Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett [27]
“How much do I weigh now, pray?” she asked.
“Two ounces!” said the coachman quickly.
Miss Tick smiled. “Yes. And not one scruple more! A scruple being, of course, a weight of twenty grains, or one twenty-fourth of an ounce. I am in fact…unscrupulous!”
She waited to see if this extremely teachery joke was going to get a smile but didn’t mind when it didn’t. Miss Tick rather liked being smarter than other people.
She got on the coach.
As the coach climbed up into the mountains, snow started to fall. Miss Tick, who knew that no two snowflakes are alike, didn’t pay them any attention. If she had done so, she’d have felt slightly less smart.
Tiffany slept. A fire glowed in the bedroom grate. Downstairs, Miss Treason’s loom wove its way through the night….
Small blue figures crept across the bedroom floor and, by forming a Feegle pyramid, reached the top of the little table Tiffany used as a desk.
Tiffany turned over in bed and made a little snfgl noise. The Feegles froze, just for a moment, and then the bedroom door swung gently shut behind them.
A blue blur raised a trail of dust on the narrow stairs, across the loom-room floor, out into the scullery, and through a strange cheese-shaped hole in the outside door. From then on it was a trail of disturbed leaves leading deep into the woods, where a small fire burned. It lit the faces of a horde of Feegles, although it may not have wanted to.
The blur stopped and became about six Feegles, two of them carrying Tiffany’s diary.
They laid it down carefully.
“We’re well oot o’ that hoose,” said Big Yan. “Dija see dem bigjob skulls? There’s a hag ye wouldna want tae cross in a hurry!”
“Ach, I see she’s got one o’ they paddly locks again,” said Daft Wullie, walking around the diary.
“Rob, I canna help thinkin’ that it’s no’ right tae read this,” said Billy Bigchin, as Rob put his arm into the keyhole. “It’s pers’nal!”
“She’s oor hag. What’s pers’nal tae her is pers’nal tae us,” said Rob matter-of-factly, fishing around inside the lock. “Besides, she must want someone tae read it, ’cuz she wrote things doon. Nae point in writin’ stuff doon if ye dinna want it read! It’s a sheer waste o’ pencil!”
“Mebbe she wanted tae read it hersel’,” said Billy doubtfully.
“Oh, aye? Why’d she want tae do that?” said Rob scornfully. “She already kens what’s in it. An’ Jeannie wants tae know what she’s thinkin’ aboot the Baron’s lad.”
There was a click, and the padlock opened. The assembled Feeglehood watched carefully.
Rob turned the rustling pages and grinned.
“Ach, she’s writ here: Oh, the dear Feegles ha’ turned up again,” he said. This met with general applause.
“Ach, what a kind girl she is tae write that,” said Billy Bigchin. “Can I see?”
He read: Oh dear, the Feegles have turned up again.
“Ah,” he said. Billy Bigchin had come with Jeannie all the way from the Long Lake clan. The clan there was more at home with the reading and writing, and since he was the gonnagle, he was expected to be good at both.
The Chalk Hill Feegles, on the other hand, were more at home with the drinkin’, stealin’, and fightin’, and Rob Anybody was good at all three. But he’d learned to read and write because Jeannie had asked him to. He did them with a lot more optimism than accuracy, Billy knew. When he was faced with a long sentence, he tended to work out a few words and then have a great big guess.
“The art o’ readin’ is all aboot understandin’ whut the wurds is tryin’ tae say, right?” said Rob.
“Aye, mebbe,” said Big Yan, “but is there any wurd there tae tell us that the big wee hag is sweet on that heap o’ jobbies doon in the stone castle?”
“Ye ha’ a verra ro-mantic nature,” said Rob. “And the answer is: I canna tell. They writes some bits o’ their letters in them wee codies. That’s a terrible thing tae do to a reader. It’s hard enough readin’ the normal words,