Free The Cuckoo Tree by Joan Aiken Page A

moonlight."
    "Don't you false-talk me, boy! What this?" Sannie twitched the peashooter from his hand. "Ho! You be of age next week, be you? You got no more sense than baby picknie. Out after darkfall, shooting Joobie nuts! Spose hit somebody in him eye, sent to prison? Then you never come of age, you know that!"
    "Oh, fiddle. Nobody gets sent to prison for shooting with a peashooter. I shall shoot as many as I like."
Rebelliously he snatched back the tube and blew a pea at the window. It bounced off the glass with an audible ping, but the two men inside, absorbed in their game, never even lifted their heads.
    "Oh, so brave little feller!" Sannie's tone became silky as syrup. "So brave to shoot Joobie nuts. But don't you dare swallow nut!"
    "I'll do that too, if I want!" He swallowed the two nuts he was sucking, eying the old woman with defiance. But almost at once a curious change came over his face. He glanced behind him again, twice, and gave a violent shiver.
    "Is cold, my little thingling? Is hearing some noise in bushes, memory bird, maybe?"
    Tobit shivered again, glancing about with dread.
    "Come along then, come in quick before the Night Lady fly over. Come along, little thingling. Old Sannie make you cup of thistle tea."
    She took his hand and led him off; Tobit followed meekly.
    "Croopus!" muttered Dido, when they were out of sight.
    She was so startled by the change in Tobit that she remained where she was for several minutes, pondering. "It was those peas—Joobie nuts, or whatever she called them. What the blazes can they be?"
    She pulled a handful of the heavy little dry things from her duffel pocket and eyed them suspiciously. In the moonlight they looked gray, wrinkled, harmless enough; about the size of nasturtium seeds; they felt faintly gritty, as if they had been dusted with salt. Warily Dido tried one
with the tip of her tongue. It did taste salty. She spat, and glanced behind her, suddenly overcome with an almost irresistible urge to duck: it seemed as if she could hear the whizz of giant wings overhead. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw a huge shadow flit over the moonlit grass. But when she turned and looked there was nothing.
    "Shiver my timbers!" She stared again at the peas in her hand; was about to throw them on the ground; but in the end, tipped them back into her pocket and ran fast and quietly away from the house. Suddenly the night seemed full of noises: a cold, liquid call, some bird maybe; a soft drumming tick; a rattle—or was it a chuckle?—coming from the yew hedge. Dido darted across the tilting-lawn, where the pairs of yew trees seemed to be shifting just a little, changing their positions after she passed them; she did not look back but had the notion that they were moving together behind her, perhaps coming after her, as in the game Grandmother's Footsteps.
    "Rabbit me if I ever taste another o' them perishing Joobie nuts," Dido muttered. "No wonder Tobit and his granny both seem a bit totty-headed, if they keep a-chawing o' the nasty little things."
    Ahead of her now lay the beech avenue, with its bands of moonlight and shade. She felt some reluctance to go down it, but shook herself angrily and ran on at top speed. Then, coming toward her, she saw a black figure. It seemed to vary in size—wavered—grew tall—shrank again.
    Dido gulped.
    "This here's nothing but a load o' foolishness," she told herself, and went on firmly. The figure seemed now to have no head and three legs. But of course when she came closer she saw that it was merely old Gusset, hobbling back from his evening off, wearing a sack over his head, helping himself along with a stick.
    "Hey there, Mister Gusset!" Dido greeted him warmly when they were within speaking distance. "I'm tickled I didn't miss you—wanted to say thanks again for the basket o' vittles—Tobit said as how likely you'd sent 'em your own self."
    "Oh, no trouble, missie." The butler seemed embarrassed. "Glad to do it for the