Witch's Business Read Free Page A

sticks, and plainly ready to give those disemboweled Piries lawfully what-for, Frank felt it was worth five pence. They waited until Buster himself hammered on the window. Then Jess shoved it open in his face and held out the tooth in a silver-paper tart dish.
    â€œThere you are,” she said triumphantly. “Wilkins’s tooth, just as you said.”
    Buster glowered at it, then at Jess and Frank. “I bet it’s slime-puking not. It’s one of yours.”
    â€œIt is not, then,” said Jess. “Look.” And she bared her teeth at him. “See. No gaps.”
    â€œThen it’s one you kept. Or one of his,” said Buster.
    Frank came up and bared his teeth, too. Luckily, he had no gaps, and only one tooth loose, at the back.
    â€œAnd we always burn ours,” said Jess. Then, because a horrid thought struck her, she left Frank to do the talking.
    Buster looked incredulously from the tooth to Frank, and back again. “This is Wilkins’s tooth?” he said. “Honor bright and may you die?”
    â€œHonor bright and may I die,” said Frank. “If you want it, take it. And don’t forget I don’t owe you ten pence now.”
    â€œNo. All right. I let you off,” said Buster. He was too astonished, and too respectful, even to swear. He took the tooth. Frank slammed the window on him, and on all the gang crowding round to inspect the tooth and exclaim as if they had never seen one before.
    â€œThat’s that!” said Frank thankfully.
    â€œOh, I do hope so,” said Jess, “because I’ve just realized Vernon hasn’t any gaps either, and—and—”
    â€œThat’s his lookout,” said Frank. “If he’s got any sense, he’ll paint one out or something.”
    Jess had not the heart to speak of her really horrid idea just then. Instead, she watched the gang moving unusually quietly away along the allotments, and tried to think on the bright side. “There is one thing, Frank. If they think you can knock out Vernon’s tooth, they won’t bother you again.”
    Unfortunately, she was completely wrong.

TWO
    After the affair of Wilkins’s tooth, both Frank and Jess had secretly had enough of Own Back, but since they owed Vernon five pence, there was nothing for it but to stay in business for another day at least. So they sat in the shed for the third day and, all the while, Jess worried about Silas Wilkins’s tooth. She had lain awake at night worrying. Now, that morning, she just had to tell Frank her horrid idea.
    â€œFrank, I wish we hadn’t given them the tooth. I keep thinking of witch doctors. You know, when they want to hurt a person, they take a tooth or just a hair from the person, and do awful things to it. Suppose Buster does? And then it’ll be poor little Silas who suffers, not Vernon at all.”
    â€œBut it’s not real,” Frank said uneasily. “They always tell you witch doctors can’t really do magic—only that people think they can. Anyway, you know what that gang’s like. They’re bound to lose it before they decide what to do with it. Or they’ll get them mixed up and magic Buster’s.”
    â€œOh,” said Jess. “I do hope they do . And give Buster face-ache for weeks.”
    â€œMonths,” said Frank, who had suffered a great deal more from Buster than Jess had. He was thinking of saying that Own Back could offer to do the magicking, and get the teeth mixed on purpose, when Jess noticed that someone was tapping on the window.
    She jumped up to open it. Frank followed her, and found two pale little girls outside, hand in hand, their hair flapping in the wind, looking up anxiously at the window. He knew them a little by sight. They were the funny, old-fashioned girls who lived at the one house you could see from the potting shed—the cheese-colored one. He knew the elder one was called Frances Adams, because