“Fine, fine. Just checking.”
Again there was a pause while the woman gave Tiffany a long stare, as if making up her mind about something.
“My name,” she said at last, “is Miss Tick. And I am a witch. It’s a good name for a witch, of course.”
“You mean blood-sucking parasite?” said Tiffany, wrinkling her forehead.
“I’m sorry?” said Miss Tick, coldly.
“Ticks,” said Tiffany. “Sheep get them. But if you use turpentine—”
“I meant that it sounds like ‘mystic,’” said Miss Tick.
“Oh, you mean a pune, or play on words,” said Tiffany.* “In that case it would be even better if you were Miss Teak, a dense foreign wood, because that would sound like ‘mystique,’ or you could be Miss Take, which would—”
“I can see we’re going to get along like a house on fire,” said Miss Tick. “There may be no survivors.”
“You really are a witch?”
“Oh, puh-lease,” said Miss Tick. “Yes, yes, I am a witch. I have a talking animal, a tendency to correct other people’s pronunciation—it’s pun, by the way, not ‘pune’—and a fascination for poking my nose into other people’s affairs and, yes, a pointy hat.”
“Can I operate the spring now?” said the toad.
“Yes,” said Miss Tick, her eyes still on Tiffany. “You can operate the spring.”
“I like operating the spring,” said the toad, crawling around to the back of the hat.
There was a click, and a slow thwap-thwap noise, and the center of the hat rose slowly and jerkily up out of the paper flowers, which fell away.
“Er…” said Tiffany.
“You have a question?” said Miss Tick.
With a last thwop, the top of the hat made a perfect point.
“How do you know I won’t run away right now and tell the Baron?” said Tiffany.
“Because you haven’t the slightest desire to do so,” said Miss Tick. “You’re absolutely fascinated. You want to be a witch, am I right? You probably want to fly on a broomstick, yes?”
“Oh, yes!” She’d often dreamed of flying. Miss Tick’s next words brought her down to earth.
“Really? You like having to wear really, really thick pants? Believe me, if I’ve got to fly, I wear two pairs of woolen ones and a canvas pair on the outside which, I may tell you, are not very feminine no matter how much lace you sew on. It can get cold up there. People forget that. And then there’s the bristles. Don’t ask me about the bristles. I will not talk about the bristles.”
“But can’t you use a keeping-warm spell?” said Tiffany.
“I could. But a witch doesn’t do that sort of thing. Once you use magic to keep yourself warm, then you’ll start using it for other things.”
“But isn’t that what a witch is supposed to—” Tiffany began.
“Once you learn about magic, I mean really learn about magic, learn everything you can learn about magic, then you’ve got the most important lesson still to learn,” said Miss Tick.
“What’s that?”
“Not to use it. Witches don’t use magic unless they really have to. It’s hard work and difficult to control. We do other things. A witch pays attention to everything that’s going on. A witch uses her head. A witch is sure of herself. A witch always has a piece of string—”
“I always do have a piece of string!” said Tiffany. “It’s always handy!”
“Good. Although there’s more to witchcraft than string. A witch delights in small details. A witch sees through things and around things. A witch sees farther than most. A witch sees things from the other side. A witch knows where she is, who she is, and when she is. A witch would see Jenny Green-Teeth,” she added. “What happened?”