Page 4 (1/2)

Chapter 1

A FINE BIG WEE LADDIE

WHY WAS IT, Tiffany Aching wondered, that people liked noise so much? Why was noise so important?

So birth It turned out to be an old hurdy-gurdy organ, hand-cranked by a raggedy man in a battered top hat She sidled away as politely as she could, but as noise went, it was sticky; you got the feeling that if you let it, it would try to follow you home

But that was only one sound in the great cauldron of noise around her, all of ittoat thethe prize fighters and a spangled lady on the high wire, selling candyfloss at the tops of their voices and, not to put too fine a point on it, boozing quite considerably

The air above the green downland was thick with noise It was as if the populations of two or three towns had all coenerally heard was the occasional scream of a buzzard, you heard the per fun The only people notany noise were the thieves and pickpockets, ent about their business with commendable silence, and they didn’t come near Tiffany; ould pick a witch’s pocket? You would be lucky to get all your fingers back At least, that hat they feared, and a sensible witch would encourage them in this fear

When you were a witch, you were all witches, thought Tiffany Aching as she walked through the crowds, pulling her broo It floated a few feet above the ground She was getting a bit bothered about that It seemed to work quite well, but nevertheless, since all around the fair were s balloons, also on the end of a piece of string, she couldn’t help thinking that itthat made one witch look silly made all witches look silly

On the other hand, if you tied it to a hedge somewhere, there was bound to be soet on the stick for a dare, in which case ht up all the way to the top of the atmosphere where the air froze, and while she could in theory call the stick back,to thaw out their children on a bright late-suood People would talk People always talked about witches

She resigned herself to dragging it again With luck, people would think she was joining in with the spirit of the thing in a humorous way

There was a lot of etiquette involved, even at so so deceptively cheerful as a fair She was the witch; who knoould happen if she forgot so? What would happen if you forgot all the little feuds and factions, the people eren’t talking to their neighbours and so on and so on and a lotat all of the word ‘minefield’, but if she had, it would have seemed kind of familiar

She was the witch For all the villages along the Chalk she was the witch Not just her own village any more, but for all the other ones as far away as Haood day’s walk froht of as her own, and for whose people she did as needful, was called a steading, and as steadings went, this one was pretty good Not ical outcrop to therass, and the grass was mostly covered in sheep And today the sheep on the doere left by themselves to do whatever it was that they did when they were by themselves, which would presu theenerally watched over, were now of no interest whatsoever, because right here theplace

Ad fair was only one of the world’s most wonderful attractions if you didn’t usually ever travel more than about four miles from home If you lived around the Chalk you were bound to meet everyone that you knew2 at the fair It was quite often where you irls certainly all wore their best dresses, while the boys wore expressions of hopefulness and their hair smoothed doith cheap hair poenerally came off better since the cheap pomade was very cheap indeed and would oftenwomen, as they had fervently hoped, but to the flies, ould make their lunch off their scalps

However, since the event could hardly be called ‘the fair where you went in the hope of getting a kiss and, if your luck held, the pro

The scouring was held over three days at the end of summer For most people on the Chalk, it was their holiday This was the third day, and ht as well go home Tiffany hadn’t had a kiss, but after all, she was the witch Who knehat they et turned into?

If the late-summer weather was clement, it wasn’t unusual for some people to sleep out under the stars, and under the bushes as well And that hy if you wanted to take a stroll at night it paid to be careful so as not to trip over someone’s feet Not to put too fine a point to it, there was a certain a – a witch who had beenyour own entertainht up in theand Tiffany would have loved to see her face when she saw the giant3

He – and he was quite definitely a he, there was no possible doubt about that – had been carved out of the turf thousands of years before A white outline against the green, he belonged to the days when people had to think about survival and fertility in a dangerous world

Oh, and he had also been carved, or so it would appear, before anyone had invented trousers In fact, to say that he had no trousers on just didn’t do the job His lack of trousers filled the world You si the botto that there was an enor trousers – and as there instead It was definitely a figure of a man without trousers, and certainly not a woman

Everyone who ca a small shovel, or even a knife, and work their way down the steep slope to grub up all the weeds that had grown there over the previous year, iant stand out boldly, as if he wasn’t already

There was always a lot of giggling when the girls worked on the giant

And the reason for the giggling, and the circu, couldn’t help but put Tiffany in , who you norrin on her face She was generally thought of as a jolly old soul, but there was a lot more to the old woman She had never been Tiffany’s teacher officially, but Tiffany couldn’t help learning things froht that Nanny knew all the old, dark stuff – old ic that was built into people and the landscape It concerned things like death, and e, and betrothals And promises that were promises even if there was no one to hear thes that make people touch wood and never, ever walk under a black cat

You didn’t need to be a witch to understand it The world around you became more – well,called it numinous – an uncharacteristically solemn word from a woman as much more likely

to be saying, ‘I would like a brandy, thank you very much, and could you make it a double while you are about it’ And she had told Tiffany about the old days, when it sees that you did around the changing of the seasons, for example; all the custo said, is deep and dark and breathing and never fades Little rituals