A Hat Full Of Sky

See Clarance The Tap Dancing Mule!

Wonder at Topsy and Tipsy

* The Astounding Mind Reading Act *

And so it went on, right down to tiny print. They were strange, bright things to find in a little cottage in the woods.

She found her way into the kitchen. It was cold and quiet, except for the ticking of a clock on the wall. Both the hands had fallen off the clock face, and lay at the bottom of the glass cover, so while the clock was still measuring time it wasn’t inclined to tell anyone about it.

As kitchens went, it was very tidy. In the cupboard drawer beside the sink, forks, spoons and knives were all in neat sections, which was a bit worrying. Every kitchen drawer Tiffany had ever seen might have been meant to be neat but over the years had been crammed with things that didn’t quite fit, like big ladles and bent bottle-openers, which meant that they always stuck unless you knew the trick of opening them.

Experimentally she took a spoon out of the spoon section, dropped it amongst the forks and shut the drawer. Then she turned her back.

There was a sliding noise and a tinkle exactly like the tinkle a spoon makes when it’s put back amongst the other spoons, who have missed it and are anxious to hear its tales of life amongst the frighteningly pointy people.

This time she put a knife in with the forks, shut the drawer—and leaned on it.

Nothing happened for a while, and then she heard the cutlery rattling. The noise got louder. The drawer began to shake. The whole sink began to tremble—

‘All right,’ said Tiffany, jumping back. ‘Have it your way!’

The drawer burst open, the knife jumped from section to section like a fish and the drawer slammed back.

Silence.

‘Who are you?’ said Tiffany. No one replied. But she didn’t like the feeling in the air. Someone was upset with her now. It had been a silly trick, anyway.

She went out into the garden, quickly. The rushing noise she had heard last night had been made by a waterfall not far from the cottage. A little water-wheel pumped water into a big stone cistern, and there was a pipe that led into the house.

The garden was full of ornaments. They were rather sad, cheap ones—bunny rabbits with mad grins, pottery deer with big eyes, gnomes with pointy red hats and expressions that suggested they were on bad medication.

Things hung from the apple trees or were tied to posts all around the place. There were some dreamcatchers and curse-nets, which she sometimes saw hanging up outside cottages at home. Other things looked like big shambles, spinning and tinkling gently. Some… well, one looked like a bird made out of old brushes, but most looked like piles of junk. Odd junk, though. It seemed to Tiffany that some of it moved slightly as she went past.

When she went back into the cottage, Miss Level was sitting at the kitchen table.

So was Miss Level. There were, in fact, two of her.

‘Sorry,’ said the Miss Level on the right. ‘I thought it was best to get it over with right now.’

The two women were exactly alike. ‘Oh, I see,’ said Tiffany. ‘You’re twins.’

‘No,’ said the Miss Level on the left, ‘I’m not. This might be a little difficult—’

‘—for you to understand,’ said the other Miss Level. ‘Let me see, now. You know—’

‘—how twins are sometimes said to be able to share thoughts and feelings?’ said the first Miss Level.

Tiffany nodded.

‘Well,’ said the second Miss Level, ‘I’m a bit more complicated than that, I suppose, because—’

‘—I’m one person with two bodies,’ said the first Miss Level, and now they spoke like players in a tennis match, slamming the words back and forth.

‘I wanted to break this to you—’

‘—gently, because some people get upset by the—’

‘—idea and find it creepy or—’

‘—just plain—’

‘—weird.’

The two bodies stopped.

‘Sorry about that last sentence,’ said the Miss Level on the left. ‘I only do that when I’m really nervous.’

‘Er, do you mean that you both—’ Tiffany began, but the Miss Level on the right said quickly, There is no both. There’s just me, do you understand? I know it’s hard. But I have a right right hand and a right left hand and a left right hand and a left left hand. It’s all me. I can go shopping and stay home at the same time, Tiffany. If it helps, think of me as one—’

‘—person with four arms and—’

‘—four legs and—’

‘—four eyes.’

All four of those eyes now watched Tiffany nervously.

‘And two noses,’ said Tiffany.

‘That’s right. You’ve got it. My right body is slightly clumsier than my left body, but I have better eyesight in my right pair of eyes. I’m human, just like you, except that there’s more of me.’

‘But one of you—that is, one half of you—came all the way to Twoshirts for me,’ said Tiffany.

‘Oh yes, I can split up like that,’ said Miss Level. ‘I’m quite good at it. But if there’s a gap of more than twenty miles or so, I get rather clumsy. And now a cup of tea would do us both good, I think.’

Before Tiffany could move both the Miss Levels stood up and crossed the kitchen.

Tiffany watched one person make a cup of tea using four arms.

There are quite a few things that need to be done to make a cup of tea and Miss Level did them all at once. The bodies stood side by side, passing things from hand to hand to hand, moving kettle and cups and spoon in a sort of ballet.

‘When I was child they thought I was twins,’ she said over one of her shoulders. ‘And then… they thought I was evil,’ she said over another shoulder.

‘Are you?’ said Tiffany.

Both of Miss Level turned round, looking shocked.

‘What kind of question is that to ask anyone?’ she said.

‘Um… the obvious one?’ said Tiffany. ‘I mean, if they said “Yes I am! Mwahahaha!”, that would save a lot of trouble, wouldn’t it?’

Four eyes narrowed.

‘Mistress Weatherwax was right,’ said Miss Level. ‘She said you were a witch to your boots.’

Inside, Tiffany beamed with pride.

‘Well, the thing about the obvious,’ said Miss Level, ‘is that it so often isn’t… Did Mistress Weatherwax really take off her hat to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘One day perhaps you’ll know how much honour she did you,’ said Miss Level. ‘Anyway… no, I’m not evil.