Witch's Business (14 page)

“You know perfectly well,” Jess retorted. “Slaves. And you might think of how your mother feels next time you vanish, Stafford Briggs.”

“You shut up!” said Stafford and Ray together. Jess thought they looked very uncomfortable.

“How do you know?” Buster demanded. “What's it got—”

Then, suddenly, the gang fell very quiet again, except that Squeaky Voice muttered, “Look out!”

Jess and Frank looked up and saw Mr. Adams wandering down the road toward them. He was so near that the gang had no time to get away. Nor had Jess and Frank, although Mr. Adams was the last person they felt they wanted to meet just then. Everyone stood still, while Mr. Adams came up to them, vaguely smiling.

“Hallo,” he said. He seemed not to have the least notion that it was his doing that Jess and Frank were surrounded like this by Buster's gang.

Everyone said, “Hallo” in reply, the gang as well, in grudging mutters. Frank could see that the gang were all ready to run as soon as he or Jess told Mr. Adams about the broken window. Frank left it to Jess to tell. His feeling was that Mr. Adams deserved his window broken for going to Biddy.

Jess, however, felt the same as Frank. She was sure that Frankie or Jenny would tell Mr. Adams as soon as he got home, anyway. So, when Mr. Adams asked if the painting was finished, she said, “Yes,” and added coldly, “but we have to be getting home to lunch now.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Adams. “So have I.” And he seemed about to walk on.

Frank decided that Buster and the gang ought not to get away with their crimes entirely. So he said, looking meaningly at Buster, “I think you ought to take care of Frankie and Jenny, Mr. Adams.”

Buster gave himself away, by saying indignantly, “Hey! I ain't done nothing to them yet.”

Mr. Adams did not seem to realize. “They've become friends of yours, have they?” he asked, meaning the gang as well as the Piries.

The gang looked sulky. Jess could have shaken Mr. Adams. “Yes,” she said. “Very
great
friends, Mr. Adams. And you should look after them. You neglect them awfully, you know.”

There was another broken-window kind of silence. Mr. Adams blinked at Jess, and Jess stared firmly back at him. The gang felt they had had enough and began to sneak away, past Mr. Adams, up the road. Frank wanted to go as well, but did not dare. He had to wait while Mr. Adams slowly decided what to say.

Then, oddly, Mr. Adams did not say anything at all. He just gave a sort of nod, or a sort of head shake, toward Jess and went wandering on toward the Mill House. Frank and Jess stood by themselves in a road blessedly cleared of the gang.

“Jess,” Frank said. “That was awful cheek.”

“I know,” said Jess. “And he deserved it. He
does
neglect them, you can see, and he knows he does. He deserves to have his window broken, too. I almost even think he deserves to be in Biddy's power.”

“I don't know,” Frank answered. “I'm beginning to think no one deserves that much. Look at Kevin. I hope we didn't give him away.”

They did not meet the gang again, but they were very late for lunch. Mrs. Pirie was so cross that Frank and Jess were unable to rush out again straight afterward, much as they wanted to. They had to do the washing-up instead.

Jess sighed as she ran the hot water. “The injustice of it!” she said. “It's Mr. Adams's fault, and Biddy's, and Buster's, not ours at all. But I wouldn't mind if I only knew what Martin and Vernon were doing.”

“Searching the paint pots, I hope,” said Frank, looking with hatred at a stack of plates and a heap of saucepans beyond. “
I
wouldn't mind if there wasn't so
much
washing-up. I think Mummy feeds an army while we're not here to see. We never ate with all these spoons, I know.”

“Maybe it's breakfast as well,” Jess suggested, squirting washing-up liquid into the water. “Glasses first, Frank.”

“All ten of them?” said Frank. “You see what I mean? There were only three of us.”

“Perhaps Biddy did it to spite us,” said Jess.

That was exactly what it felt like. They got grimly on with it, but as soon as they had cleared one stack of dirty plates, they found another, nestling behind that. It was just like an evil enchantment.

“Perhaps Mummy's in Biddy's power, too,” said Frank.

“Oh, I hope
not
!” said Jess.

Frank pointed a bunch of spoons toward the window. “Look.”

Jess looked. There was nothing but the garden, and the concrete path, and somebody's ugly old cat washing itself with one leg in the air. It was a very ugly cat, with its ears all chewed up. It was ginger and tabby and black and white—and Jess had a feeling she had seen it before.

“It's Biddy's,” said Frank.

Jess felt a row of shivers chase one another down her back. “But it's just a cat,” she said. “Throw a spoon at it, Frank. I would, only I'd miss.”

“So would I miss,” said Frank. “It's a witch's cat. Let's just take no notice.”

“But
it's
noticing
us
,” said Jess.

“A cat can look at a king,” said Frank. “And it can't talk.”

“How do we know it can't?” said Jess. With Biddy, she thought, anything was possible. She was sure the ugly creature had been sent to keep an eye on them and that, somehow, it would report to Biddy if it found them hunting for Jenny's heirloom again. “Oh,” she said, “if it stays there, we'll
never
cure Silas. And I never even asked Vernon how Silas was.”

“He'd have said if he was better,” Frank said gloomily. Seeing that cat was like seeing failure staring them in the face. It was no good. Biddy was too strong and too cunning for them. He could not ever see them undoing the harm Own Back seemed to have done. But then, as soon as he reached that idea, Frank began to get angry. It all seemed to be Biddy's fault, really. All he and Jess had done was to get hold of a tooth in the kindest possible way. It was Biddy magicked it. And long before they had thought of Own Back, Biddy had been at work on the Adams family, making Jenny limp, hiding her necklace, and getting Mr. Adams and maybe the Aunt, too, in her power.

“I'm blowed if she'll get away with it!” said Frank. He opened the window and hurled the whole handful of spoons at the cat.

None of them hit it. They just clattered down all over the path and the flower beds. But the cat ran for its life. Frank was delighted at the way it ran. It streaked up the garden like a rabbit, and he saw it scramble frantically over the fence beside the potting shed. Frank dusted his hands together and went triumphantly out to collect the spoons.

Jess, meanwhile, scrambled the rest of the dishes into the sink. By the time Frank came in with the spoons, she was nearly finished. She washed the spoons again, and they
were
finished.

Jess dried her hands. “What shall we do?” she asked. “Go to the Mill House? If Vernon and Martin were coming here, they'd have come by now.”

“Yes,” said Frank, wiping the spoons. “By the way, did we take down the Own Back notice, in the end?”

“Gracious, no!” Jess put her hands over her mouth. “I clean forgot. I didn't even put up the
CLOSED
notice, because Mr. Adams came. Oh, Frank! Suppose there's a queue of customers!”

“We'll send them away,” said Frank. “I've done with it. Come on.” He threw down the tea towel, and both of them ran through the garden to the shed.

To their relief, there was no one outside the window. Jess hurried forward to get the notice in, and tripped over something in the way. She looked down to see what it was. It was a leg—a large, sturdy leg, in dirty blue denim, with a battered shoe on the end of it.

“Oh, Frank!” she said. “Come quick! There's a piece of a person here.”

Jess backed away from the leg just as Frank ran forward. They collided. Frank staggered and trod on the leg.

“Sliced toes in puke!” said the leg. “Now you broke my ankle.”

Frank and Jess, holding on to each other, and very shaken, leaned forward and looked into the space beyond the garden roller. Buster Knell was there. It was his leg, and it was joined onto him in the usual way—but he looked unusual all the same. He was bent over, hugging himself, and did not seem to want to move. Odder still, his eyes were swollen all round, and there were tear stains all over his face and wet new tears on his sweater. Frank and Jess stared. It was odd enough to have Buster in their shed, but even odder to see he had been crying his eyes out there. Frank was quite awed, because no one had ever before seen Buster cry. Jess was almost sorry for him.

“What
is
the matter?” she said.

Buster gave out language—slimy, degutted, maggot-puked, body-bits language—and, when he had finished doing that, he burst into tears again and said pathetically, “And I thought you weren't never coming, either.”

“But why?” said Jess. “What is it?”

“Her,” said Buster. “Look what she done to me.”

“What?” said Frank. Apart from the tears, there did not seem to be anything wrong with Buster.

“Who?” said Jess. “Biddy?”

“Yes,” said Buster. “Her.” And they had to listen to more language, and to watch a great many more tears. Then Buster asked, “Mean to say you can't see nothing wrong?” He held out a big, strong arm shakily toward them. “Can't you
see
'em?”

“See what?” said Frank.

“I don't know what they are,” said Buster. “Things. Crawling all over, nipping and biting and scratching. Some of 'em stinging. And you can't see 'em?”

“No,” said Frank and Jess.

“Then they're invisible,” said Buster. “But they're there. I can feel 'em as well as see 'em. I can't move for 'em. Stafford and Ray and the rest has got 'em, too. They got the willies, and we all hid up for fear people see and ask us about 'em. I came here to see what you could do. But,” said Buster, beginning to cry again, “if you can't see 'em, then you won't believe me. But they're true as I sit here. Honest. It's gut-splitting agony.”

Somehow—probably because he was crying—Frank and Jess did believe him. They were both shocked that Biddy should do this to her own servants, and Jess thought how mean it was to make the Things invisible, so that no one would believe there was anything wrong with the gang.

“Please don't cry,” she said.

“What did she do it for?” said Frank.

“Because of you,” said Buster. “We was to get you and Ginger and the scum and bring you all to her when you come out of the Mill House. And you wouldn't come. So she got mad and said she'd teach us a lesson, not to disobey.
You
know we tried. She wouldn't listen.”

“Buster,” said Jess, “get this clear. We are
not
going to go to Biddy of our own accords, even to say you tried to bring us. Not if you paid us.”

“I can't pay you,” said Buster. “I got no money. They stopped our money for a window. That's why we had to sell ourselves. All I want is for you to get us out of it. Get that tooth back and stop us having to do what she wants. It's killing us all. Honest.”

“We would if we could,” said Frank.

“We've been trying,” said Jess. “But we can't seem to.”

“See here,” said Buster. “If you do it, I'll be your friend. I'll stick up for you. All the gang will. We'll do anything you want, always. Promise. All you got to do is to get into that hut of hers when she's out and grab that tooth. She's got it there, in the middle. I'd grab it if I could, but she knows everything we do, now we sell ourselves.”

This was not a comforting thought. Frank and Jess blinked and wondered if this meant Biddy knew Buster was in their potting shed talking to them. But a chance of getting the tooth back was too good to miss.

“How do we know when she's out?” said Frank. “Will you tell us?”

“Yes,” said Buster. “I'll go down there and keep an offal-bloated lookout. I don't mind if the Things is invisible. It's the thought of people
seeing
'em I can't stand.”