The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett [24]
But he’s never interested in moving far away from people! It’s half a mile up to the shearing pens! And he doesn’t move that fast. After a few feet he flops down and demands sweets!
But it would be a bit more peaceful around here if he did get lost….
There it went again, a nasty, shameful thought, which she tried to drown out by getting busy. But first she took some candy out of the jar, as bait, and rustled the bag as she ran from room to room.
She heard boots in the yard as some of the men came down from the shearing sheds, but she got on with looking under beds and in cupboards, even ones so high that a toddler couldn’t possibly reach them, and then looked again under beds that she’d already looked under, because it was that kind of search. It was the kind of search where you go and look in the attic, even though the door is always locked.
After a few minutes there were two or three voices outside, calling for Wentworth, and she heard her father say, “Try down by the river!”
…and that meant he was frantic too, because Wentworth would never walk that far without a bribe. He was not a child who was happy away from people with sweets.
It’s your fault.
The thought felt like a piece of ice in her mind.
It’s your fault because you didn’t love him very much. He turned up and you weren’t the youngest anymore, and you had to have him trailing around after you, and you kept wishing, didn’t you, that he’d go away.
“That’s not true!” Tiffany whispered to herself. “I…quite liked him….”
Not very much, admittedly. Not all the time. He didn’t know how to play properly, and he never did what he was told. You thought it would be better if he did get lost.
Anyway, she added in her head, you can’t love people all the time when they have a permanently runny nose. Any anyway…I wonder…
“I wish I could find my brother,” she said aloud.
This seemed to have no effect. But the house was full of people, opening and shutting doors and calling out and getting in one another’s way, and the…Feegles were shy, despite many of them having faces like a hatful of knuckles.
Don’t wish, Miss Tick had said. Do things.
She went downstairs. Even some of the women who’d been packing fleeces up at the shearing had come down. They were clustered around her mother, who was sitting at the table crying. No one noticed Tiffany. That often happened.
She slipped into the dairy, closed the door carefully behind her, and leaned down to peer under the sink.
The door burst open again and her father ran in. He stopped. Tiffany looked up guiltily.
“He can’t be under there, girl!” her father said.
“Well, er…” said Tiffany.
“Did you look upstairs?”
“Even the attic, Dad—”
“Well.” Her father looked panicky and impatient at the same time. “Go and…do something!”
“Yes, Dad.”
When the door had shut, Tiffany peered under the sink again.
“Are you there, toad?”
“Very poor pickings under here,” the toad answered, crawling out. “You keep it very clean. Not even a spider.”
“This is urgent!” snapped Tiffany. “My little brother has gone missing. In broad daylight! Up on the downs, where you can see for miles!”
“Oh, croap,” said the toad.
“Pardon?” said Tiffany.
“Er, that was, er, swearing in Toad,” said the toad. “Sorry, but—”
“Has what’s going on got something to do with magic?” said Tiffany. “It has, hasn’t it…?”
“I hope it hasn’t,” said the toad, “but I think it has.”
“Have those little men stolen Wentworth?”
“Who, the Feegles? They don’t steal children!”
There was something in the way the toad said it. They don’t steal…
“Do you know who has taken my brother, then?” Tiffany demanded.
“No. But…they might,” said the toad. “Look, Miss Tick told me that you were not to—”
“My brother has been stolen,” said Tiffany sharply. “Are you going to tell me not to do anything about it?”
“No, but—”
“Good! Where are the Feegles now?”
“Lying low, I expect. The place is full of people searching, after all, but—”
“How can I bring them back? I need them!