I Shall Wear Midnight

thoroughly!’ Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then sheheard, because she was listening for it, a muffled conversation from up near the ceiling.
    ‘Did ye no’ hear that? She kens we is here! How come she always gets it right?’
    A slightly different Feegle voice said, ‘It’s because we always follow her, ye wee dafty!’
    ‘Oh aye, I ken that well enough, but my point is, did we not promise faithfully not to follow her around any more?’
    ‘Aye, it was a solemn oath.’
    ‘Exactly, and so I cannae but be a wee bit disappointed that the big wee hag will nae take heed of a solemn promise. It’s a wee bit hurtful to the feelings.’
    ‘But we have broken the solemn oath; it’s a Feegle thing.’
    A third voice said, ‘Look lively, ye scunners, it’s the tapping o’ the feets!’
    A whirlwind hit the grubby little kitchen. 16 Foaming water swirled across Tiffany’s boots, which had indeed been tapping. It has to be said that no one could create a mess more quickly than a party of Feegles, but strangely, they could clean one up as well, without even the help of bluebirds and miscellaneous woodland creatures.
    The sink emptied in an instant and filled again with soap suds. Wooden plates and tin mugs hummed through the air as the fire burst into life. With a bang bang bang the log box filled. After that, things speeded up, and a fork shuddered in the wall beside Tiffany’s ear. Steam rose like a fog, with strange noises coming out of it; the sunlight flooded in through the suddenly clean window, filling the room with rainbows; a broom shot past pushing the last of the water in front of it; the kettle boiled; a vase of flowers appeared on the table – some of them, admittedly, upside down –and suddenly the room was fresh and clean and no longer smelled of rotted potatoes.
    Tiffany looked up at the ceiling. The cat was holding onto it by all four paws. It gave her what was definitely a look. Even a witch can be out-looked by a cat that has had it up to here, and is still up here.
    Tiffany finally located Mrs Petty under the table, with her hands over her head. When she had finally been persuaded to come out and sit down on a nice clean chair in front of a cup of tea from a wonderfully clean mug, she was very keen to agree that there had been a great improvement, although later on Tiffany couldn’t help but admit that Mrs Petty would probably have agreed to absolutely anything if only Tiffany would go away.
    Not a success, then, but at least the place was a whole lot cleaner and Mrs Petty was bound to be grateful when she’d had time to think about it. A snarl and a thump that Tiffany heard as she was leaving the ragged garden was probably the cat, parting company with the ceiling.
    Halfway back to the farm, carrying her broomstick over her shoulder, she thought aloud, ‘Perhaps that was a bit stupid.’
    ‘Dinnae fash yourself,’ said a voice. ‘If we had had the time we could have made some bread as well.’ Tiffany looked down, and there was Rob Anybody, along with half a dozen others known variously as the Nac Mac Feegle, the Wee Free Men and, sometimes, the Defendants, the Culprits, people wanted by the police to help them with their enquiries and sometimes as ‘that one, second on the left, I swear it was him.’
    ‘You keep on following me!’ she complained. ‘You always promise not to and you always do!’
    ‘Ah, but ye dinnae take into account the geas that is laid on us, ye ken. Ye are the hag o’ the hills and we must always be ready to protect ye and help ye, no matter what ye say,’ said Rob Anybodystoutly. There was a rapid shaking of heads among the other Feegles, causing a fallout of bits of pencil, rats’ teeth, last night’s dinner, interesting stones with holes in, beetles, promising bits of snot tucked away for leisurely examination later, and snails.
    ‘Look,’ said Tiffany, ‘you can’t just go around helping people whether they want you to or not!’
    Rob Anybody scratched his head, put back the snail that had fallen out and said, ‘Why not, miss? You do.’
    ‘I don’t!’ she said aloud, but inside an arrow struck her heart. I wasn’t kind to Mrs Petty, was I? she thought. Yes, it was true that the woman seemed to have the brains as well as the demeanour of a mouse, but filthy though it was, the stinking house was Mrs Petty’s house, and Tiffany had burst in with a lot of, well, not to put too fine a point on it, Nac Mac Feegles, and just messed it