A Hat Full Of Sky Read Free Page A

words upset her. Tiffany had read it all the way through.
    And that was it, and suddenly here she was, a month later, wrapping her old boots, which had been worn by all her sisters before her, in a piece of clean rag and putting them in the secondhand suitcase her mother had bought her, which looked as if it was made of bad cardboard or pressed grape pips mixed with ear wax, and had to be held together with string.
    There were good-byes. She cried a bit, and her mother cried a lot, and her little brother, Wentworth, cried as well just in case he would get a sweet for doing so. Tiffany’s father didn’t cry but gave her a silver dollar and rather gruffly told her to be sure to write home every week,which is a man’s way of crying. She said goodbye to the cheeses in the dairy and the sheep in the paddock and even to Ratbag the cat.
    Then everyone apart from the cheeses and the cat stood at the gate and waved to her and Miss Tick—well, except for the sheep, too—until they’d gone nearly all the way down the chalky-white lane to the village.
    And then there was silence except for the sound of their boots on the flinty surface and the endless song of the skylarks overhead. It was late August and very hot, and the new boots pinched.
    “I should take them off, if I was you,” said Miss Tick after a while.
    Tiffany sat down by the side of the lane and got her old boots out of the case. She didn’t bother to ask how Miss Tick knew about the tight new boots. Witches paid attention. The old boots, even though she had to wear several pairs of socks with them, were much more comfortable and really easy to walk in. They’d been walking since long before Tiffany was born, and knew how to do it.
    “And are we going to see any…little men today?” Miss Tick went on, once they were walking again.
    “I don’t know, Miss Tick,” said Tiffany. “I told them a month ago I was leaving. They’re very busy at this time of year. But there’s always one or two of them watching me.”
    Miss Tick looked around quickly. “I can’t see anything,” she said. “Or hear anything.”
    “No, that’s how you can tell they’re there,” said Tiffany. “It’s always a bit quieter if they’re watching me. But they won’t show themselves while you’re with me. They’re a bit frightened of hags—that’s their word for witches,” she added quickly. “It’s nothing personal.”
    Miss Tick sighed. “When I was a little girl, I’d have loved to see the pictsies,” she said. “I used to put out little saucers of milk. Of course, later on I realized that wasn’t quite the thing to do.”
    “No, you should have used strong licker,” said Tiffany.
    She glanced at the hedge and thought she saw, just for the snap of a second, a flash of red hair. And she smiled, a little nervously.

     

    Tiffany had been, if only for a few days, the nearest a human being can be to a queen of the fairies. Admittedly, she’d been called a kelda rather than a queen, and the Nac Mac Feegle should only be called fairies to their faces if youwere looking for a fight. On the other hand the Nac Mac Feegle were always looking for a fight, in a cheerful sort of way, and when they had no one to fight they fought one another, and if one was all by himself he’d kick his own nose just to keep in practice.
    Technically they had lived in Fairyland but had been thrown out, probably for being drunk. And now, because if you’d ever been their kelda they never forgot you…
    …they were always there.
    There was always one somewhere on the farm, or circling on a buzzard high over the chalk downs. And they watched her, to help and protect her, whether she wanted them to or not. Tiffany had been as polite as possible about this. She’d hidden her diary all the way at the back of a drawer and blocked up the cracks in the privy with wadded paper, and done her best with the gaps in her bedroom floorboards, too. They were little men , after all. She was sure they tried