…and that meant he was frantic too, because Wentworth would never walk that far without a bribe. He was not a child who was happy away from people with sweets.
It’s your fault.
The thought felt like a piece of ice in her mind.
It’s your fault because you didn’t love him very much. He turned up and you weren’t the youngest anymore, and you had to have him trailing around after you, and you kept wishing, didn’t you, that he’d go away.
“That’s not true!” Tiffany whispered to herself. “I…quite liked him….”
Not very much, admittedly. Not all the time. He didn’t know how to play properly, and he never did what he was told. You thought it would be better if he did get lost.
Anyway, she added in her head, you can’t love people all the time when they have a permanently runny nose. Any anyway…I wonder…
“I wish I could find my brother,” she said aloud.
This seemed to have no effect. But the house was full of people, opening and shutting doors and calling out and getting in one another’s way, and the…Feegles were shy, despite many of them having faces like a hatful of knuckles.
Don’t wish, Miss Tick had said. Do things.
She went downstairs. Even some of the women who’d been packing fleeces up at the shearing had come down. They were clustered around her mother, who was sitting at the table crying. No one noticed Tiffany. That often happened.
She slipped into the dairy, closed the door carefully behind her, and leaned down to peer under the sink.
The door burst open again and her father ran in. He stopped. Tiffany looked up guiltily.
“He can’t be under there, girl!” her father said.
“Well, er…” said Tiffany.
“Did you look upstairs?”
“Even the attic, Dad—”
“Well.” Her father looked panicky and impatient at the same time. “Go and…do something!”
“Yes, Dad.”
When the door had shut, Tiffany peered under the sink again.
“Are you there, toad?”
“Very poor pickings under here,” the toad answered, crawling out. “You keep it very clean. Not even a spider.”
“This is urgent!” snapped Tiffany. “My little brother has gone missing. In broad daylight! Up on the downs, where you can see for miles!”
“Oh, croap,” said the toad.
“Pardon?” said Tiffany.
“Er, that was, er, swearing in Toad,” said the toad. “Sorry, but—”
“Has what’s going on got something to do with magic?” said Tiffany. “It has, hasn’t it…?”
“I hope it hasn’t,” said the toad, “but I think it has.”
“Have those little men stolen Wentworth?”
“Who, the Feegles? They don’t steal children!”