facts. She got a few wows, which she was pleased with.
After a while Petulia said: “That must have been very, um, interesting.” And that was Petulia for you.
“What shall I do?”
“Um…do you need to do anything?” said Petulia.
“Well, sooner or later people are going to notice that all snowflakes are shaped like me!”
“Um, are you worried that they won’t?” said Petulia, so innocently that Tiffany laughed.
“But I’ve got this feeling that it’s not going to stop with snowflakes! I mean, he is everything to do with wintertime!”
“And he ran away when you screamed…” said Petulia thoughtfully.
“That’s right.”
“And then he did something sort of…silly.”
“What?”
“The snowflakes,” said Petulia helpfully.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” said Tiffany, a bit hurt. “Not exactly silly.”
“Then it’s all obvious,” said Petulia. “He’s a boy.”
“What?”
“A boy. You know what they are?” said Petulia. “Blush, grunt, mumble, wibble? They’re pretty much all the same.”
“But he’s millions of years old and he acts like he’s never seen a girl before!”
“Um, I don’t know. Has he ever seen a girl before?”
“He must have! What about Summer?” said Tiffany. “She’s a girl. Well, a woman. According to a book I’ve seen, anyway.”
“I suppose all you can do is wait to see what he does next, then. Sorry. I’ve never had snowflakes made in my honor…. Er, we’re here….”
They’d reached the clearing where Miss Treason lived, and Petulia began to look a bit nervous.
“Um…all these stories about her…” she said, looking at the cottage. “Are you all right there?”
“Was one of them about what she can do with her thumbnail?” asked Tiffany.
“Yes!” said Petulia, shuddering.
“She made that one up. Don’t tell anyone, though.”
“Why would anyone make up a story like that about themselves?”
Tiffany hesitated. Pigs couldn’t be fooled by Boffo, so Petulia hadn’t run across it. And she was amazingly honest, which Tiffany was coming to learn was a bit of a drawback in a witch. It wasn’t that witches were actually dishonest, but they were careful about what kind of truth they told.
“I don’t know,” she lied. “Anyway, you have to cut through quite a lot of a person before anything falls out. And skin is quite tough. I don’t think it’s possible.”
Petulia looked alarmed. “You tried?”
“I practiced with my thumbnail on a big ham this morning, if that’s what you mean,” said Tiffany. You have to check things, she thought. I heard the story that Miss Treason has wolf’s teeth, and people tell that to one another even though they’ve seen her.
“Um…I’ll come and help tomorrow, of course,” said Petulia, nervously looking at Tiffany’s hands in case there were going to be any more thumbnail experiments. “Going-away parties can be quite jolly, really. But, um, if I was you, I’d tell Mr. Wintersmith to go away. That’s what I did when Davey Lummock started getting, um, too romantic. And I told him that I was, um, walking out with Makky Weaver—don’t tell the others!”
“Isn’t he the one who talks about pigs all the time?”
“Well, pigs are very interesting,” said Petulia reproachfully. “And his father, um, has got the biggest pig-breeding farm in the mountains.”
“That’s something worth thinking about, definitely,” said Tiffany. “Ouch.”
“What happened?” said Petulia.
“Oh, nothing. My hand really twinged there for a moment.” Tiffany rubbed it. “Part of the healing, I suppose. See you tomorrow.”
Tiffany went indoors. Petulia carried on through the forest.
From up near the roof came the sounds of a conversation.
“Didja hear what the fat girl said?”
“Aye, but pigs are no’ that interestin’.”
“Oh, I dinna ken aboot that. A verra useful animal is the pig. You can eat every part o’ it, ye ken, except for the squeal.”
“Ach, ye’re wrong there. Ye can use the squeal.”
“Dinna be daft!”
“Aye, ye can so! Ye make up a pie crust, right, an’ ye put in a lot o’ ham, right, an’ then ye catch the squeal, put the top on the pie before he can escape, right, an’ bung it straight in the oven.”
“I ne’er heard o’ such a thing as that!”
“Have ye no’? It’s called squeal-and-ham pie.”
“There’s nae such thing!”
“Why not? There’s bubble-and-squeak, right? An’ a squeak is wee compared tae a squeal. I reckon you could—”
“If youse mudlins dinna listen, I’ll put ye inna pie!” yelled Rob Anybody. The Feegles muttered into silence
And on the other side of the clearing the Wintersmith watched with purple-gray eyes. He watched until a candle was lit in an upstairs room, and watched the orange glow until it went out.
Then, walking unsteadily on new legs, he went toward the flower patch where,