A Hat Full Of Sky - Terry Pratchett [23]
“When I was a child, they thought I was twins,” she said over one of her shoulders. “And then…they thought I was evil,” she said, over another shoulder.
“Are you?” said Tiffany.
Both of Miss Level turned around, looking shocked.
“What kind of question is that to ask anyone?” she said.
“Um…the obvious one?” said Tiffany. “I mean, if they said, ‘Yes I am! Mwahahaha!’ that would save a lot of trouble, wouldn’t it?”
Four eyes narrowed.
“Mistress Weatherwax was right,” said Miss Level. “She said you were a witch to your boots.”
Inside, Tiffany beamed with pride.
“Well, the thing about the obvious,” said Miss Level, “is that it so often isn’t…. Did Mistress Weatherwax really take off her hat to you?”
“Yes.”
“One day perhaps you’ll know how much honor she did you,” said Miss Level. “Anyway…no, I’m not evil. But I nearly became evil, I think. Mother died not long after I was born, my father was at sea and never came back—”
“Worse things happen at sea,” said Tiffany. It was something Granny Aching had told her.
“Yes, right, and probably they did, or possibly he never wanted to come back in any case,” said Miss Level dryly. “And I was put in a charity home, bad food, horrible teachers, blah, blah, and I fell into the worst company possible, which was my own. It’s amazing the tricks you can get up to when you’ve got two bodies. Of course, everyone thought I was twins. In the end I ran away to join the circus. Me! Can you imagine that?”
“Topsy and Tipsy, The Astounding Mind-Reading Act?” said Tiffany.
Miss Level stood stock-still, her mouths open.
“It was on the posters over the stairs,” Tiffany added.
Now Miss Level relaxed.
“Oh, yes. Of course. Very…quick of you, Tiffany. Yes. You do notice things, don’t you….”
“I know I wouldn’t pay money to see the egress,” said Tiffany. “It just means ‘the way out.’”*
“Clever!” said Miss Level. “Monty put that on a sign to keep people moving though the Believe-It-or-Not tent. ‘This way to the Egress!’ Of course, people thought it was a female eagle or something, so Monty had a big man with a dictionary outside to show them they got exactly what they paid for! Have you ever been to a circus?”
Once, Tiffany admitted. It hadn’t been much fun. Things that try too hard to be funny often aren’t. There had been a moth-eaten lion with practically no teeth, a tightrope walker who was never more than a few feet above the ground, and a knife thrower who threw a lot of knives at an elderly woman in pink tights on a big spinning wooden disc and completely failed to hit her every time. The only real amusement was afterward, when a cart ran over the clown.
“My circus was a lot bigger,” said Miss Level, when Tiffany mentioned this. “Although, as I recall, our knife thrower was also very bad at aiming. We had elephants and camels and a lion so fierce it bit a man’s arm nearly off.”
Tiffany had to admit that this sounded a lot more entertaining.
“And what did you do?” she said.
“Well, I just bandaged him up while I shooed the lion off him—”
“Yes, Miss Level, but I meant in the circus. Just reading your own mind?”
Miss Level beamed at Tiffany. “That, yes, and nearly everything else, too,” she said. “With different wigs on I was the Stupendous Bohunkus Sisters. I juggled plates, you know, and wore costumes covered in sequins. And I helped with the high-wire act. Not walking the wire, of course, but generally smiling and glittering at the audience. Everyone assumed I was twins, and circus people don’t ask too many personal questions in any case. And then what with one thing and another, this and that…I came up here and became a witch.”
Both of Miss Level watched Tiffany carefully.
“That was quite a long sentence, that last sentence,” said Tiffany.
“Yes, it was, wasn’t it,” said Miss Level. “I can’t tell you everything. Do you still want to stay? The last three girls didn