with sort of sacking trousers showing under the skirt. She had a sack round her shoulders too, like a shawl. Her hair, as usual, was put into at least six skinny plaits, which were looped up anyhow and held fast by curlers and paperclips. You could not see easily what her face was like – apart from its being very dirty – because she wore such enormously thick pebble-glasses. Her feet were in odd plimsolls, and her legs, below the sacking trousers, were bare and purple and swollen, so that her ankles drooped over her plimsolls. Jess was chiefly struck with how cold Biddy must be, living in a hut in all weathers. Frank just wished they could go away.
“Good morning,” said Biddy. “It’s nice to have some warmer weather, isn’t it?” She looked up at the branches of the willow tree, where powdery bright green buds were just beginning to show. “Yes,” she said. “We can allow it to be Spring before long, don’t you agree, my dears?”
Neither Frank nor Jess knew what to reply. The oddest thing about Biddy Iremonger was that she was educated. She had a sharp, learned voice, rather like Jess’s schoolteacher, which, when she spoke, made it very difficult to imagine her putting the Evil Eye on people – or, indeed, doing anything that was not just harmless and a little odd. So Jess and Frank nodded, and mumbled things about “nice day” and “no rain”, and Jess went on bravely to add, “There’s a bit of a wind, though.”
“Not down here,” said Biddy. “This little nook is beautifully sheltered.”
Then they all stood there without talking. The cockerel stalked to the edge of the roof and peered down at the Piries. The cat came slinking to the door and stared up. Biddy just waited, nodding, with a cheerful smile, as if she was sure they had just called to pass the time of day and would be going away any minute now.
Frank and Jess very nearly did go. It seemed such a shame to bother this poor, silly old lady because the Adams girls had got it into their heads that she was a witch. It was only Jess’s strong sense of fairness that kept them there. Jess took hold of Frank’s sleeve, took a deep breath of the muggy air, and said, “We’re sorry to bother you, Miss Iremonger, but we wanted to speak to you about – about Jenny Adams.”
“Oh, yes? What about her?” said Biddy, cheerfully and sharply.
“Well,” said Jess, feeling very silly, “she – er – she can’t walk, you know.”
Biddy shook her head at Jess and answered, quite kindly, “Now, my dear, that’s not really accurate, is it? She can walk quite well. I’ve seen her limping about rather nimbly, considering.”
Jess felt so foolish that she hung her head down and could not say a word. Frank had to clear his throat and reply. “Yes, we know,” he said. “But her foot’s bad all the same, and she says you put the Evil Eye on her.” He felt this was such a monstrous thing to say to Biddy that his face and his eyes – even his hands – became all hot and fat as he said it.
And Biddy nodded again. “Yes, my dear. She’s quite right. I did. I have it in for that family, you know.”
Jess’s head came up. Frank went suddenly from hot and fat to cold and thin with horror, that anyone could talk as calmly and cheerfully as Biddy about a thing like that. “Why?” he said.
“How unfair!” said Jess.
“Not at all,” said Biddy. “One has one’s reasons. I have to get my Own Back, you know.”
“But look here,” said Frank, “she’s only a little kid, and she’s had it for a year now. Couldn’t you take it off her?”
“Please,” Jess added.
Biddy, smiling and shaking her head, began shuffling back into her hut. “I’m sorry, my dears. It’s none of your business.”
“You’re wrong,” said Jess. “It is our business – exactly. Please take it off.”
Biddy stopped for a moment, in the doorway of her hut. “Then, if it is your business,” she said briskly, “I suggest you give me a wide berth, my dears. It would be wisest. Because, I assure you, Jenny Adams is not likely to walk freely until she has her heirloom in her hands. Which, in plain language, is Never. So I suggest you leave the matter there.”
Biddy shut the door of her hut in their faces with a brisk snap, and left Frank and Jess staring at one another.
The first thing they did was to get themselves out of Biddy’s bare patch and back to the path again. There, halfway to the footbridge, Jess stopped.
“How awful!” she said. “How terrible! Oh, Frank, Biddy Iremonger must be quite, quite mad after all. She ought to be put in a Home.”
Frank did nothing but mumble. His skin was up in goose-pimples all over and he did not trust himself to speak. All he wanted to do was to go away quickly. He hurried on along the path towards the bridge.
Jess followed him, saying, “Of course, she may have been having us on. Mummy says she’s got a strange sense of humour.”
Frank again said nothing. It seemed plain enough to him that Biddy had meant what she said and, if Biddy believed herself to be a witch, he could hardly blame the Adams girls for thinking so too. Mad or not, it did not seem to matter. Perhaps witches were mad, anyway. What did matter was what they were going to tell Frankie and Jenny, because it looked as if Own Back had let them down. He was wondering just what they would say, when Jess grabbed at his arm.
“Oh, dear! Listen, Frank.”
There were voices, distant, but getting nearer, loud and crude, and the sound of wheels and sticks. Buster Knell and his gang were in the field on the other side of the river somewhere. Jess and Frank bundled along to where the bridge began. The river took a bend here, which allowed you to look up along the opposite bank. There, they could see the gang coming along the bank towards the bridge in a noisy group, about twenty yards above Biddy’s hut. They could hear, not clearly, orange and purple language.
Frank slid quickly down the bank beside the bridge, where there was a tiny beach of gravel. He was hidden there by a bush and some newly-sprouting flags, but he could see Buster and the gang. Jess hesitated, and then followed him. They crouched side by side, watching the gang come nearer.
“But it’s all right,” said Jess. “They’ll not dare lay a finger on you, Frank, after Wilkins’ tooth.”
“That’s what you think,” said Frank. “I’m not taking any chances.”
“They’ll come over the bridge, though,” said Jess. “Hadn’t we better go across first? Otherwise, they’ll be between us and the Adams’ house, and then we’ll have to go back past Biddy’s hut and I don’t think I can bear to.”
“Shut up,” said Frank. “I bet the Adams kids went past it. If they can, you can.”
“Between the Devil and the deep blue Buster,” said Jess. “Oh dear!”
To their intense relief, the gang turned aside when they were about ten yards off, and went calling and cursing and splashing down into the river. It seemed they were going to ford it. Maybe it was more manly or more exciting, or both, that way. Jess and Frank waited agonisingly, until the smallest boy, in the last go-cart, had been, with cursing and tremendous difficulty, lugged through the water and on to the bank out of sight. Then they stood up and sprinted over the bridge and out into the field beyond. Halfway to the bare, lonely Adams house, they looked back. The gang appeared not to have noticed them. They were milling about in the bushes and rubbish just above Biddy’s hut, and no one was looking their way. Rather nervously, Frank and Jess followed the path over to the peeling door in the side of the cheese-coloured house, and knocked.