Page 7 (1/1)

Miss Level came in with a tray that held a bowl of beef stew and some bread She put it down on the little table by the bed 'If you put it outside the door when you're finished, I'll take it down later,' she said 'Thank you very oing to be so nice having someone to talk to, apart from myself,' she said 'I do hope you won't want to leave, Tiffany' Tiffany gave her a happy little smile, then waited until the door had shut and she'd heard Miss Level's footsteps go downstairs before tiptoeing to theand checking there were no bars in it There had been so scary about Miss Level's expression It was sort of hungry and hopeful and pleading and frightened, all at once Tiffany also checked that she could bolt the bedroom door on the inside The beef stew tasted, indeed, just like beef stew and not, just to take an example completely and totally at randoirl who'd worked here To be a witch, you have to have a very good i that hers wasn't quite so good But Mistress Weatherwax and Miss Tick wouldn't have let her coerous, would they? Well, would they? They s too easy They assumed you used your brains If you didn't use your brains, you had no business being a witch The world doesn't s easy, they'd say Learn how to learn fast Butthey'd give her a chance, wouldn't they? Of course they would Probably She'd nearly finished the not- tried to take the bowl out of her hand It was the gentlest of tugs, and when she auto stopped i Well, this is a witch's cottage Soain, stopped as soon as she tugged back Tiffany put the eht,' she said, hoping she sounded not scared at all I've finished' The tray rose into the air and drifted gently towards the door where it landed with a faint tinkle Up on the door, the bolt slid back The door opened The tray rose up and sailed through the doorway The door shut The bolt slid across Tiffany heard the rattle of the spoon as, so, the tray moved on It seeht before doing anything And so she thought: It would be stupid to run around screa because your tray had been

taken away After all, whatever had done it had even had the decency to bolt the door after itself, which nored it She cleaned her teeth at the washstand, got into her night-gown and slid into the bed She blew out the candle After a ged the chest of drawers in front of the door She wasn't quite certain why, but she felt better for doing it She lay back in the dark again Tiffany was used to sleeping while, outside on the downland, sheep baa'd and sheep bells occasionally went tonk Up here, there were no sheep to baa and no bells to tonk and, every ti, What was that? But she did get to sleep eventually, because she reht to hear the chest of drawers very slowly slide back to its original position Tiffany woke up, still alive and not chopped up, when the daas just turning grey Unfae, and she thought: I' up and getting the fire lit I kno this is supposed to go She sat up and looked around the room Her old clothes had been neatly folded on top of the chest of drawers The fossil and the lucky stone and the other things had gone, and it was only after a frantic search that she found them back in the box in her suitcase 'Now, look,' she said to the roo, you know If there are any Nac Mac Feegle here, step out thisto happen The Nac Mac Feegle weren't particularly interested in tidying things up, anyway As an experiment she took the candlestick off the bedside table, put it on the chest of drawers and stood back More nothing happened She turned to look out of theand, as she did so, there was a faint tint noise When she spun round, the candlestick was back on the table Welltoday was going to be a day when she got answers Tiffany enjoyed the slightly angry feeling It stopped her thinking about how o home She went to put her dress on and realized that there was so soft yet crackly in a pocket Oh, how could she have forgotten? But it had been a busy day, a very busy day, and et, anyway She pulled out Roland's present and opened the white tissue paper carefully It was a necklace It was the Horse Tiffany stared at it Not what a horse looks like, but what a horse beIt had been carved in the

turf back before history began, by people who hada horse was: strength, grace, beauty and speed, straining to break free of the hill And now someone - someone clever and, therefore, probably also someone expensive - had made it out of silver It was flat, just like it was on the hillside and, just like the Horse on the hillside, some parts of it were not joined to the rest of the body The crafts- ether with tiny silver chain, so that when Tiffany held it up in astonish-still in the ht She had to put it on Andthere was no mirror, not even a tiny hand one Oh, well'Seethat had lost the trail awoke Nothing happened for ainvisible started toa noise like a swarm of fliesTiffany shut her eyes, took a couple of small steps sideways, a few steps forward, turned round and carefully opened her eyes again There she stood, in front of her, as still as a picture The Horse looked very well on the new dress, silver against green She wondered how much it must have cost Roland She wondered why 'See me not,' she said Slowly she took the necklace off, wrapped it up again in its tissue paper and put it in the box with the other things from home Then she found one of the postcards from Twoshirts, and a pencil, and with care and attention, wrote Roland a short thank-you note After a flash of guilt she carefully used the other postcard to tell her parents that she was cohtfully, she went downstairs It had been dark last night, so she hadn't noticed the posters stuck up all down the stairs They were from circuses, and were covered with clowns and ani where no two lines of type are the sas like: Thrills Galore! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Professor Monty Bladder's Three-Ring Circus Cabinet of Curiosities!! In His Actual Mouth!!! See the Horse With His Head Where His Tail Should Be! See the Egress!!!!! CLOWNS! CLOWNS! CLOWNS! The Flying Pastrami Brothers will defy Gravity, The

Greatest Force in the Universe •without a net! aS!S5S>S>S!5>5>S>S>S>S>®S>SJS>S53S>S>S>S>S>S>S>S>S>S>S>S>S>S>S>S>aS! See Clarence The Tap-Dancing l&ule! Wonder at isy aThe Astounding Mind Reading ActWonder at Topsy and Tipsy And so it went on, right down to tiny print They were strange, bright things to find in a little cottage in the woods She found her way into the kitchen It was cold and quiet, except for the ticking of a clock on the wall Both the hands had fallen off the clock face, and lay at the botto time it wasn't inclined to tell anyone about it As kitchens went, it was very tidy In the cupboard drawer beside the sink, forks, spoons and knives were all in neat sections, which was a bit worrying Every kitchen drawer Tiffany had ever seen ht have been meant to be neat but over the years had been cra ladles and bent bottle-openers, which meant that they always stuck unless you knew the trick of opening them Experimentally she took a spoon out of the spoon section, dropped it ast the forks and shut the drawer Then she turned her back There was a sliding noise and a tinkle exactly like the tinkle a spoon st the other spoons, who have st the frighteningly pointy people This time she put a knife in with the forks, shut the drawer - and leaned on it Nothing happened for a while, and then she heard the cutlery rattling The noise got louder The drawer began to shake The whole sink began to tre back 'Have it your way!' The drawer burst open, the knife jumped from section to section like a fish and the drawer slammed back Silence 'Who are you?' said Tiffany No one replied But she didn't like the feeling in the air Someone was upset with her now It had been a silly trick, anyway She went out into the garden, quickly The rushing noise she had heard last night had been e A little water-wheel pu stone cistern, and there was a pipe that led into the house The garden was full of ornaments They were rather sad, cheap ones - bunny rabbits with noested they were on badfrom the apple trees or were tied to posts all around the place There

were soing up outside cottages at ho and tinkling gently Somewell, one looked like a bird made out of old brushes, but h It seehtly as she went past When she went back into the cottage, Miss Level was sitting at the kitchen table So was Miss Level There were, in fact, two of her 'Sorry,' said the Miss Level on the right 1 thought it was best to get it over with right now' The tomen were exactly alike 'Oh, I see,' said Tiffany 'You're twins'

'No,' said the Miss Level on the left, I'ht be a little difficult -'

'- for you to understand,' said the other Miss Level 'Let me see, now You know -'

'- hoins are sos?' said the first Miss Level Tiffany nodded 'Well,' said the second Miss Level, 'I'm a bit more complicated than that, I suppose, because -'

'- I'm one person with two bodies,' said the first Miss Level, and now they spoke like players in a tennisthe words back and forth 'I wanted to break this to you -'

'- gently, because soet upset by the -'

'- idea and find it creepy or -'

'- just plain -'

'- weird' The two bodies stopped 'Sorry about that last sentence,' said the Miss Level on the left 1 only do that when I'm really nervous'

'Er, do you an, but the Miss Level on the right said quickly, There is no both There's just ht right hand and a right left hand and a left right hand and a left left hand It's alland stay home at the same time, Tiffany If it helps, think of me as one -'

'- person with four ars and -'

'- four eyes' All four of those eyes noatched Tiffany nervously 'And two noses,' said Tiffany 'That's right You've got it My right body is slightly cluht pair of eyes I'm human, just like you, except that there's more of me'