Diana Wynne Jones - Alt Title Was Wilkins Tooth Now Witches Business

published in the UK originally as

Wilkin's Tooth

A 3S digital back-up edition v1.0

Contents

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A GREENWILLOW BOOK

HARPERTROPHY* An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

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.

ALSO BY

DIANA WYNNE JONES

Archers Goon

Aunt Maria

Believing Is Seeing: Seven Stories

Castle in the Air

Dark Lord of Derkholm

Dogsbody

Eight Days of Luke

Fire and Hemlock

Hexwood

Hidden Turnings: A Collection of Stories Through Timeand Space

The Homeward Bounders

Howls Moving Castle

The Merlin Conspiracy

The Ogre Downstairs

Power of Three

Stopping for a Spell

A Tale of Time City

The Time of the Ghost

Warlock at the Wheel and Other Stories

Wild Robert

Year of the Griffin

Yes, Dear

THE WORLDS OF CHRESTOMANCI

Book 1: Charmed Life

Book 2: The Lives of Christopher Chant

Book 3: The Magicians of Caprona

Book 4: Witch Week

Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume I

( contains books 1 and 2)

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume II

( contains books 3 and 4)

THE DALEMARK QUARTET

Book 1: Cart and Cwidder

Book 2: Drowned Ammet

Book 3: The Spellcoats

Book 4: The Crown of Dalemark

Harper Trophy* is a registered trademark of

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Witchs Business

Copyright 1973 by Diana Wynne Jones

First published in 1973 in Great Britain by Macmillan London Ltd. under the title Wilkins Tooth.

First published in 1974 in the United States by E. P.

Dutton & Co. under the title Witchs Business.

Reissued in 2002 by Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

The right of Diana Wynne Jones to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Printed in the United States of America. For information address HarperCollins Childrens Books, a division pf

HarperCollins Publishers, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY .10019.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jones, Diana Wynne.

Witchs business / by Diana Wynne Jones, p. cm.

Greenwillow Books.

Originally published under title: Wilkins tooth. Great Britain: Macmillan London, 1973. Witchs business first published in U.S.: New York : E. P. Dutton, 1974.

Summary: Frank and Jesss scheme to earn money by hiring themselves out as revenge seekers seems like a good one until they discover they are in competition with a witch.

ISBN 0-06-008782-X (trade). ISBN 0-06-008783-8 (lib.

bdg.)

ISBN 0-06-008784-6 (pbk.)

[1. MagicFiction. 2. WitchesFiction. 3.

EnglandFiction.]

I. Title.

PZ7.J684Wk2002 2002016170

[Fic]dc21 CIP

AC

*

First Harper Trophy edition, 2004

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FOR JESSICA FRANGES

Witchs Business

Frank and Jess thought Own Back Ltd. was an excellent idea when they first invented it. Three days later, they were not so sure. The trouble was that they were desperate for money. They had broken a new chair and all pocket money was stopped until the summer.

They had to face four penniless months and, somehow, as soon as they knew this, they found all sorts of things they could not possibly do without.

I cant go anywhere, said Jess. The other girls expect you to pay your share. It isnt fair. Just because it was such a badly made chair. The other chairs turn upside down without breaking. I dont see why this one had to go and fall to pieces.

Nor do I, said Frank, who was worse off than Jess. I owe Buster Knell ten pence.

Why? said Jess.

A bet, Frank answered. Jess, was sorry for him, because Buster Knell was not the boy you owed anything if you could help it. He had a gang. Frank, in fact, was desperate enough to go down to the newsagent and ask Mr. Prodger if he wanted another boy for the paper route. But Mr. Prodger said Vernon Wilkins was all he needed and, besides, Vernon needed the money.

So Frank came dismally home and, after some thought, he and Jess put up a notice on the front gate, saying errands run. It had been up half an hour when their father came home and took it down. As if you two havent done enough already, he said,

without decorating the gate with this. When I said no money, I meant no money. Dont think Im going to let you get away with immoral earnings, because Im not.

It was the talk of immoral earnings that gave them the idea.

I say, said Jess. Do people pay you to do bad things for them?

If they want them done enough, I suppose, Frank answered. If its something they dont dare do themselves, like pull Buster Knells nose for him.

Would they pay us? said Jess. If we were to offer to do things they didnt dare do?

Like what? said Frank. I dont dare pull Buster Knells nose, either.

No. More cunning than that, said Jess. Suppose someone came and said to us: I want something dreadful to happen to Buster Knell because of what he did to me yesterday, then we could say,

Yes. Pay us five pence, and well arrange for him to fall down a manhole. Would that work?

If it did, said Frank, it would be worth more than five pence.

Lets try, said Jess.

So they spent the rest of the evening making a notice. When it was finished, it read:

own back ltd.

revenge arranged

price according to task

all difficult tasks undertaken

treasure hunted, etc.

The last two lines were put in by Frank, because he said that if they were going to arrange things like booby traps for Buster Knell, then they might as well agree to any dangerous task. Jess put in the Ltd. to make it look official.

Though it shouldnt be, really, she said, because were not a proper company.

Yes, said Frank, but if anyone asks us something too difficult, we can always say it means Limited Own Back, and we dont touch things too big for us.

The next morning, they pinned the notice to the back of the potting shed, where it could be seen by anyone who went along the path beside the allotments, and sat in the shed with the back window open to wait for orders.

All that happened, that entire day, was that two ladies exercising their dogs saw it and shrieked with laughter.

Oh, look, Edith! How sweet!

Limited, too! The idea!

Frank and Jess could hear them laughing about it all down the path.

Take no notice, said Jess. Just think of when the shekels start to pour in.

That was all very well, but Frank began to wonder if they were going to spend the entire Easter holiday sitting in the potting shed being laughed at. It was a dismal place at the best of times, and the view over the allotments always depressed him. They were dank and low. Beyond them, there was the marshy, tangled waste strip beside the river where everyone threw rubbish, and under the trees, the hut thing where old Biddy Iremonger lived. The only real house in sight was as damp looking and dreary as the resta big square place, the color of old cheese. The trees had been slow to put out leaves that year, so it was all as blank and bleak as winter.