Wintersmith

Blackcap said it was unusual.”
    Tiffany thought: Oh dear, here we go….
    “We often get it this early up here,” said Lucy.
    “I thought it was a bit fluffier than usual,” said Petulia. “Quite pretty, if you like that sort of thing.”
    “It was just snow,” said Annagramma. “Hey, did any of you hear what happened to the new girl who started with Miss Tumult? Ran away screaming after an hour?” She smiled, not very sympathetically.
    “Um, was it the frog?” Petulia asked.
    “No, not the frog. She didn’t mind the frog. It was Unlucky Charlie.”
    “He can be scary,” Lucy agreed.
    And that was it, Tiffany realized, as the gossip ran on. Someone who was practically a kind of god had made billions of snowflakes that looked like her—and they hadn’t noticed!…which was a good thing, obviously…
    Of course it was. The last thing she wanted was teasing and stupid questions, of course. Well, of course…
    …but…well…it would have been nice if they’d known, if they’d said “Wow,” if they’d been jealous or frightened or impressed. And she couldn’t tell them, or at least she couldn’t tell Annagramma, who’d make a joke of it and almost but not exactly say that she was making it up.
    The Wintersmith had visited her and been…impressed. It was a bit sad if the only people who knew about this were Miss Treason and hundreds of Feegles, especially since—she shuddered—by Friday morning it would only be known by hundreds of little blue men.
    To put it another way: If she didn’t tell someone else who was at least the same size as her and alive, she would burst.
    So she told Petulia, on the way home. They had to go the same way, and they both flew so slowly that at night it was easier to walk, since you didn’t hit so many trees.
    Petulia was plump and reliable and already the best pig witch in the mountains, a fact that means a lot where every family owns a pig. And Miss Treason had said that soon the boys would be running after her, because a girl who knows her pigs would never want for a husband.
    The only problem with Petulia was that she always agreed with you and always said what she thought you wanted to hear. But Tiffany was a bit cruel and just told her all the facts. She got a few wows, which she was pleased with.
    After a while Petulia said: “That must have been very, um, interesting.” And that was Petulia for you.
    “What shall I do?”
    “Um…do you need to do anything?” said Petulia.
    “Well, sooner or later people are going to notice that all snowflakes are shaped like me!”
    “Um, are you worried that they won’t?” said Petulia, so innocently that Tiffany laughed.
    “But I’ve got this feeling that it’s not going to stop with snowflakes! I mean, he is everything to do with wintertime!”
    “And he ran away when you screamed…” said Petulia thoughtfully.
    “That’s right.”
    “And then he did something sort of…silly.”
    “What?”
    “The snowflakes,” said Petulia helpfully.
    “Well, I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” said Tiffany, a bit hurt. “Not exactly silly .”
    “Then it’s all obvious,” said Petulia. “He’s a boy.”
    “What?”
    “A boy. You know what they are?” said Petulia. “Blush, grunt, mumble, wibble? They’re pretty much all the same.”
    “But he’s millions of years old and he acts like he’s never seen a girl before!”
    “Um, I don’t know. Has he ever seen a girl before?”
    “He must have! What about Summer?” said Tiffany. “She’s a girl. Well, a woman. According to a book I’ve seen, anyway.”
    “I suppose all you can do is wait to see what he does next, then. Sorry. I’ve never had snowflakes made in my honor…. Er, we’re here….”
    They’d reached the clearing where Miss Treason lived, and Petulia began to look a bit nervous.
    “Um…all these stories about her…” she said, looking at the cottage. “Are you all right there?”
    “Was one of them about what she can do with her thumbnail?” asked Tiffany.
    “Yes!” said Petulia, shuddering.
    “She made that one up. Don’t tell anyone, though.”
    “Why would anyone make up a story like that about themselves?”
    Tiffany hesitated. Pigs couldn’t be fooled by Boffo, so Petulia hadn’t run across it. And she was amazingly honest, which Tiffany was coming to learn was a bit of a drawback in a witch. It wasn’t that witches were actually dishonest , but they were careful about what kind of truth they told.
    “I