The Wee Free Men

that count?”
    For the first time, Miss Tick looked a little less flinty. “Possibly, possibly,” she said. “Do you have any brothers and sisters, Tiffany?”
    “I have six sisters,” said Tiffany. “I’m the youngest. Most of them don’t live with us now.”
    “And then you weren’t the baby anymore because you had a dear little brother,” said Miss Tick. “The only boy, too. That must have been a nice surprise.”
    Suddenly, Tiffany found Miss Tick’s faint smile slightly annoying.
    “How do you know about my brother?” she said.
    The smile faded. Miss Tick thought: This child is sharp . “Just a guess,” she said. No one likes admitting to spying.
    “Are you using persykology on me?” said Tiffany hotly.
    “I think you mean psychology,” said Miss Tick.
    “Whatever,” said Tiffany. “You think I don’t like him because my parents make a fuss of him and spoil him, yes?”
    “Well, it did cross my mind,” said Miss Tick, and gave up worrying about the spying. She was a witch, and that was all there was to it. “I think it was the bit when you used him as bait for a slobbering monster that gave me a hint,” she added.
    “He’s just a nuisance!” said Tiffany. “He takes up my time and I’m always having to look after him and he always wants sweets. Anyway,” she added, “I had to think fast.”
    “Quite so,” said Miss Tick.
    “Granny Aching would have done something about monsters in our river,” said Tiffany, ignoring that. “Even if they are out of books.” And she’d have done something about what happened to old Mrs. Snapperly, she added to herself. She’d have spoken up, and people would have listened…. They always listened when Grannyspoke up. Speak up for those who don’t have voices, she always said.
    “Good,” said Miss Tick. “So she should. Witches deal with things. You said the river was very shallow where Jenny leaped up? And the world looked blurred and shaky? Was there a susurrus?”
    Tiffany beamed. “Yes, there certainly was!”
    “Ah. Something bad is happening.”
    Tiffany looked worried.
    “Can I stop it?”
    “And now I’m slightly impressed,” said Miss Tick. “You said, ‘Can I stop it?’ and not ‘Can anyone stop it?’ or ‘Can we stop it?’ That’s good. You accept responsibility. That’s a good start. And you keep a cool head. But no, you can’t stop it.”
    “I walloped Jenny Green-Teeth!”
    “Lucky hit,” said Miss Tick. “There are worse than her on the way, believe me. I believe an incursion of major proportions is going to start here, and clever though you are, my girl, you have as much chance as one of your lambs on a snowy night. You keep clear. I’ll try to fetch help.”
    “What, from the Baron?”
    “Good gracious, no. He’d be no use at all.”
    “But he protects us,” said Tiffany. “That’s what my mother says.”
    “Does he?” said Miss Tick. “Who from? I mean, from whom?”
    “Well, from, you know…attack, I suppose. From other barons, my father says.”
    “Has he got a big army?”
    “Well, er, he’s got Sergeant Roberts, and Kevin and Neville and Trevor,” said Tiffany. “We all know them. They mostly guard the castle.”
    “Any of them got magical powers?” said Miss Tick.
    “I saw Neville do card tricks once,” said Tiffany.
    “A wow at parties, but probably not much use even against something like Jenny,” said Miss Tick. “Are there no oth—Are there no witches here at all?”
    Tiffany hesitated.
    “There was old Mrs. Snapperly,” she said. Oh, yes. She’d lived all alone in a strange cottage, all right….
    “Good name,” said Miss Tick. “Can’t say I’ve heard it before, though. Where is she?”
    “She died in the snow last winter,” said Tiffany slowly.
    “And now tell me what you’re not telling me,” said Miss Tick, sharp as a knife.
    “Er…she was begging, people think, but no one opened their doors to her and, er…it was a cold night, and…she died.”
    “And she was a witch, was she?”
    “Everyone said she was a witch,” said Tiffany. She really did not want to talk about this. No one in the villages around here wanted to talk about it. No one went near the ruins of the cottage in the woods, either.
    “You don’t think so?”
    “Um…” Tiffany squirmed. “You see…the Baron had a son called Roland. He was only twelve, I think. And he went riding in the woods by himself last summer and his dogs came back without him.”
    “Mrs.