A Blink of the Screen

that she was coming.
    ‘Everyone’s pretty well at the moment,’ said Nanny diplomatically.
    ‘Any old folk want cheerin’ up?’
    It was taken for granted by both women that old people did not include them. A witch aged ninety-seven would not have included herself. Old people happened to other people.
    ‘All fairly cheerful right now,’ said Nanny.
    ‘Maybe I could tell stories to the kiddies?’
    Nanny nodded. Granny had done that once before, when the mood had briefly taken her. It had worked pretty well, as far as the children were concerned. They’d listened with open-mouthed attention and apparent enjoyment to a traditional old folk legend. The problem had come when they’d gone home afterwards and asked the meaning of words like ‘disembowelled’.
    ‘I could sit in a rocking chair while I tell ’em,’ Granny added. ‘That’s how it’s done, I recall. And I could make them some of my special treacle toffee apples. Wouldn’t that be nice?’
    Nanny nodded again, in a sort of horrified reverie. She realized that only she stood in the way of a wholesale rampage of niceness.
    ‘Toffee,’ she said. ‘Would that be the sort you did that shatters like glass, or that sort where our boy Pewsey had to have his mouth levered open with a spoon?’
    ‘I reckon I know what I did wrong last time.’
    ‘You know you and sugar don’t get along, Esme. Remember them all-day suckers you made?’
    ‘They did last all day, Gytha.’
    ‘Only ’cos our Pewsey couldn’t get it out of his little mouth until we pulled two of his teeth, Esme. You ought to stick to pickles. You and pickles goes well.’
    ‘I’ve got to do something, Gytha. I can’t be an old grump all the time. I know! I’ll help at the Trials. Bound to be a lot that needs doing, eh?’
    Nanny grinned inwardly. So that was it.
    ‘Why, yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sure Mrs Earwig will be happy to tell you what to do.’ And more fool her if she does, she thought, because I can tell you’re planning something.
    ‘I shall talk to her,’ said Granny. ‘I’m sure there’s a million things I could do to help, if I set my mind to it.’
    ‘And I’m sure you will,’ said Nanny heartily. ‘I’ve a feelin’ you’re going to make a big difference.’
    Granny started to rummage in the bag again.
    ‘You are going to be along as well, aren’t you, Gytha?’
    ‘Me?’ said Nanny. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
    Nanny got up especially early. If there was going to be any unpleasantness she wanted a ringside seat.
    What there was was bunting. It was hanging from tree to tree in terrible brightly coloured loops as she walked towards the Trials.
    There was something oddly familiar about it, too. It should not technically be possible for anyone with a pair of scissors to be unable to cut out a triangle, but someone had managed it. And it was also obvious that the flags had been made from old clothes, painstakingly cut up. Nanny knew this because not many real flags have collars.
    In the Trials field, people were setting up stalls and falling over children. The committee were standing uncertainly under a tree, occasionally glancing up at a pink figure at the top of a very long ladder.
    ‘She was here before it was light,’ said Letice, as Nanny approached. ‘She said she’d been up all night making the flags.’
    ‘Tell her about the cakes,’ said Gammer Beavis darkly.
    ‘She made cakes?’ said Nanny. ‘But she can’t cook!’
    The committee shuffled aside. A lot of the ladies contributed to the food for the Trials. It was a tradition and an informal competition in its own right. At the centre of the spread of covered plates was a large platter piled high with … things, of indefinite colour and shape. It looked as though a herd of small cows had eaten a lot of raisins and then been ill. They were Ur-cakes, prehistoric cakes, cakes of great weight and presence that had no place among the iced dainties.
    ‘She’s never had the knack of it,’ said Nanny weakly. ‘Has anyone tried one?’
    ‘Hahaha,’ said Gammer solemnly.
    ‘Tough, are they?’
    ‘You could beat a troll to death.’
    ‘But she was so … sort of … proud of them,’ said Letice. ‘And then there’s … the jam.’
    It was a large pot. It seemed to be filled with solidified purple lava.
    ‘Nice … colour,’ said Nanny. ‘Anyone tasted it?’
    ‘We couldn’t get the spoon out,’ said Gammer.
    ‘Oh, I’m sure—’
    ‘We only got it in with