Wintersmith

"He kinda found us," said Daft Wullie, putting his arm around as much of Horace as was possible. "Can I keep him? He understands evera word I say!"

"That's amazing, because I don't," said Tiffany. "Look, were we in a shipwreck last night?"

"Oh, aye. Sorta."

"Sort of? Was it real or wasn't it?"

"Oh, aye," said the Feegle nervously.

"Which?" Tiffany insisted.

"Kinda real, and kinda not real, in a real unreal sorta way," said Daft Wullie, squirming a bit. "I don't have the knowin' o' the right wurdies…."

"Are all you Feegles okay?"

"Oh aye, miss," said Daft Wullie, brightening up. "Nae problemo. It wuz only a dream ship on a dream sea, after a'."

"And a dream iceberg?" said Tiffany.

"Ach, no. The iceberg was real, mistress."

"I thought so! Are you sure?"

"Aye. We're good at the knowin' o' stuff like that," said Daft Wullie. "That's so, eh, lads?" The other two Feegles, in total awe of being in the presence of the big wee hag without the safety of hundreds of brothers around them, nodded at Tiffany and then tried to shuffle behind each other.

"A real iceberg shaped like me is floating around on the sea?" said Tiffany in horror. "Getting in the way of shipping?"

"Aye. Could be," said Daft Wullie.

"I'm going to get into so much trouble!" said Tiffany, standing up.

There was a snapping noise, and the end of one of the floorboards leaped out of the floor and hung there, bouncing up and down with a rocking-chair noise. It had ripped out two long nails.

"And now this," said Tiffany weakly. But the Feegles and Horace had vanished.

Behind Tiffany someone laughed, although it was maybe more of a chuckle, deep and real and with just a hint that maybe someone had told a rude joke.

"Those little devils can't half run, eh?" said Nanny Ogg, ambling into the room. "Now then, Tiff, I wants you to turn around slowly and go and sit on your bed with your feet off the ground. Can you do that?"

"Of course, Mrs. Ogg," said Tiffany. "Look, I'm sorry about—"

"Poo, what's a floorboard more or less?" said Nanny Ogg. "I'm much more worried about Esme Weatherwax. She said there might be something like this! Ha, she was right and Miss Tick was wrong! There'll be no living with her after this! She'll have her nose so far in the air, her feet won't touch the ground!"

With a spioioioiiing! sound, another floorboard sprang up.

"And it might be a good idea if yours didn't either, miss," Nanny Ogg added. "I'll be back in half a tick."

That turned out to be the same length of time as twenty-seven seconds, when Nanny returned carrying a pair of violently pink slippers with bunny rabbits on them.

"My second-best pair," she said as, behind her, a board went plunk! and hurled four big nails into the far wall. The boards that had already sprung up were beginning to sprout what looked a lot like leaves. They were thin and weedy, but leaves were what they were.

"Is it me doing this?" asked Tiffany nervously.

"I daresay Esme will want to tell you all about it herself," said Nanny, helping Tiffany's feet into the slippers. "But what you've got here, miss, is a bad case of Ped Fecundis." In the back of Tiffany's memory Dr. Sensibility Bustle, D. M. Phil., B. El L., stirred in his sleep for a moment and took care of the translation.

"Fertile Feet?" said Tiffany.

"Well done! I didn't expect anything to happen to floorboards, mind you, but it makes sense, when you think about it. They're made of wood, after all, so they're tryin' to grow."

"Mrs. Ogg?" said Tiffany.

"Yes?"

"Please? I haven't got a clue what you're talking about! I keep my feet very clean! And I think I'm a giant iceberg!"

Nanny Ogg gave her a slow, kind look. Tiffany stared into dark, twinkling eyes. Don't try to trick her or hold anything back from those eyes, said her Third Thoughts. Everyone says she's been Granny Weatherwax's best friend since they were girls. And that means that under all those wrinkles must be nerves of steel.

"Kettle's on downstairs," said Nanny brightly. "Why don't you come down and tell me all about it?"

Tiffany had looked up "strumpet" in the Unexpurgated Dictionary, and found it meant "a woman who is no better than she should be" and "a lady of easy virtue." This, she decided after some working out, meant that Mrs. Gytha Ogg, known as Nanny, was a very respectable person. She found virtue easy, for one thing. And if she was no better than she should be, then she was just as good as she ought to be.

She had a feeling that Miss Treason hadn't meant this, but you couldn't argue with logic.

Nanny Ogg was good at listening, at least. She listened like a great big ear, and before Tiffany realized it, she was telling her everything. Everything. Nanny sat on the opposite side of the big kitchen table, puffing gently at a pipe with a hedgehog carved on it. Sometimes she'd ask a little question, like "Why was that?" or "And then what happened?" and off they'd go again. Nanny's friendly little smile could drag out of you things you didn't know you knew.