The Wee Free Men

said, “magic is a lot more complicated than I thought.”
    “Flappitty-flappitty flap! Cheep, cheep! Ach, poor wee me, cheepitty-cheep!”
    Tiffany ran over to the window.
    There was a Feegle on the path. It had made itself some crude wings out of a piece of rag, and a kind of beaky cap out of straw, and was wobbling around in a circle like a wounded bird.
    “Ach, cheepitty-cheep! Fluttery-flutter! I certainly hope dere’s no’ a pussycat aroound! Ach, dearie me!” it yelled.
    And down the path Ratbag, archenemy of all baby birds, slunk closer, drooling. As Tiffany opened her mouth to yell, he leaped and landed with all four feet on the little man.
    Or at least where the little man had been, because he had somersaulted in midair and was now right in front of Ratbag’s face and had grabbed a cat ear with each hand.
    “Ach, see you, pussycat, scunner that y’are!” he yelled. “Here’s a giftie from the t’ wee burdies, yah schemie!”
    He butted the cat hard on the nose. Ratbag spun in the air and landed on his back with his eyes crossed. He squinted in cold terror as the little man leaned down at him and shouted, “CHEEP!”
    Then he levitated in the way that cats do and became a ginger streak, rocketing down the path through the open door, and shooting past Tiffany to hide under the sink.
    The Feegle looked up, grinning, and saw Tiffany.
    “Please don’t go—” she began quickly, but he went, in a blur.
    Tiffany’s mother was hurrying down the path. Tiffany picked up the toad and put it back in her apron pocket just in time. The door was flung open.
    “Where’s Wentworth? Is he here?” her mother asked urgently. “Did he come back? Answer me!”
    “Didn’t he go up to the shearing with you, Mum?” said Tiffany, suddenly nervous. She could feel the panic pouring off her mother like steam.
    “We can’t find him!” There was a wild look in her mother’s eyes. “I turned my back for only a minute! Are you sure you haven’t seen him?”
    “But he couldn’t come all the way back here—”
    “Go and look in the house! Go on!”
    Mrs. Aching hurried away. Hastily, Tiffany put the toad on the floor and urged him under the sink. She heard him croak, and Ratbag, mad with fear and bewilderment, came out from under the sink in a whirl of legs and rocketed out of the door.
    She stood up. Her first, shameful thought was: He wanted to go up to watch the shearing. How could he get lost? He went with Mum and Hannah and Fastidia!
    And how closely would Fastidia and Hannah watch him with all those young men up there?
    She tried to pretend she hadn’t thought that, but she was treacherously good at spotting when she was lying. That’s the trouble with a brain—it thinks more than you sometimes want it to.
    But he’s never interested in moving far away from people! It’s half a mile up to the shearing pens! And he doesn’t move that fast. After a few feet he flops down and demands sweets!
    But it would be a bit more peaceful around here if he did get lost….
    There it went again, a nasty, shameful thought, which she tried to drown out by getting busy. But first she took some candy out of the jar, as bait, and rustled the bag as she ran from room to room.
    She heard boots in the yard as some of the men came down from the shearing sheds, but she got on with looking under beds and in cupboards, even ones so high that a toddler couldn’t possibly reach them, and then looked again under beds that she’d already looked under, because it was that kind of search. It was the kind of search where you go and look in the attic, even though the door is always locked.
    After a few minutes there were two or three voices outside, calling for Wentworth, and she heard her father say, “Try down by the river!”
    …and that meant he was frantic too, because Wentworth would never walk that far without a bribe. He was not a child who was happy away from people with sweets.
    It’s your fault.
    The thought felt like a piece of ice in her mind.
    It’s your fault because you didn’t love him very much. He turned up and you weren’t the youngest anymore, and you had to have him trailing around after you, and you kept wishing, didn’t you, that he’d go away.
    “That’s not true!” Tiffany whispered to herself. “I…quite liked him….”
    Not very much, admittedly. Not all the time. He didn’t know how to play properly, and he never did what he was told. You thought it would be better if he did get