talk about it, hat they called 'going to the bad' It was too easy to slip into careless little cruelties because you had power and other people hadn't, too easy to think other people didn'tdidn't apply to you At the end of that road was you dribbling and cackling to yourself all alone in a gingerbread house, groarts on your nose Witches needed to know other witches atching theht, hy the hat was there She could touch it any time, provided she shut her eyes It was a kind of reminderTiffany!' her mother shouted up the stairs

'Miss Tick's here!' Yesterday, Tiffany had said goodbye to Granny AchingThe iron wheels of the old shepherding hut were half buried in the turf, high up on the hills The potbellied stove, which still stood lopsided in the grass, was red with rust The chalk hills were taking the The rest of the hut had been burned on the day she'd been buried No shepherd would have dared to use it, let alone spend the night there Granny Aching had been too big in people's ht and day, in all seasons, she was the Chalk country: its best shepherd, its wisest woreen downland had a soul that walked about in old boots and a sacking apron and smoked a foul old pipe and dosed sheep with turpentine The shepherds said that Granny Aching had cussed the sky blue They called the fluffy little white clouds of suhed when they said these things, part of the No shepherd would have dared presume to live in that hut, no shepherd at all So they had cut the turf and buried Granny Aching in the Chalk, watered the turf afterwards to leave no mark, then they burned her hut Sheep's wool, Jolly Sailor tobacco and turpentinehad been the s Such things have a hold on people that goes right to the heart Tiffany only had to smell them now to be back there, in the warmth and silence and safety of the hut It was the place she had gone to when she was upset, and the place she had gone to when she was happy

And Granny Aching would always s bad could happen in the shepherding hut It was a fort against the world Even now, after Granny had gone, Tiffany still liked to go up there Tiffany stood there, while the wind blew over the turf and sheep bells clonked in the distance 'I've got' She cleared her throat I've got to go away II've got to learn proper witching, and there's no one here now to teach ot toto look after the hills like you did I cando things but I don't know things, and Miss Tick says what you don't know can kill you I want to be as good as you were I will come back!