A Hat Full Of Sky

when you’ve got two bodies. Of course, everyone thought I was twins. In the end I ran away to join the circus. Me! Can you imagine that?”
    “Topsy and Tipsy, The Astounding Mind-Reading Act?” said Tiffany.
    Miss Level stood stock-still, her mouths open.
    “It was on the posters over the stairs,” Tiffany added.
    Now Miss Level relaxed.
    “Oh, yes. Of course. Very…quick of you, Tiffany. Yes. You do notice things, don’t you….”
    “I know I wouldn’t pay money to see the egress,” said Tiffany. “It just means ‘the way out.’” *
    “Clever!” said Miss Level. “Monty put that on a sign to keep people moving though the Believe-It-or-Not tent. ‘This way to the Egress!’ Of course, people thought it was a female eagle or something, so Monty had a big man with a dictionary outside to show them they got exactly what they paid for! Have you ever been to a circus?”
    Once, Tiffany admitted. It hadn’t been much fun. Things that try too hard to be funny often aren’t. There had been a moth-eaten lion with practically no teeth, a tightrope walker who was never more than a few feet above the ground, and a knife thrower who threw a lot of knives at an elderly woman in pink tights on a big spinning wooden disc and completely failed to hit her every time. The only real amusement was afterward, when a cart ran over the clown.
    “My circus was a lot bigger,” said Miss Level, when Tiffany mentioned this. “Although, as I recall, our knife thrower was also very bad at aiming. We had elephants and camels and a lion so fierce it bit a man’s arm nearly off.”
    Tiffany had to admit that this sounded a lot more entertaining.
    “And what did you do?” she said.
    “Well, I just bandaged him up while I shooed the lion off him—”
    “Yes, Miss Level, but I meant in the circus. Just reading your own mind?”
    Miss Level beamed at Tiffany. “That, yes, and nearly everything else, too,” she said. “With different wigs on I was the Stupendous Bohunkus Sisters. I juggled plates, you know, and wore costumes covered in sequins. And I helped with the high-wire act. Not walking the wire, of course, but generally smiling and glittering at the audience. Everyone assumed I was twins, and circus people don’t ask too many personal questions in any case. And then what with one thing and another, this and that…I came up here and became a witch.”
    Both of Miss Level watched Tiffany carefully.
    “That was quite a long sentence, that last sentence,” said Tiffany.
    “Yes, it was, wasn’t it,” said Miss Level. “I can’t tell you everything . Do you still want to stay? The last three girls didn’t. Some people find me slightly…odd.”
    “Um…I’ll stay,” said Tiffany slowly. “The thing that moves things about is a bit strange, though.”
    Miss Level looked surprised and then said, “Oh, do you mean Oswald?”
    “There’s an invisible man called Oswald who can get into my bedroom ?” said Tiffany, horrified.
    “Oh, no. That’s just a name. Oswald isn’t a man, he’s an ondageist . Have you heard of poltergeists?”
    “Er…invisible spirits that throw things around?”
    “Good,” said Miss Level. “Well, an ondageist is the opposite. They’re obsessive about tidiness. He’s quite handy around the house, but he’s absolutely dreadful if he’s in the kitchen when I’m cooking. He keeps putting things away. I think it makes him happy. Sorry, I should have warned you, but he normally hides if anyone comes to the cottage. He’s shy.”
    “And he’s a man? I mean, a male spirit?”
    “How would you tell? He’s got no body and he doesn’t speak. I just called him Oswald because I always picture him as a worried little man with a dustpan and brush.” The left Miss Level giggled when the right Miss Level said this. The effect was odd and, if you thought that way, also creepy.
    “Well, we are getting on well,” said the right Miss Level nervously. “Is there anything more you want to know, Tiffany?”
    “Yes, please,” said Tiffany. “What do you want me to do? What do you do?”

    And mostly, it turned out, what Miss Level did was chores. Endless chores. You could look in vain for much broomstick tuition, spelling lessons, or pointy-hat management. They were, mostly, the kind of chores that are just…chores.
    There was a small flock of goats, technically led by Stinky Sam, who had a shed of his own and was kept on a chain, but really led by Black Meg, the senior nanny,