A Hat Full Of Sky

says she’ll be happy to have a third pair of hands around the place.”
    You couldn’t slip words past Tiffany, not even if you were Miss Tick.
    “So there’s someone else there already?” she said.
    “Er…no. Not exactly,” said Miss Tick.
    “Then she’s got four arms?” said Tiffany. Miss Tick sounded like someone trying to avoid a subject.
    Miss Tick sighed. It was difficult to talk to someone who paid attention all the time. It put you off.
    “It’s best if you wait until you meet her,” she said. “Anything I tell you will only give you the wrong idea. I’m sure you’ll get along with her. She’s very good with people, and in her spare time she’s a research witch. She keeps bees—and goats, the milk of which, I believe, is very good indeed, owing to homogenized fats.”
    “What does a research witch do?”
    “Oh, it’s a very ancient craft. She tries to find new spells by learning how old ones were really done. You know all that stuff about ‘ear of bat and toe of frog’? They never work, but Miss Level thinks it’s because we don’t know exactly what kind of frog, or which toe—”
    “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to help anyone chop up innocent frogs and bats,” said Tiffany firmly.
    “Oh, no, she never kills any!” said Miss Tick hurriedly. “She only uses creatures that have died naturally or been run over or committed suicide. Frogs can get quite depressed at times.”
    The cart rolled on down the white, dusty road, until it was lost from view.
    Nothing happened. Skylarks sang, so high up they were invisible. Grass seeds filled the air. Sheep baa ’d, high up on the Chalk.
    And then something came along the road. It moved like a little slow whirlwind, so it could be seen only by the dust it stirred up. As it went past, it made a noise like a swarm of flies.
    Then it, too, disappeared down the hill….
    After a while a voice, low down in the long grass, said: “Ach, crivens! And it’s on her trail, right enough!”
    A second voice said: “Surely the old hag will spot it?”
    “Whut? The teachin’ hag? She’s nae a proper hag!”
    “She’s got the pointy hat under all them flowers, Big Yan,” said the second voice a bit reproachfully. “I seen it. She presses a wee spring an’ the point comes up!”
    “Oh, aye, Hamish, an’ I daresay she does the readin’ and the writin’ well enough, but she disna ken aboot stuff that’s no’ in books. An’ I’m no’ showin’ meself while she’s aroond. She’s the kind of a body that’d write things doon about a man! C’mon, let’s go and find the kelda!”

    The Nac Mac Feegle of the Chalk hated writing for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest one was this: Writing stays . It fastens words down. A man can speak his mind and some nasty wee scuggan will write it down and who knows what he’ll do with those words? Ye might as weel nail a man’s shadow tae the wall!
    But now they had a new kelda, and a new kelda brings new ideas. That’s how it’s supposed to work . It stopped a clan getting too set in its ways. Kelda Jeannie was from the Long Lake clan, up in the mountains—and they did write things down.
    She didn’t see why her husband shouldn’t too. And Rob Anybody was finding out that Jeannie was definitely a kelda.
    Sweat was dripping off his forehead. He’d once fought a wolf all by himself, and he’d cheerfully do it again with his eyes shut and one hand tied behind him rather than do what he was doing now.
    He had mastered the first two rules of writing, as he understood them.
1. S TEAL SOME PAPER
2. S TEAL A PENCIL .
    Unfortunately there was more to it than that.
    Now he held the stump of pencil in front of him in both hands and leaned backward as two of his brothers pushed him toward the piece of paper pinned up on the chamber wall (it was an old bill for sheep bells, stolen from the farm). The rest of the clan watched, in fascinated horror, from the galleries around the walls.
    “Mebbe I could kind o’ ease my way inta it gently,” he protested as his heels left little grooves in the packed-earth floor of the mound. “Mebbe I could just do one o’ they commeras or full stoppies—”
    “You’re the Big Man, Rob Anybody, so it’s fittin’ ye should be the first tae do the writin’,” said Jeannie. “I canna hae a husband who canna even write his ain name. I showed you the letters, did I not?”
    “Aye, wumman, the nasty, loopy, bendy things!” growled Rob. “I dinna trust that