“Who are you?” she said.
He grinned his daft grin at her. “Goon,” he said.
“I mean,” said Catriona, “what is your name?”
Howard’s mother had a very strong personality. But so had the Goon in his way. The room seemed thick with them. Howard and Fifi both held their breaths. “Goon will do,” said the Goon, and went on grinning.
Catriona gave him a long, level look. Then, to Howard’s surprise, she smiled quite pleasantly. “You look strong,” she said. “There’s a set of drums in my car. Help Howard get them in before they get damp or stolen.”
And to Howard’s further surprise, the Goon got to his feet and loomed through the room. “Where to?” he asked Howard.
The Goon was so strong that all Howard needed to do was show him the car and unlock the back. The Goon carried the drum set, bumping and booming, and set it down with a further boom in the hall. Then he went back to his chair in the kitchen. There Howard could see his mother had been asking Fifi what was going on. Fifi was looking upset. Catriona was taking it all much more calmly than Howard would have expected. She was just looking gloomily mystified.
“I don’t mind as long as he’s quiet,” she said to Howard. “I’ve been listening to school orchestras all day—have you done your violin practice?—and my head’s splitting.” And before Howard needed to lie about the violin, she looked at the Goon and said, “Who is Archer?”
The Goon looked back. He had a short think. “Farms power,” he said. “Gas and electricity. Money, too. Won’t worry you. You come under Torquil.”
“You mean he’s a town councillor?” Catriona asked.
That amused the Goon highly. He threw back his little head and laughed and clapped his long thigh with his vast hand. “That’s good!” he said. “Look like the Council, do I?”
“No, I can’t say that you do,” said Catriona. She seemed utterly unable to find the Goon alarming. “He seems harmless enough,” she said to Howard as she got up to help Fifi cook. “Move your feet,” she said to the Goon. And the Goon did. He bent his legs up until his knees were near his ears and sat looking like a huge, ungainly grasshopper while Catriona got supper ready. Howard began to see that his mother had found the right way to manage the Goon. He tried it himself when he was setting the table. He told the Goon to get out of the way of the spoon drawer, and the Goon did and grinned at him. “Set for six, Howard,” Catriona said. “I expect the Goon would like some liver and bacon, too.”
“Would!” the Goon said. He inhaled fried onions and grinned deeply.
Howard began to feel that Mum was not taking a serious enough view of the Goon. When supper was ready, and Quentin’s typewriter was still doing bursts of clattering, Catriona said, “Howard, call your father and Awful.”
“Not Sykes. Let him keep at it,” the Goon said.
Catriona accepted this without even asking why and sent Howard into the study with a tray. Quentin looked up absently from his typewriter and said, “Put it down on those papers.” He did not seem alarmed or anxious either.
“Dad,” said Howard, “I think Mum’s got the wrong idea. She’s giving the Goon supper. You don’t give hired assassins supper, do you?”
Quentin smiled. “No, but when a wolf follows your sleigh, you give it meat,” he said. Howard could tell he was only halfserious. “Leave me in peace, or we’ll never get rid of him.”
Howard went back to the kitchen, rather exasperated. He found the Goon sheepishly trying to wedge his knees under the table and Awful protesting. “I’m not going to have supper with him!” she was saying. “He threw his knife at me.”
“Shouldn’t have screamed,” said the Goon. The table lifted on top of his knees, and things began to slide off one end. Fifi caught them. She looked as exasperated as Howard felt. The Goon slid Catriona an embarrassed look and doubled his legs around the back of his chair. He was really almost kneeling like that, and he looked very uncomfortable.
“He did, Mum!” Awful shrilled. “And he smells.” When Catriona took no notice, Awful announced, “I hate everyone except Fifi.”
“What have I done to get hated?” Howard demanded. “You were scared of the Goon,” Awful said.
Howard found himself exchanging a shamed look with the Goon. “Scare myself sometimes,” the Goon remarked, cautiously picking up a knife and fork. He was trying to behave properly. He kept glancing nervously at Catriona and Fifi to see how he was doing, and he made strong efforts to keep his mouth shut while he chewed. Howard thought he nearly choked once or twice. Even so, the Goon managed to eat huge amounts. Howard had never seen such a stack of potatoes on anyone’s plate before. When he had finished, the Goon retreated quickly to the chair he had sat in before and sat in everyone’s way again, picking his teeth with his knife and looking relieved.
“Wouldn’t you like to go watch the telly in the other room?” Fifi asked him after she had fallen over his legs six times.
But the Goon shook his little head and sat on. He sat while Fifi cleared away and then went up to her room in the attic. He sat while Catriona washed up. When Catriona went away, too, and the Goon was still sitting, Howard thought he had better stay in the kitchen as well. He felt someone ought to watch him. So Howard fetched out his bag of books, with the rip in it that the Goon had made, and tried to do homework on the kitchen table. He found it hard to concentrate. With the Goon sitting there, he did not feel he could spend half the time designing spaceships, as he usually did. He could feel the Goon’s round eyes staring at him and see the knife that had ripped his bag flashing at the corner of his eye. When, at last, Quentin came into the kitchen carrying four typewritten pages, Howard was heartily relieved.
The Goon sprang up, looking as relieved as Howard. He took the pages and examined them. Howard was quite surprised that the Goon seemed able to read.
“That will have to do,” Quentin said as the Goon looked questioningly at him. “It’s not quite the same as I sent Mountjoy, but it’s as near as I could manage from memory.”
“Not a copy?” asked the Goon.
“Definitely no copy,” Quentin assured him.
The Goon nodded, folded the papers, and stuffed them into the front of his leather jacket. “Get along to Archer then,” he said. “See you.” And he loomed his way to the back door, tore it open, ducked his little head under the lintel, and went away.
As soon as the door slammed, Catriona and Awful shot into the kitchen. “Has he gone?” said Awful, and Catriona said, “Now tell us what all that was about.”
“Nothing—nothing at all really,” Quentin said, in a way which everyone knew was much too airy. “Mountjoy’s idea of a joke, that’s all.”
Catriona fixed him with her most powerful look. “Quentin,” she said, “that won’t do. He talked about Archer, not Mountjoy. Explain.”
Newly re-released, Witch’s Business was beloved author Diana Wynne Jones’s first magical novel for young readers. The discussion topics in this Reading Group Guide are intended to spark ideas and conversations about the situations and issues in this story.
1. Do you think it was a good idea for Frank and Jess to start Own Back Ltd.? What kind of jobs do you think they expected to get?
2. Why is it appealing to have someone else do something you might not dare to do? Would you pay for this service?
3. Do Frank and Jess make any money? What do you notice every time Frank and Jess try to get someone’s Own Back?
4. What do you think Frank and Jess learned about meddling in other people’s business?
5. Jess is described in the book as having a “strong sense of fairness.” Does this help her?
6. Although Frank and Jess are siblings, they are very different. Discuss a scene in the book that shows this.
7. Why do you think the lady at the convalescent home gave Jess the Eyes? How did she know Jess was in danger? How do you think she knew Jess had been “meddling with people’s worse natures”?
8. What did the woman
who gave Jess the Eyes mean by “a bad act disguised as a good one”?
9. Why did Buster and his gang sell themselves to Biddy? Do you think Buster got what he deserved when Biddy tortured him with invisible Things?
10. Jess tricked Biddy into turning herself into an elephant and then a mouse so the cat would go after her. How did Jess do this? What was it about Biddy that made it possible for Jess to trick her?
11. How did Biddy act after she turned herself into an elephant and a mouse? What do these actions tell you about her?
12. After the hut collapsed, Vernon found the emerald necklace hidden as a bicycle chain. Why do you think no one could see what it really was before?
13. Why do you think Biddy was so miserable and mean? Do you think she was always that way?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In a career spanning four decades, award-winning author Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) wrote more than forty books of fantasy for young readers. Characterized by magic, multiple universes, witches and wizards—and a charismatic nine-lived enchanter—her books were filled with unlimited imagination, dazzling plots, and an effervescent sense of humor that earned her legendary status in the world of fantasy. In addition to being translated into more than twenty languages, her books have earned a wide array of honors—including two Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honors and the Guardian Award—and appeared on countless best-of-the-year lists. Her best-selling Howl’s Moving Castle was made into an animated film by Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki and was nominated for an Academy Award. Diana Wynne Jones was also honored with many prestigious awards for the body of her work. She was given the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award in 1999 for having made a significant impact on fantasy, and she won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Fantasy Convention in 2007.
www.dianawynnejones.com
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CREDITS
Cover art © 2004 by Dan Craig
Cover design by Karin Paprocki
Cover © 2004 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
COPYRIGHT
Harper Trophy® is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Witch’s 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 Witch’s 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 under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jones, Diana Wynne.
Witch’s business / by Diana Wynne Jones.
p. cm.
“Greenwillow Books.”
Originally published under title: Wilkins’ tooth. Great Britain: Macmillan London, 1973. Witch’s business first published in U.S.: New York : E. P. Dutton, 1974.
Summary: Frank and Jess’s 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.)
EPub Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780062244598
[1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Witches—Fiction. 3. England—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.J684 Wk 2002
2002016170
[Fic]—dc21
CIP
AC
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First Harper Trophy edition, 2004
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Diana Wynne Jones, Witch's Business
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