‘You did all read Mrs Earwig’s book, didn’t you?’ she demanded. ‘Well, did you?’

Petulia raised a hand nervously. ‘Um—’ she began.

‘Petulia, I’ve told you literally a million times not to start. Every. Single. Sentence. With “Um”—haven’t I?’

‘Um—’ said Petulia, trembling with nervousness.

‘Just speak up, for goodness’ sake! Don’t hesitate all the time!’

‘Um—’

‘Petulia!’

‘Um—’

‘Really, you might make an effort. Honestly, I don’t know what’s the matter with all of you!’

I do, Tiffany thought. You’re like a dog worrying sheep all the time. You don’t give them time to obey you and you don’t let them know when they’ve done things right. You just keep barking.

Petulia had lapsed into tongue-tied silence.

Annagramma put the book down on the log. ‘Well, we’ve completely lost the moment,’ she said. ‘We may as well have that cup of tea, Petulia. Do hurry up.’

Petulia, relieved, grabbed the kettle. People relaxed a little.

Tiffany looked at the cover of the book. It read:

‘Magic with a K?’ she said aloud. ‘Magikkkk?’

‘That’s deliberate,’ said Annagramma coldly. ‘Mrs Earwig says that if we are to make any progress at all we must distinguish the higher MagiK from the everyday sort.’

‘The everyday sort of magic?’ said Tiffany.

‘Exactly. None of that mumbling in hedgerows for us. Proper sacred circles, spells written down. A proper hierarchy, not everyone running around doing whatever they feel like. Real wands, not bits of grubby stick. Professionalism, with respect. Absolutely no warts. That’s the only way forward.’

‘Well, I think—’ Tiffany began.

‘I don’t really care what you think because you don’t know enough yet,’ said Annagramma sharply. She turned to the group in general. ‘Do we all at least have something for the Trials this year?’ she asked. There were general murmurs and nods in the theme of ‘yes’.

‘What about you, Petulia?’ said Annagramma.

‘I’m going to do the pig trick, Annagramma,’ said Petulia meekly.

‘Good. You’re nearly good at that,’ said Annagramma, and pointed around the circle, from one girl to another, nodding at their answers, until she came to Tiffany.

‘Soft Nellies?’ she said, to sniggering amusement.

‘What are Witch Trials?’ said Tiffany. ‘Miss Tick mentioned them, but I don’t know what they are.’

Annagramma gave one of her noisy sighs.

‘You tell her, Petulia,’ she said. ‘You brought her, after all.’

Hesitantly, with lots of ‘um’s and glances at Annagramma, Petulia explained about the Witch Trials. Um, it was a time when witches from all over the mountains could meet up, and um see old friends and um pick up the latest news and gossip. Ordinary people could come along too, and there was a fair and um sideshows.

It was quite an um big event. And in the afternoon all the witches that um wanted to could show off a spell or um something they’d been working on, which was very um popular.

To Tiffany, they sounded like sheepdog trials, without the dogs or the sheep. They were in Sheercliff this year, which was quite close.

‘And is there a prize?’ she asked.

‘Um, oh no,’ said Petulia. ‘It’s all done in spirit of fun and good fellow—um, good sistership.’

‘Hah!’ said Annagramma. ‘Not even she will believe that! It’s all a fix, anyway. They’ll all applaud Mistress Weatherwax. She always wins, whatever she does. She just messes up people’s minds. She just fools them into thinking she’s good. She wouldn’t last five minutes against a wizard. They do real magic. And she dresses like a scarecrow, too! It’s ignorant old women like her who keep witchcraft rooted in the past, as Mrs Earwig points out in chapter one!’

One or two girls looked uncertain. Petulia even looked over her shoulder.

‘Um, people do say she’s done amazing things, Annagramma,’ she said. ‘And, um, they say she can spy on people miles away—’

‘Yes, they say that,’ said Annagramma. That’s because they’re all frightened of her! She’s such a bully! That’s all she does, bully people and mess up their heads! That’s old witchcraft, that is. Just one step away from cackling, in my opinion. She’s half cracked now, they say.’

‘She didn’t seem cracked to me.’

‘Who said that?’ snapped Annagramma.

Everyone looked at Tiffany, who wished she hadn’t spoken. But now there was nothing for it but to go on.

‘She was just a bit old and stern,’ she said. ‘But she was quite… polite. She didn’t cackle.’

‘You’ve met her?’

‘Yes.’

‘She spoke to you, did she?’ snarled Annagramma. ‘Was that before or after you kicked out the Fairy Queen?’

‘Just after,’ said Tiffany, who was not used to this sort of thing. ‘She turned up on a broomstick,’ she added. ‘I am telling the truth.’

‘Of course you are,’ said Annagramma, smiling grimly. ‘And she congratulated you, I expect.’

‘Not really,’ said Tiffany. ‘She seemed pleased, but it was hard to tell.’

And then Tiffany said something really, really stupid. Long afterwards, and long after all sorts of things had happened, she’d go ‘la la la!’ to blot out the memory whenever something reminded her of that evening.

She said: ‘She did give me this hat.’

And they said, all of them, with one voice: ‘What hat?’

Petulia took her back to the cottage. She did her best, and assured Tiffany that she believed her, but Tiffany knew she was just being nice. Miss Level tried to talk to her as she ran upstairs, but she bolted her door, kicked off her boots and lay down on the bed with the pillow over her head to drown out the laughter echoing inside.

Downstairs, there was some muffled conversation between Petulia and Miss Level and then the sound of the door closing as Petulia left.

After a while there was a scraping noise as Tiffany’s boots were dragged across the floor and arranged neatly under the bed. Oswald was never off duty.

After another while the laughter died down, although she was sure it’d never go completely.

Tiffany could feel the hat. At least, she had been able to feel it. The virtual hat, on her real head. But no one could see it, and Petulia had even waved a hand back and forth over Tiffany’s head and encountered a complete absence of hat.

The worst part—and it was hard to find the worst part, so humiliatingly bad had it been—was hearing Annagramma say, ‘No, don’t laugh at her. That’s too cruel. She’s just foolish, that’s all. I told you the old woman messes with people’s heads!’

Tiffany’s First Thoughts were running around in circles. Her Second Thoughts were caught up in the storm. Only her Third Thoughts, which were very weak, came up with: Even though your world is completely and utterly ruined and can never be made better, no matter what, and you’re completely inconsolable, it would be nice if you heard someone bringing some soup upstairs…

The Third Thoughts got Tiffany off the bed and over to the door, where they guided her hand to slide the bolt back. Then they let her fling herself on the bed again.

A few minutes later there was a creak of footsteps on the landing. It’s nice to be right.

Miss Level knocked, then came in after a decent pause. Tiffany heard the tray go down on the table, then felt the bed move as a body sat down on it.

‘Petulia is a capable girl, I’ve always thought,’ said Miss Level, after a while. ‘She’ll make some village a very serviceable witch one day.’

Tiffany stayed silent.

‘She told me all about it,’ said Miss Level. ‘Miss Tick never mentioned the hat, but if I was you I wouldn’t have told her about it anyway. It sounds the sort of thing Mistress Weatherwax would do. You know, sometimes it helps to talk about these things.’