Witches Abroad

work on a pickled onion could bring tears to the eyes.
    “I likes ’em fine,” said Granny. “I gets ’em given to me.”
    “You know,” said Nanny, investigating the recesses of the basket, “whenever I deals with dwarfs, the phrase ‘Duck’s arse’ swims across my mind.”
    “Mean little devils. You should see the prices they tries to charge me when I takes my broom to be repaired,” said Granny.
    “Yes, but you never pay,” said Magrat.
    “That’s not the point,” said Granny Weatherwax. “They shouldn’t be allowed to charge that sort of money. That’s thievin’, that is.”
    “I don’t see how it can be thieving if you don’t pay anyway,” Magrat persisted.
    “I never pay for anything,” said Granny. “People never let me pay. I can’t help it if people gives me things the whole time, can I? When I walks down the street people are always running out with cakes they’ve just baked, and fresh beer, and old clothes that’ve hardly been worn at all. ‘Oh, Mistress Weatherwax, pray take this basket of eggs,’ they say. People are always very kind. Treat people right an’ they’ll treat you right. That’s respect. Not having to pay,” she finished, sternly, “is what bein’ a witch is all about.”
    “Here, what’s this?” said Nanny, pulling out a small packet. She unwrapped the paper and revealed several hard brown discs.
    “My word,” said Granny Weatherwax, “I take it all back. That’s the famous dwarf bread, that is. They don’t give that to just anyone.”
    Nanny tapped it on the edge of the boat. It made a noise very similar to the kind of noise you get when a wooden ruler is held over the edge of a desk and plucked; a sort of hollow boioioing sound.
    “They say it never goes stale even if you stores it for years,” said Granny.
    “It’d keep you going for days and days,” said Nanny Ogg.
    Magrat reached across, took one of the flat loaves, tried to break it, and gave up.
    “You’re supposed to eat it?” she said.
    “Oh, I don’t think it’s for eating,” said Nanny. “It’s more for sort of—”
    “—keeping you going,” said Granny. “They say that—”
    She stopped.
    Above the noise of the river and the occasional drip of water from the ceiling they could all hear, now, the steady slosh-slosh of another craft heading toward them.
    “Someone’s following us!” hissed Magrat.
    Two pale glows appeared at the edge of the lamplight. Eventually they turned out to be the eyes of a small gray creature, vaguely froglike, paddling toward them on a log.
    It reached the boat. Long clammy fingers grabbed the side, and a lugubrious face rose level with Nanny Ogg’s.
    “’ullo,” it said. “It’sss my birthday.”
    All three of them stared at it for a while. Then Granny Weatherwax picked up an oar and hit it firmly over the head. There was a splash, and a distant cursing.
    “Horrible little bugger,” said Granny, as they rowed on. “Looked like a troublemaker to me.”
    “Yeah,” said Nanny Ogg. “It’s the slimy ones you have to watch out for.”
    “I wonder what he wanted?” said Magrat.

    After half an hour the boat drifted out through a cave mouth and into a narrow gorge between cliffs. Ice glistened on the walls, and there were drifts of snow on some of the outcrops.
    Nanny Ogg looked around guilelessly, and then fumbled somewhere in the depths of her many skirts and produced a small bottle. There was a glugging noise.
    “I bet there’s a fine echo here,” she said, after a while.
    “Oh no you don’t,” said Granny firmly.
    “Don’t what?”
    “Don’t sing That Song.”
    “Pardon, Esme?”
    “I ain’t going,” said Granny, “if you insists on singing That Song.”
    “What song would that be?” said Nanny innocently.
    “You know the song to whom I am referring,” said Granny icily. “You always get drunk and let me down and sing it.”
    “Can’t recall any song like that, Esme,” said Nanny Ogg meekly.
    “The one,” said Granny, “about the rodent that can’t—that can’t ever be persuaded to care about anything.”
    “Oh,” said Nanny, beaming as light dawned, “ you mean The Hedgehog Can Never Be Bugg—”
    “That’s the one!”
    “But it’s traditional ,” said Nanny. “Anyway, in foreign parts people won’t know what the words mean.”
    “They will the way you sings them,” said Granny. “The way you sings them, creatures what lives on the bottoms of ponds ’d know what they