Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett [54]
She strode out into the passageway and opened the door.
“Yes?” she demanded.
The dwarfs backed away at the sight of her. There was a lot of whispering and elbowing and muttered comments in the nature of “No, you,” and “I asked last time.” Finally a dwarf was pushed forward. It might have been the original dwarf. It was hard to tell, with dwarfs.
“Er,” he said. “Er. Boots?”
“What for?” said Granny.
The dwarf scratched its head. “Damned if I know,” he said. “We were just wondering about it ourselves, ’s’matterofact. We were just coming off shift in the coal mine half an hour ago, we saw the farmhouse land on…on the witch, and…well…”
“You just knew you had to run up and steal her boots?” said Granny.
The dwarf’s face widened into a relieved grin.
“That’s right!” he said. “And sing the Ding-dong song. Only she was supposed to be squashed. No offense meant,” he added quickly.
“It’s the willow reinforcement,” said a voice behind Granny. “Worth its weight in glod.”
Granny stared for a while, and then smiled.
“I think you lads ought to come inside,” she said. “I’ve got some questions to ask you.”
The dwarfs looked very uncertain.
“Um,” said the spokesdwarf.
“Nervous of going into a house with witches in it?” said Granny Weatherwax.
The spokesdwarf nodded, and then went red. Magrat and Nanny Ogg exchanged glances behind Granny’s back. Something had definitely gone wrong somewhere. In the mountains dwarfs certainly weren’t afraid of witches. The problem was to stop them digging up your floor.
“You’ve been down from the mountains for some time, I expect,” said Granny.
“Very promising seam of coal down here,” mumbled the spokesdwarf, twiddling his hat.
“Bet it’s a long time since you’ve had proper dwarf bread, then,” said Granny.
The spokesdwarf’s eyes misted over.
“Baked from the finest stone-ground grit, just like mother used to jump up and down on it,” Granny went on.
A sort of collective sigh went up from the dwarfs.
“You just can’t get it down here,” said the spokesdwarf, to the ground. “It’s the water, or something. It falls to bits after hardly any years at all.”
“They puts flour in it,” said someone behind him, sourly.
“It’s worse’n that. The baker over in Genua puts dried fruit in it,” said another dwarf.
“Well, now,” said Granny, rubbing her hands together, “I may be able to help you here. Could be I’ve got some dwarf bread to spare.”
“Nah. Not proper dwarf bread,” said the spokesdwarf moodily. “Proper dwarf bread’s got to be dropped in rivers and dried out and sat on and left and looked at every day and put away again. You just can’t get it down here.”
“This could be,” said Granny Weatherwax, “your lucky day.”
“To be frank,” said Nanny Ogg, “I think the cat pissed on some of it.”
The spokesdwarf looked up, his eyes aglow.
“Hot damn!”
Dear Jason et everybody,
Whot a life, all kinds of thing goin on, what with talkin wolves and women asleep in castles, I shall have a story or two to tell you when I gets back and no mistake. Also, dont tawk to me about farmhouses, which reminds me, please send somone to Mr. Vernissage over in Slice and present Mrs. Ogg’s compluments and what a good hat he makes, he can say “As Approved by Nanny Ogg,” it stops 100% of all known farmhouses, also, if you writes to people saying how good their stuff is sometimes you get free stuff, there could be a new hat in this for me so see to it.
Lilith stepped out from her room of mirrors. Shadowy images of herself trailed after her, fading.
Witches ought to be squashed when a farmhouse lands on them. Lilith knew that. All squashed, except for their boots sticking out.
Sometimes she despaired. People just didn’t seem able to play their parts properly.
She wondered whether there was such a thing as the opposite of a fairy godmother. Most things had their opposite, after all. If so, she wouldn’t be a bad fairy godmother, because that’s just a good fairy godmother seen from