Once More With Footnotes

Mrs. Ogg?"
     
                  Nanny shook her head. If troub le was going to come from the direction, everyone had been looking, then a sprig of rue wasn't going to be much help. A large oak tree'd be better, but only maybe.
     
                  The atmosphere was changing. The sky was a wide pale blue, but there was thunder on the ho rizons of the mind. The witches were uneasy and with so many in one place the nervousness was bouncing from one to another and, amplified, rebroadcasting itself to everyone. It meant that even ordinary people who thought that a rune was a dried plum were b eginning to feel a deep, existential worry, the kind that causes you to snap at your kids and want a drink.
     
                  She peered through a gap between a couple of stalls. The pink figure was still sitting patiently, and a little crestfallen, behind the barrel. The re was, as it were, a huge queue of no one at all.
     
                  Then Nanny scuttled from the cover of one tent to another until she could see the produce stand. It had already been doing a busy trade but there, forlorn in the middle of the cloth, was the pile of terr ible cakes. And the jar of jam. Some wag had chalked up a sign beside it: GET THE SPOON OUT OF THEE JAR, 3 TRIES FOR A PENNEY!!!
     
                  She thought she'd been careful to stay concealed, but she heard the straw rustle behind her. The committee had tracked her do wn.
     
                  "That's your handwriting, isn't it, Mrs. Earwig?" she said. "That's cruel. That ain't ... nice."
     
                  "We've decided you're to go and talk to Miss Weatherwax," said Letice. "She's got to stop it."
     
                  "Stop what?"
     
                  "She's doing something to people's head s! She's come here to put the 'fluence on us, right? Everyone knows she does head magic. We can all feel it! She's spoiling it for everyone!"
     
                  "She's only sitting there," said Nanny.
     
                  "Ah, yes, but how is she sitting there, may we ask?"
     
                  Nanny peered ar ound the stall again.
     
                  "Well ... like normal. You know ... bent in the middle and the knees ..."
     
                  Letice waved a finger sternly.
     
                  "Now you listen to me, Gytha Ogg — "
     
                  "If you want her to go away, you go and tell her!" snapped Nanny. "I'm fed up with — "
     
                  There was the piercing scream of a child.
     
                  The witches stared at one another, and then ran across the field to the Lucky Dip.
     
                  A small boy was writhing on the ground, sobbing. It was Pewsey, Nanny's youngest grandchild.
     
                  Her stomach turned to ice. She snatched him up, and glared into Granny's face.
     
                  "What have you done to him, you — " she began.
     
                  "Don't wanna dolly! Don't wanna dolly! Wanna soljer! Wannawanna waana SOLJER! "
     
                  Now Nanny looked down at the rag doll in Pewsey's sticky hand, and the expression of affronted tearful rage on such of his face as could be seen around his screaming mouth —
     
                  "Oi wannawanna SOLJER!"
     
                  — and then at the other witches, and at Granny Weatherwax's face, and felt the horrible cold shame welling up from her boots.
     
                  "I said he coul d put it back and have another go," said Granny meekly. "But he just wouldn't listen."
     
                  " — wannawannaSOL — "
     
                  "Pewsey Ogg, if you don't shut up right this minute Nanny will — " Nanny Ogg began, and dredged up the nastiest punishment she could think of: "Nanny won't give you a sweetie ever again!"
     
                  Pewsey closed his mouth, stunned into silence by this unimaginable threat. Then, to Nanny's horror, Letice Earwig drew herself up and said, "Miss Weatherwax, we would prefer it if you left."
     
                  "Am I being a bother?" said Granny. "I hope I'm not being a bother, I don't want to be a bother. He just took a lucky dip and — "
     
                  "You're ... upsetting