She was nine years old and felt that Tiffany was going to be a hard name to live up to. There was a small part of Tiffany’s brain that wasn’t too certain about the name Tiffany. But he was an easy child to mind, provided you stopped him eating frogs. Washed and dried and left in the middle of a clean floor for five minutes, Wentworth would be sticky. It came up in bubbles.Ī little way away, where the river bank became a sort of pebble beach, her brother Wentworth was messing around with a stick, and almost certainly making himself sticky.Īnything could make Wentworth sticky. Tiffany Aching was lying on her stomach by the river, tickling trout. She cupped it in her hands to keep the raindrops out, and listened to her eyes. Then she took a bottle of ink out of another pocket and poured in just enough to turn the water black. She pulled a cracked saucer out of her pocket, and tipped into it the rainwater that had collected on her hat. Strangely enough, witches tend to be more accurate but less popular. † Ordinary fortune-tellers tell you what you want to happen witches tell you what’s going to happen whether you want it to or not. It’s amazing what your kidneys can tell you. Let’s have a look.’ * People say things like ‘listen to your heart’, but witches learn to listen to other things too.

But.’ she paused, ‘witches don’t just turn up out of nowhere. Miss Tick was making pennies by doing bits of medicine and misfortune-telling † and slept in barns most nights. ‘We’re not doing very well around here, are we?’ ‘Why talk about it? Let’s go and see,’ said the voice. ‘But my elbows are generally very reliable.’* You need good hard rock to grow a witch, believe me.’ Miss Tick shook her head, sending raindrops flying. That’s chalk country over that way,’ said Miss Tick. ‘She’ll sort it out, then,’ said a small and, for now, mysterious voice from somewhere near her feet. according to my left elbow, there’s a witch there already.’ There’s probably another world making contact. A definite ripple in the walls of the world. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly, as rain poured off the rim of her hat. One of the sticks seemed to pass right through the egg, for example, and came out the other side without leaving a mark. The items had been tied and twisted together to make a. Unlike wizards, witches learn to make do with a little. The exploring of the universe was being done with a couple of twigs tied together with string, a stone with a hole in it, an egg, one of Miss Tick’s stockings which also had a hole in it, a pin, a piece of paper and a tiny stub of pencil. Miss Perspicacia Tick sat in what little shelter a raggedy hedge could give her and explored the universe.

It was a summer shower but didn’t appear to know it, and it was pouring rain as fast as a winter storm.

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett