A Hat Full Of Sky (3 page)

It had been cut out of the turf way back in the old days, people said, by the folk who’d built the stone circles and buried their kin in big earth mounds. And they’d cut out the Horse at one end of this little green valley, ten times bigger than a real horse and, if you didn’t look at it with your mind right, the wrong shape, too. Yet they must have known horses, owned horses, seen
them every day, and they weren’t stupid people just because they lived a long time ago.

Tiffany had once asked her father about the look of the Horse, when they’d come all the way over here for a sheep fair, and he told her what Granny Aching had told him when he was a little boy. He passed on what she said word for word, and Tiffany did the same now.

“’Taint what a horse
looks
like,” said Tiffany. “It’s what a horse
be
.”

“Oh,” said Miss Tick. But because she was a teacher as well as a witch, and probably couldn’t help herself, she added, “The funny thing is, of course, that officially there is no such thing as a white horse. They’re called gray.”
*

“Yes, I know,” said Tiffany. “This one’s white,” she added, flatly.

That quietened Miss Tick down for a while, but she seemed to have something on her mind.

“I expect you’re upset about leaving the Chalk, aren’t you?” she said as the cart rattled on.

“No,” said Tiffany.

“It’s okay to be,” said Miss Tick.

“Thank you, but I’m not really,” said Tiffany.

“If you want to have a bit of a cry, you don’t have to pretend you’ve got some grit in your eye or anything—”

“I’m all right, actually,” said Tiffany. “Honestly.”

“You see, if you bottle that sort of thing up, it can cause terrible damage later on.”

“I’m not bottling, Miss Tick.”

In fact, Tiffany was a bit surprised at not crying, but she wasn’t going to tell Miss Tick that. She’d left a sort of space in her head to burst into tears in, but it wasn’t filling up. Perhaps it was because she’d wrapped up all those feelings and doubts and left them on the hill by the potbellied stove.

“And if, of course, you were feeling a bit downcast at the moment, I’m sure you could open the present he—” Miss Tick tried.

“Tell me about Miss Level,” Tiffany said quickly. The name and address were all she knew about the lady she was going to stay with, but an address like “Miss Level, Cottage in the Woods Near the Dead Oak Tree in Lost Man’s Lane, High Overhang, If Out Leave Letters in Old Boot by Door” sounded promising.

“Miss Level, yes,” said Miss Tick, defeated. “Er, yes. She’s not really very old, but she says she’ll
be happy to have a third pair of hands around the place.”

You couldn’t slip words past Tiffany, not even if you were Miss Tick.

“So there’s someone else there already?” she said.

“Er…no. Not exactly,” said Miss Tick.

“Then she’s got four arms?” said Tiffany. Miss Tick sounded like someone trying to avoid a subject.

Miss Tick sighed. It was difficult to talk to someone who paid attention all the time. It put you off.

“It’s best if you wait until you meet her,” she said. “Anything I tell you will only give you the wrong idea. I’m sure you’ll get along with her. She’s very good with people, and in her spare time she’s a research witch. She keeps bees—and goats, the milk of which, I believe, is very good indeed, owing to homogenized fats.”

“What does a research witch do?”

“Oh, it’s a very ancient craft. She tries to find new spells by learning how old ones were really done. You know all that stuff about ‘ear of bat and toe of frog’? They never work, but Miss Level thinks it’s because we don’t know exactly what
kind
of frog, or which toe—”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to help anyone chop up innocent frogs and bats,” said Tiffany firmly.

“Oh, no, she never kills any!” said Miss Tick hurriedly. “She only uses creatures that have died naturally or been run over or committed suicide. Frogs can get quite depressed at times.”

The cart rolled on down the white, dusty road, until it was lost from view.

Nothing happened. Skylarks sang, so high up they were invisible. Grass seeds filled the air. Sheep
baa
’d, high up on the Chalk.

And then something came along the road. It moved like a little slow whirlwind, so it could be seen only by the dust it stirred up. As it went past, it made a noise like a swarm of flies.

Then it, too, disappeared down the hill….

After a while a voice, low down in the long grass, said: “Ach,
crivens!
And it’s on her trail, right enough!”

A second voice said: “Surely the old hag will spot it?”

“Whut? The teachin’ hag? She’s nae a proper hag!”

“She’s got the pointy hat under all them flowers, Big Yan,” said the second voice a bit reproachfully. “I seen it. She presses a wee spring
an’ the point comes up!”

“Oh, aye, Hamish, an’ I daresay she does the readin’ and the writin’ well enough, but she disna ken aboot stuff that’s no’ in books. An’ I’m no’ showin’ meself while she’s aroond. She’s the kind of a body that’d write things doon about a man! C’mon, let’s go and find the kelda!”

The Nac Mac Feegle of the Chalk hated writing for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest one was this: Writing
stays
. It fastens words down. A man can speak his mind and some nasty wee
scuggan
will write it down and who knows what he’ll do with those words? Ye might as weel nail a man’s shadow tae the wall!

But now they had a new kelda, and a new kelda brings new ideas. That’s how it’s supposed to
work
. It stopped a clan getting too set in its ways. Kelda Jeannie was from the Long Lake clan, up in the mountains—and they
did
write things down.

She didn’t see why her husband shouldn’t too. And Rob Anybody was finding out that Jeannie was definitely a kelda.

Sweat was dripping off his forehead. He’d once fought a wolf all by himself, and he’d cheerfully do it again with his eyes shut and one
hand tied behind him rather than do what he was doing now.

He had mastered the first two rules of writing, as he understood them.

1. S
TEAL SOME PAPER

2. S
TEAL A PENCIL
.

Unfortunately there was more to it than that.

Now he held the stump of pencil in front of him in both hands and leaned backward as two of his brothers pushed him toward the piece of paper pinned up on the chamber wall (it was an old bill for sheep bells, stolen from the farm). The rest of the clan watched, in fascinated horror, from the galleries around the walls.

“Mebbe I could kind o’
ease
my way inta it gently,” he protested as his heels left little grooves in the packed-earth floor of the mound. “Mebbe I could just do one o’ they commeras or full stoppies—”

“You’re the Big Man, Rob Anybody, so it’s fittin’ ye should be the first tae do the writin’,” said Jeannie. “I canna hae a husband who canna even write his ain name. I showed you the letters, did I not?”

“Aye, wumman, the nasty, loopy, bendy things!” growled Rob. “I dinna trust that Q,
that’s a letter than has it in for a man. That’s a letter with a sting, that one!”

“You just hold the pencil on the paper and I’ll tell ye what marks to make,” said Jeannie, folding her arms.

“Aye, but ’tis a bushel of trouble, writin’,” said Rob. “A word writ doon can hang a man!”

“Wheest, now, stop that! ’Tis easy!” snapped Jeannie. “Bigjob babies can do it, and you’re a full-growed Feegle!”

“An’ writin’ even goes on sayin’ a man’s wurds after he’s
deid
!” said Rob Anybody, waving the pencil as if trying to ward off evil spirits. “Ye canna tell me that’s right!”

“Oh, so you’re
afeared
o’ the letters, is that it?” said Jeannie artfully. “Ach, that’s fine. All big men fear something. Take the pencil off ’f him, Wullie. Ye canna ask a man to face his fears.”

There was silence in the mound as Daft Wullie nervously took the pencil stub from his brother. Every beady eye was turned to Rob Anybody. His hands opened and shut. He started to breathe heavily, still glaring at the blank paper. He stuck out his chin.

“Ach, ye’re a harrrrd wumman, Jeannie Mac Feegle!” he said at last. He spat on his hands and
snatched back the pencil stub from Daft Wullie. “Gimme that tool o’ perdition! Them letters won’t know whut’s hit them!”

“There’s my brave lad!” said Jeannie, as Rob squared up to the paper. “Right, then. The first letter is an R. That’s the one that looks like a fat man walking, remember?”

The assembled pictsies watched as Rob Anybody, grunting fiercely and with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, dragged the pencil through the curves and lines of the letters. He looked at the kelda expectantly after each one.

“That’s it,” she said at last. “A bonny effort!”

Rob Anybody stood back and looked critically at the paper.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“Aye,” said Jeannie. “Ye’ve writ your ain name, Rob Anybody!”

Rob stared at the letters again. “I’m gonna go to pris’n noo?” he asked.

There was a polite cough from beside Jeannie. It belonged to the toad. He had no other name, because toads don’t go in for names. Despite sinister forces that would have people think differently, no toad has ever been called Tommy the Toad, for example. It’s just not something that happens.

This toad had once been a lawyer (a human lawyer; toads manage without them) who’d been turned into a toad by a fairy godmother who’d
intended
to turn him into a frog but had been a bit hazy on the difference. Now he lived in the Feegle mound, where he ate worms and helped them out with the difficult thinking.

“I’ve told you, Mr. Anybody, that
just
having your name written down is no problem at all,” he said. “There’s nothing illegal about the words
Rob Anybody
. Unless, of course”—and the toad gave a little legal laugh—“it’s meant as an instruction!”

None of the Feegles laughed. They liked their humor to be a bit, well, funnier.

Rob Anybody stared at his very shaky writing. “That’s my name, aye?”

“It certainly is, Mr. Anybody.”

“An’nothin’bad’s happenin’at a’,” Rob noted. He looked closer. “How can you
tell
it’s my name?”

“Ah, that’ll be the readin’ side o’ things,” said Jeannie.

“That’s where the lettery things make a sound in yer heid?” asked Rob.

“Exactly so,” said the toad. “But we thought you’d like to start with the more
physical
aspect of the procedure.”

“Could I no’ mebbe just learn the writin’ and leave the readin’ to someone else?” Rob asked, without much hope.

“No, my man’s got to do both,” said Jeannie, folding her arms. When a female Feegle does that, there’s no hope left.

“Ach, it’s a terrible thing for a man when his wumman gangs up on him wi’ a toad,” said Rob, shaking his head. But when he turned to look at the grubby paper, there was just a hint of pride in his face.

“Still, that’s my name, right?” he said, grinning.

Jeannie nodded.

“Just there, all by itself and no’ on a
WANTED
poster or anything. My name, drawn by me.”

“Yes, Rob,” said the kelda.

“
My
name, under my thumb. No scunner can do anythin’ aboot it?
I’ve
got my name, nice and safe?”

Jeannie looked at the toad, who shrugged. It was generally held by those who knew them that most of the brains in the Nac Mac Feegle clans ended up in the women.

“A man’s a man o’ some standin’ when he’s got his own name where no one can touch it,” said Rob Anybody. “That’s serious magic, that is—”

“The R is the wrong way roond and you left the A and a Y out of Anybody,” said Jeannie, because it is a wife’s job to stop her husband actually exploding with pride.

“Ach, wumman, I didna’ ken which way the fat man wuz walkin’,” said Rob, airily waving a hand. “Ye canna trust the fat man. That’s the kind of thing us nat’ral writin’ folk knows about. One day he might walk this way, next day he might walk
that
way.”

He beamed at his name:

“And I reckon you got it wrong wi’ them Y’s,” he went on. “I reckon it should be N E Bo D. That’s Enn…eee…bor…dee, see? That’s
sense
!”

He stuck the pencil into his hair and gave her a defiant look.

Jeannie sighed. She’d grown up with seven hundred brothers and knew how they thought, which was often quite fast while being totally in the wrong direction. And if they couldn’t bend their thinking around the world, they bent the world around their thinking. Usually, her mother had told her, it was best not to argue.