‘And I heard that she never paid her bills,’ Dave added grumpily.
‘I’ve got the money,’ said Geoffrey. He had been silent so far, allowing Tiffany to speak up for him, but after all, it was going to be his broomstick.
Tiffany saw the dwarfs look up with a smile, Shrucker only just managing to stop himself rubbing his hands together.
‘Some money,’ she said sharply, ‘but I don’t want my friend to have to use it – I promised him I would arrange this for him. Now, I will tell you what I will do. I will pay in obs.’ Obs were the unspoken currency of the dwarfs. Why waste gold? Humans would call it favours, and the currency was negotiable. The obligation of a witch was particularly valuable, and Tiffany knew that. ‘Look,’ she added, ‘the stick isn’t that bad.’
Shrucker sat down heavily on a chest brimming with bristles.fn2 ‘It’s funny you should suggest obs,’ he said slowly. ‘My lumbago is giving me gyp. Comes with the job, you know. Can you do something about that?’
‘All right, then,’ said Tiffany. ‘Just stay there.’ And she walked behind him. He shifted around a bit, then sat up straight with a look of amazement on his face.
‘Oh my, how did you do that?’
‘I’ve taken away your pain,’ Tiffany explained. ‘So now it’s my pain. And I have to congratulate you for dealing with it, for it is, I must say, very bad. And now I’ve got it hovering in the air, like a dog on a leash.’ The dwarfs automatically looked over her head, just in case there was some kind of big bubble up there marked ‘pain’, but all that happened was that a big drop of some oily substance fell right into Dave’s beard.
‘Is there a stonemason in these arches?’ Tiffany asked, watching the dwarf whip off his helmet and rummage through the beard. ‘If he needs some rocks split, I can use this pain to break them up!’ She looked appreciatively at the helmet. ‘But that would do,’ she added, and as Dave put it down on the ground, she shot the pain into the iron, which to the dwarf’s horror actually buckled, steam shooting up to mingle with the steam from the railways above.
The obs were paid. So, his pain gone, Shrucker – a new, upright, lively Shrucker – was now whipping out his measures. He eyed up both Geoffrey and the old stick as he worked his own form of magic.
‘How do you dress, sir?’ he asked at one point.
Geoffrey was puzzled. ‘I usually dress looking out of the window,’ he said.
There was a little hiatus as the dwarfs told Geoffrey what ‘dressing’ meant in the circumstances.
‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘I never thought about it before.’
Shrucker laughed and said, ‘Well, that’s about it. All down to me now, but I daresay that if you come back sometime tomorrow, I will have it working a treat.’
They left the dwarfs and Tiffany told Geoffrey they would now be visiting Mrs Proust, a witch who loved living in the city. She headed for the elderly witch’s shop, Boffo’s Novelty and Joke Emporium on Tenth Egg Street. It would be an education for Geoffrey anyway, Tiffany thought. If he decided to follow the witching path, well, he might also need Boffo’s at some point – a lot of the younger witches liked Mrs Proust’s artificial skulls, cauldrons and warts to give them the right image for the job. To someone in need, someone punched so far down that it might seem there was no getting up again, well, a witch with the right look could make all the difference. It helped them to believe.
Mrs Proust – a witch who had no need to add nasty witch accessories to her everyday look, given that she had been naturally blessed with the right kind of hooked nose, messy hair and blackened teeth – heard the novelty graveyard groan of the door opening and came over to greet them.
Tiffany laughed. ‘That’s a new one,’ she said.
‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘Can’t keep them on the shelves. Nice to see you, Mistress Aching, and who’s this young man, may I ask?’
‘This is Geoffrey, Mrs Proust, and we’re in the city to fit him up for a witch’s broomstick.’
‘Are you indeed? A boy? A witch? On a broomstick?’
‘Well,’ said Tiffany, ‘the Archchancellor uses a broomstick sometimes.’
‘I know,’ said Mrs Proust, ‘but there might be trouble.’
‘Well, if there is,’ said Tiffany, ‘the trouble will come to me. I am the chosen successor to Granny Weatherwax, and I think it could be time for a few little changes.’
‘Well done,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘That’s the spirit!’ She looked at Geoffrey, who was engrossed in the display of naughty doggy-dos. And then and there she loomed close to him, put a clawed hand on his shoulder, and said to him, ‘So you want to be a witch, do you?’
Geoffrey stood his ground well, and Tiffany was impressed. So was Mrs Proust.