Witches Abroad

they did. Maybe we ought to move out into the river for a spell, even so. We’ll be a lot safer with water all around.”
    The shack lurched.
    “You better sit down. The feets make it shaky until we get into deep water.”
    Ella risked a look, nevertheless.
    Mrs. Gogol’s hut traveled on four large duck feet, which were now rising out of the swamp. They splashed their way through the shallows and, gently, sculled out into the river.

    Greebo woke up and stretched.
    And the wrong sort of arms and legs!
    Mrs. Pleasant, who had been sitting watching him, put down her glass.
    “What do you want to do now, Mr. Cat?” she said.
    Greebo padded over to the door into the outside world and scratched at it.
    “Waant to go owwwt , Miss-uss Pleas-unt,” he said.
    “You just have to turn the handle there,” she said.
    Greebo stared at the door handle like someone trying to come to terms with a piece of very advanced technology, and then gave her a pleading look.
    She opened the door for him, stood aside as he slunk out, and then shut it, locked it and leaned against it.

    “Ember’s bound to be safe with Mrs. Gogol,” said Magrat.
    “Hah!” said Granny.
    “I quite liked her,” said Nanny Ogg.
    “I don’t trust anyone who drinks rum and smokes a pipe,” said Granny.
    “Nanny Ogg smokes a pipe and drinks anything ,” Magrat pointed out.
    “Yes, but that’s because she’s a disgustin’ old baggage,” said Granny, without looking up.
    Nanny Ogg took her pipe out of her mouth.
    “That’s right,” she said amiably. “You ain’t nothing if you don’t maintain an image.”
    Granny looked up from the lock.
    “Can’t shift it,” she said. “It’s octiron, too. Can’t magic it open.”
    “It’s daft, locking us up,” said Nanny. “I’d have had us killed.”
    “That’s because you’re basically good,” said Magrat. “The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.”
    “No, I know why she’s done this,” said Granny, darkly. “It’s so’s we’ll know we’ve lost.”
    “But she said we’d escape,” said Magrat. “I don’t understand. She must know the good ones always win in the end!”
    “Only in stories,” said Granny, examining the door hinges. “And she thinks she’s in charge of the stories. She bends them around herself. She thinks she’s the good one.”
    “Mind you,” said Magrat, “I don’t like swamps. If it wasn’t for the frog and everything, I’d see Lily’s point—”
    “Then you’re nothing but a daft godmother,” snapped Granny, still fiddling with the lock. “You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage. Besides, you don’t build a better world by choppin’ heads off and giving decent girls away to frogs.”
    “But progress—” Magrat began.
    “Don’t you talk to me about progress. Progress just means bad things happen faster. Anyone got another hatpin? This one’s useless.”
    Nanny, who had Greebo’s ability to make herself instantly at home wherever she happened to be, sat down in the corner of the cell.
    “I heard this story once,” she said, “where this bloke got locked up for years and years and he learned amazin’ stuff about the universe and everythin’ from another prisoner who was incredibly clever, and then he escaped and got his revenge.”
    “What incredibly clever stuff do you know about the universe, Gytha Ogg?” said Granny.
    “Bugger all,” said Nanny cheerfully.
    “Then we’d better bloody well escape right now.”
    Nanny pulled a scrap of pasteboard out of her hat, found a scrap of pencil up there too, licked the end and thought for a while. Then she wrote:
Dear Jason unt so witer (as they say in foreign parts) ,
Well here’s a thing yore ole Mum doin Time in prison again, Im a old lag, youll have to send me a cake with a vial in it and I shall have little arrows on my close just my joke. This is a Sketch of the dunjon. Im putting a X where we are, which is Inside. Magrat is shown wering a posh dress, she has been acting like a Courgette. Also inc. Esme getting fed up becaus she can’t get the lock to work but I expect it will all be OK because the good ones win in the end and that’s US. And all becaus some girl don’t want to marry a Prince who is a Duck who is really a Frog and I cant say I blame her, you don’t want descendants who have got Jenes and start off living