I Shall Wear Midnight

squashing an ant. That seemed to work, and he tried a second jump and then, throwing his arms out wide, he shouted ‘Yippee!’ and spun like a ballerina. His hat fell off and his hobnailed boots smacked into the dust and Mr Carpetlayer was a very happy man as he twirled and hopped, very nearly turned a cartwheel, and when it turned out to be about half a cartwheel, he rolled back onto his feet, picked up the astonished Tiffany and danced her along the road, shouting, ‘One two three, one two three, one two three,’ until she managed to shake herself loose, laughing. ‘Me and the wife is going to go out tonight, young lady, and we are going to go waltzing!’
    ‘But I thought that led to depraved behaviour?’ said Tiffany.
    The coachman winked at her. ‘Well, we can but hope!’ he said.
    ‘You don’t want to overdo it, Mr Carpetlayer,’ she warned.
    ‘As a matter of fact, miss, I rather think I do, if it’s all the same to you. After all the creaking and groaning and not sleeping hardly at all, I think I would like to overdo it a little, or if possible a lot! Oh, what a good girl to think of the horses,’ he added. ‘That shows a kind nature.’
    ‘I am pleased to see you in such fine spirits, Mr Carpetlayer.’
    The coachman did a little twirl in the middle of the road. ‘I feel twenty years younger!’ He beamed at her, and then his face clouded just a little. ‘Er … how much do I owe you?’
    ‘How much will the damage to the paintwork cost me?’ said
    Tiffany.
    They looked at one another, and then Mr Carpetlayer said, ‘Well, I can’t ask you for anything, miss, given that it was me that busted the mirror ball.’
    A little tinkling sound made Tiffany look behind them, where the mirror ball, apparently unharmed, was spinning gently and, if you looked carefully, just above the dirt.
    She knelt down on a road totally free of broken glass and said, apparently to nothing at all, ‘Did you stick it back together again?’
    ‘Oh aye,’ said Rob Anybody happily from behind the ball.
    ‘But it was smashed to smithereens!’
    ‘Oh aye, but a smithereen is easy, ye ken. See, the tinier bits are, the more they all fit together again. Ye just hae to give them a little push and the wee molly cules remembers where they should be and they sticks together again, nae problemo! Ye dinnae have to act surprised, we dinnae just smash things.’
    Mr Carpetlayer stared at her. ‘Did you do that, miss?’
    ‘Well, sort of,’ said Tiffany.
    ‘Well I should say so!’ said Carpetlayer, all smiles. ‘So I says quid pro quo , give and take, knock for knock, tit for tat, one thing for another, an eye for an eye and me for you.’ He winked. ‘I’ll say it worked out even, and the company can put their paperwork where the monkey put his jumper – what you say to that, eh?’ He spat on his hand and held it out.
    Oh dear, thought Tiffany, a handshake with spit seals an unbreakable accord; thank goodness I have a reasonably clean handkerchief.
    She nodded speechlessly. And there had been a broken ball, and now it appeared to have mended itself. The day was hot, a man with holes where his eyes should be had vanished into nothing … Where would you even begin? Some days you trimmed toenails, removed splinters and sewed up legs, and some days were days like this.
    They shook hands, rather damply, the broomstick was shoved among the bundles behind the driver, Tiffany climbed up alongside him, and the journey continued, dust rising up from the road as it passed and forming strangely unpleasant shapes until it settled down again.
    After a while Mr Carpetlayer said, in a careful kind of voice, ‘Er, that black hat you’ve got on, are you going to carry on wearing it?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘Only, well, you are wearing a nice green dress and, if I may say so, your teeth are lovely and white.’ The man seemed to be wrestling with a problem.
    ‘I clean them with soot and salt every day. I can recommend it,’ said Tiffany.
    It was turning into a difficult conversation. The man seemed to reach a conclusion. ‘So you are not really a witch then?’ he said hopefully.
    ‘Mr Carpetlayer, are you scared of me?’
    ‘That’s a scary question, miss.’
    Actually it is, Tiffany thought. Aloud, she said, ‘Look, Mr Carpetlayer, what’s this all about?’
    ‘Well, miss, since you ask, there have been some stories lately. You know, about babies being stolen, that sort of thing. Kids running off and that.’ He