The Wee Free Men

She pushed aside the flap. It was dark inside the tent, as well as stuffy and hot. A skinny figure sat behind a small table. She had a very sharp, thin nose and was wearing a large black straw hat with paper flowers on it. It was completely unsuitable for a face like that.

'Are you a witch?' said Tiffany. 'I don't mind if you are.'

'What a strange question to spring on someone,' said the woman, looking slightly shocked. 'Your baron bans witches in this country, you know that, and the first thing you say to me is "Are you a witch?" Why would I be a witch?'

'Well, you're wearing all black,' said Tiffany.

'Anyone can wear black,' said the woman. 'That doesn't mean a thing.'

'And you're wearing a straw hat with flowers in it,' Tiffany went on.

'Aha!' said the woman. 'That proves it, then. Witches wear tall pointy hats. Everyone knows that, foolish child.'

'Yes, but witches are also very clever,' said Tiffany calmly. There was something about the twinkle in the woman's eyes that told her to carry on. 'They sneak about. Probably they often don't look like witches. And a witch coming here would know about the Baron and so she'd wear the kind of hat that everyone knows witches don't wear.'

The woman stared at her. 'That was an incredible feat of reasoning,' she said at last. 'You'd make a good witch-finder. You know they used to set fire to witches? Whatever kind of hat I've got on, you'd say it proves I'm a witch, yes?'

'Well, the frog sitting on your hat is a bit of a clue, too,' said Tiffany.

'I'm a toad, actually,' said the creature, which had been peering at Tiffany from between the paper flowers.

'You're very yellow for a toad.'

'I've been a bit ill,' said the toad.

'And you talk,' said Tiffany.

'You only have my word for it,' said the toad, disappearing into the paper flowers. 'You can't prove anything.'

'You don't have matches on you, do you?' said the woman to Tiffany.

'No.'

'Fine, fine. Just checking.'

Again, there was a pause while the woman gave Tiffany a long stare, as if making up her mind about something.

'My name,' she said at last, 'is Miss Tick. And I am a witch. It's a good name for a witch, of course.'

'You mean blood-sucking parasite?' said Tiffany, wrinkling her forehead.

'I'm sorry?' said Miss Tick, coldly.

'Ticks,' said Tiffany. 'Sheep get them. But if you use turpentine—'

'I meant that it sounds like "mystic",' said Miss Tick.

'Oh, you mean a pune, or play on words,' said Tiffany.[Tiffany had read lots of words in the dictionary that she'd never heard spoken, so she had to guess at how they were pronounced.] 'In that case it would be even better if you were Miss Teak, a hard foreign wood, because that would sound like "mystique", or you could be Miss Take, which would—'

'I can see we're going to get along like a house on fire,' said Miss Tick. 'There may be no survivors.'

'You really are a witch?'

'Oh, pur-lease,' said Miss Tick. 'Yes, yes, I am a witch. I have a talking animal, a tendency to correct other people's pronunciation—it's pun, by the way, not "pune"—and a fascination for poking my nose into other people's affairs and, yes, a pointy hat.'

'Can I operate the spring now?' said the toad.

'Yes,' said Miss Tick, her eyes still on Tiffany. 'You can operate the spring.'

'I like operating the spring,' said the toad, crawling around to the back of the hat.

There was a click, and a slow thwap-thwap noise, and the centre of the hat rose slowly and jerkily up out of the paper flowers, which fell away.

'Er...' said Tiffany.

'You have a question?' said Miss Tick.

With a last thwop, the top of the hat made a perfect point.

'How do you know I won't run away right now and tell the Baron?' said Tiffany.

'Because you haven't the slightest desire to do so,' said Miss Tick. 'You're absolutely fascinated. You want to be a witch, am I right? You probably want to fly on a broomstick, yes?'

'Oh, yes!' She'd often dreamed of flying. Miss Tick's next words brought her down to earth.

'Really? You like having to wear really, really thick pants? Believe me, if I've got to fly I wear two pairs of woollen ones and a canvas pair on the outside which, I may tell you, are not very feminine no matter how much lace you sew on. It can get cold up there. People forget that. And then there's the bristles. Don't ask me about the bristles. I will not talk about the bristles.'

'But can't you use a keeping-warm spell?' said Tiffany.

'I could. But a witch doesn't do that sort of thing. Once you use magic to keep yourself warm, then you'll start using it for other things.'

'But isn't that what a witch is supposed to—' Tiffany began.

'Once you learn about magic, I mean really learn about magic, learn everything you can learn about magic, then you've got the most important lesson still to learn,' said Miss Tick.

'What's that?'