Witch's Business (2 page)

“Cor! Take a slimeballing look at this!” said someone. “Look Buster.”

“Degutted Own Back!” said someone else.

Frank and Jess sat and looked at each other, while yet another boy read the notice out in a jeering squeaky voice. “Whose slimy idea is this?” he said.

“Eyeballs-in-salsa Pirie kids,” they heard Buster say. They knew it was Buster, because his voice was louder and his language nastier than any of the others. “Always got some puke-crusted idea or other.”

“Fwank and Jessie,” squeaked someone. “Come on, let's tear it down.”

The whole gang agreed, at the tops of their voices and the full width of their language. Frank and Jess had resigned themselves to losing their notice when Buster shouted:

“No! I got a much better degutted brains-in-gravy idea than that. Wait a slimeballing minute, can't you!” Then, before Frank and Jess had time to escape from the shed, he was pounding on the window, yelling, “Anyone in? You too degutted scared to answer? Open disemboweled up, can't you!”

There was nothing else for it. Frank got up and opened the window. Buster put his arms on the sill and pushed his face inside. It was not a nice face at the best of times—all thick and narrow-eyed. At that moment, it was mud down one side, and thicker than usual down the other. There was even blood, just a little, on Buster's stumpy chin.

“What do you want?” asked Frank.

“My zombie-burger Own Back,” said Buster. “Like it says. And you slimy-puke owe me ten pence, anyway.”

“So?” said Frank, as bravely as he could. Beyond Buster was all the gang, glowering and muddy, carrying sticks and air guns, and towing their usual number of homemade go-carts. They never moved without all this equipment if they could help it, and they knew how to use it, too.

Buster stuck his face sneeringly into Frank's. Jess began gently collecting flowerpots for ammunition. It looked as if they were going to need all they could get.

“I'll let you off that disemboweled ten pence,” said Buster, “if you can get me my oozing Own Back on that slimy stomach-maggot scum. Only I bet you're too oozing scared.”

“No, I'm not,” said Frank. “Who do you mean?”

“Disemboweled scum,” said Buster. “Vernon Wilkins. Just look what he done to me. Here, take a look.” He pushed his hand toward Frank's face and held it open, palm upward. On it was something small, dirty, and red at one end. “See that?” said Buster. “That's a tooth, that is. That curried-tonsil scum knocked it out for me. What do you say to that?”

The only thing Frank could think of to say was that it was rather clever of Vernon Wilkins, but he did not dare say that.

Buster pushed his hand farther into the shed. “And you,” he said to Jess. “You take a degutted look, too. A good long, stomach-juicing look.”

So Jess was forced to come and inspect the tooth, too. She brought a flowerpot with her, just in case. It was a double tooth, worn down to a flat disk shape. “Yes,” she said. “What do you want us to do about it?”

“Get one of his,” said Buster. “You're arranging disemboweled revenge, aren't you? Well, you go and knock me out one of Wilkins's pineapple-puking teeth and bring it back here so I can see you done it. Then I'll let you off that ten pence.”

“It's worth more than ten pence,” said Jess.

“Is it?” said Buster. “What's the zombie-toenail matter? Do you want to lose a tooth, too?”

“Shut up,” said Frank. “When do you want it?”

“It'll take at
least
an hour,” said Jess.

“All right,” said Buster. “Meet you back here in an hour. And you'd better bring that slimy poisoned-unwinding-bowel tooth with you, or it won't be only ten pence you owe me.” Then he took his hand, and his tooth, and finally his face, away from the window and led his gang clattering and wheeling and swearing away up the path.

Jess and Frank stared at each other and felt that everything had gone wrong. The idea seemed to have turned back to front. Instead of other people asking them to get their Own Back on Buster Knell, here was Buster Knell sending them for other people's teeth. The nasty thought was that Vernon Wilkins was a good two years older than Frank and if he could actually knock a tooth out of Buster's head, then there was no knowing what he could do to Frank.

“And it was only a baby tooth, too,” said Jess. “I bet it was ready to come out, anyway. What shall we do, Frank?”

“Go and see Vernon, I suppose,” said Frank.

So Jess wrote out another notice, which read:

and this they propped in the window of the potting shed, before getting out their bicycles and pedaling off to find Vernon.

Vernon lived just outside the town, because his mother and father worked for the people in the big house on the London Road. Luckily, this was the same side as the allotments and the Piries' house, but it was still some way. It came on to rain again while Frank and Jess were cycling there.

“All for nothing, too,” Frank said miserably, bending his head to keep the rain off his face. “If we get a tooth, it'll only be for ten pence I owed him, anyway. Oh, I hate Buster Knell.”

“It's quite horrid,” Jess agreed. “Just like the Bible. You know—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—or whatever it is.”

“Is that Bible?” said Frank. “I thought it was: If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. Buster's eye offends me. Both his eyes. And I bet mine are going to offend Vernon.”

“If his eye offends thee, black it,” said Jess. “Only Vernon's West Indian, so it won't show.”

The shower blew over. By the time they reached the London Road, the sun was shining brightly and bleakly. Frank and Jess propped their bicycles outside the tall iron gates of the big house and walked rather slowly inside the grounds. It could not have been more awkward. The Lodge, where Vernon lived, was just round the corner from the gates. Vernon was sitting on the doorstep. As Frank and Jess came up, they heard his mother saying something inside the Lodge, so they knew that whatever they did or said to Vernon his mother would hear. To make things even more awkward, Vernon was minding his tiny sisters, who were all three playing happily round him in the mud, and the youngest, as soon as she saw Jess, came toddling up, smiling in the most friendly way imaginable. It could not have been less like a tooth-hunting expedition.

Vernon looked up and saw them. “What do you want?” he said, not unpleasantly, but a little guardedly.

Jess just could not think what to say. She did not know Vernon at all well, but his littlest sister had plainly decided Jess was a great friend. She took Jess's hand and beamed up at her.

“Er,” said Frank. “One of your teeth, I'm afraid.”

“I got none loose,” said Vernon. “The last one came out a year ago. You have to go without.”

“You don't happen to have kept one, do you?” Frank asked, rather desperately.

“No,” said Vernon. “What for?”

Frank looked at Jess for help. Jess held the little sister's hand tightly, for encouragement, and said, “Buster Knell wants it, Vernon. He says you knocked one of his out just now.”

Vernon's face became what Jess thought they meant when they said “a study.” Anyhow, she could tell he was surprised, pleased, indignant, and suspicious, all at once. “So I did,” he said. “What's it got to do with you? You in his gang now?” Then he stood up.

“No,” said Frank fervently. Jess backed away, towing the little sister with her. Vernon was quite frighteningly tall.

“Then why do you want a tooth off me?” asked Vernon.

It was a natural enough question. Frank felt very stupid having to answer it. He tried to explain about Own Back Ltd., and the more he explained, the more stupid the whole idea seemed. Vernon did not help at all. At first he was puzzled; then, as he saw the idea, he seemed more and more amused. Then, when Frank had finished, Vernon suddenly stopped grinning and said, “It was evens, anyway. He'd no call to send you for teeth. His lot set on me with sticks while I was doing the papers, and I got this. Look.”

Vernon held out his arm, and Frank and Jess were once more forced to make an inspection, this time of a very nasty-looking scratch all down the inside of Vernon's arm.

“Have you put something on it?” Jess asked. “I wouldn't put it past them to tip their weapons with poison. Then it's not fair, Frank, wanting a tooth, too, is it?”

“I suppose not,” Frank agreed, wondering what Buster would do to them with his sticks. “How did you knock his tooth out, Vernon?”

“Didn't know I had,” Vernon said cheerfully. “I just knock him down and get out. Nice to think he lost a tooth through it.”

“Except it was only a baby tooth,” said Jess. “Which makes it unfairer than ever.”

“Was it?” said Vernon. “Sure? Then I think I got an idea to settle it. Wait a moment.” He darted away round the side of the Lodge, and came back a second later dragging his younger brother by one arm. “Silas got one all ready to go,” he said. “Open up, Silas.”

Silas squirmed and protested. Jess felt rather sorry for him. It seemed very hard luck on Silas, particularly as Vernon never thought to ask him if he minded. He simply tipped back his brother's head, wrenched his mouth open, and plucked the tooth out as easily as the eye in the Bible. Silas roared. Frank felt rather glad it had not happened to be an eye that Buster had sent them for. Silas, when he saw the tooth being passed over to Frank, roared louder than ever.

“Vernon,” called Vernon's mother, “what you do to Silas?”

“Nothing,” called Vernon. “Pulled that tooth out for him.”

“But, Vernon,” Jess said, “it's
his
tooth, and if you give it to us, that means he won't get any money for it.”

“I'll give him five pence,” Vernon said hastily. It sounded as if Silas's roaring was going to bring Mrs. Wilkins out any second. Vernon fetched out a coin and pushed it into his brother's hand. “There. Stop,” he said.

Silas stopped, in midroar, with a set of tears halfway down his cheeks, and closed his fist round the five pence. He looked at Frank and at Vernon so resentfully that Frank felt he ought to explain a little.

“We need your tooth,” he said. “It's terribly important. Really. We've got to give it to Buster Knell, because he told us to bring him one of Wilkins's teeth.”

Silas looked more resentful than ever, but Vernon laughed. “So then you don't need to say which Wilkins,” he said. “That'll settle it.”

“But it's still not
fair
,” said Jess. “Because you've lost five pence.”

Frank wished Jess would not always find something to argue about, particularly things which were quite true. He remembered Mr. Prodger said Vernon needed money. “I tell you what,” he said to Vernon, “when we've earned some money out of Own Back, we'll pay you back. Okay?”

“Fine,” said Vernon. “Maybe I'll send you a customer.”

“That'll be lovely,” said Jess. She disentangled herself from the little sister, who showed an inclination to roar like Silas. Vernon had to pick her up. Then the Piries mounted their bicycles and pedaled home with the tooth, rather perplexed to find that, far from earning any money, they were now five pence in debt again.

“Well,” said Frank, trying to look on the bright side, “we've got it down by half. Maybe we'll get it down to two pence with the next customer.”

“Only if whoever it is pays us real three pence,” said Jess.

Nevertheless, when, a quarter of an hour later, the gang began to muster in the path by the allotments, grinning, flourishing sticks, and plainly ready to give those disemboweled Piries lawfully what-for, Frank felt it was worth five pence. They waited until Buster himself hammered on the window. Then Jess shoved it open in his face and held out the tooth in a silver-paper tart dish.

“There you are,” she said triumphantly. “Wilkins's tooth, just as you said.”

Buster glowered at it, then at Jess and Frank. “I bet it's slime-puking not. It's one of yours.”

“It is not, then,” said Jess. “Look.” And she bared her teeth at him. “See. No gaps.”

“Then it's one you kept. Or one of his,” said Buster.

Frank came up and bared his teeth, too. Luckily, he had no gaps, and only one tooth loose, at the back.

“And we always burn ours,” said Jess. Then, because a horrid thought struck her, she left Frank to do the talking.

Buster looked incredulously from the tooth to Frank, and back again. “This is Wilkins's tooth?” he said. “Honor bright and may you die?”

“Honor bright and may I die,” said Frank. “If you want it, take it. And don't forget I don't owe you ten pence now.”

“No. All right. I let you off,” said Buster. He was too astonished, and too respectful, even to swear. He took the tooth. Frank slammed the window on him, and on all the gang crowding round to inspect the tooth and exclaim as if they had never seen one before.