Free Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett Page B

shoulder for a moment, shook her head sadly, sighed, and then scuttled away. But Magrat was used to this, too. People often felt sorry for her when they saw her in Granny’s company.
    Eventually the landlord lurched across to them with a lighted torch, and motioned them to follow him.
    “How did you make him understand about the beds?” said Magrat.
    “I said, ‘Hey mister, jigajig toot sweet all same No. 3,’” said Nanny Ogg.
    Granny Weatherwax tried this under her breath, and nodded.
    “Your lad Shane certainly gets around a bit, doesn’t he,” she remarked.
    “He says it works every time,” said Nanny Ogg.

    In fact there were only two rooms, up a long, winding and creaky stairway. And Magrat got one to herself. Even the landlord seemed to want it that way. He’d been very attentive.
    She wished he hadn’t been so keen to bar the shutters, though. Magrat liked to sleep with a window open. As it was, it was too dark and stuffy.
    Anyway, she thought, I am the fairy godmother. The others are just accompanying me.
    She peered hopelessly at herself in the room’s tiny cracked mirror and then lay and listened to them on the far side of the paper-thin wall.
    “What’re you turning the mirror to the wall for, Esme?”
    “I just don’t like ’em, staring like that.”
    “They only stares if you’re staring at ’em, Esme.”
    Silence, and then: “Eh, what’s this round thing for, then?”
    “I reckon it’s supposed to be a pillow, Esme.”
    “Hah! I don’t call it a pillow. And there’s no proper blankets, even. What’d you say this thing’s called?”
    “I think it’s called a duvit, Esme.”
    “ We call them an eiderdown where I come from. Hah!”
    There was a respite. Then:
    “Have you brushed your tooth?”
    And another pause. Then:
    “Oo, you haven’t half got cold feet, Esme.”
    “No, they ain’t. They’re lovely and snug.”
    And another silence. Then:
    “Boots! Your boots! You’ve got your boots on!”
    “I should just think I ’ave got my boots on, Gytha Ogg.”
    “And your clothes! You haven’t even undressed!”
    “You can’t be too careful in foreign parts. There could be all sorts out there, a-creepin’ around.”
    Magrat snuggled under the—what was it?—duvit, and turned over. Granny Weatherwax appeared to need one hour’s sleep a night, whereas Nanny Ogg would snore on a fence rail.
    “Gytha? Gytha! GYTHA!”
    “Wha’?”
    “Are you awake?”
    “’M now…”
    “I keep ’earing a noise!”
    “…so do I…”
    Magrat dozed for a while.
    “Gytha? GYTHA!”
    “…wha’ now?…”
    “I’m sure someone rattled our shutters!”
    “…not at our time of life…now g’ back t’ slee’…”
    The air in the room was getting hotter and stuffier by the minute. Magrat got out of bed, unbolted the shutters and flung them back dramatically.
    There was a grunt, and a distant thud of something hitting the ground.
    The full moon streamed in. She felt a lot better for that, and got back into bed.
    It seemed no time at all before the voice from next door woke her again.
    “Gytha Ogg, what are you doing ?”
    “I’m ’aving a snack.”
    “Can’t you sleep?”
    “Just can’t seem to be able to get off, Esme,” said Nanny Ogg. “Can’t imagine why.”
    “Here, that’s garlic sausage you’re eating! I’m actually sharing a bed with someone eating garlic sausage.”
    “Hey, that’s mine! Give it back—”
    Magrat was aware of booted footsteps in the pit of the night, and the sound of a shutter being swung back in the next room.
    She thought she heard a faint “oof” and another muted thud.
    “I thought you liked garlic, Esme,” said Nanny Ogg’s resentful voice.
    “Sausage is all right in its place, and its place ain’t in bed. And don’t you say a word. Now move over. You keep taking all the duvit.”
    After a while the velvet silence was broken by Granny’s deep and resonant snore. Shortly afterward it was joined by the genteel snoring of