‘Yes, I know,’ said Tiffany. ‘This one’s white,’ she added, flatly.

That quietened Miss Tick down for a while, but she seemed to have something on her mind.

‘I expect you’re upset about leaving the Chalk, aren’t you?’ she said as the cart rattled on.

‘No,’ said Tiffany.

‘It’s OK to be,’ said Miss Tick.

‘Thank you, but I’m not really,’ said Tiffany.

‘If you want to have a bit of a cry, you don’t have to pretend you’ve got some grit in your eye or anything—’

‘I’m all right, actually,’ said Tiffany. ‘Honestly.’

‘You see, if you bottle that sort of thing up it can cause terrible damage later on.’

‘I’m not bottling, Miss Tick.’

In fact, Tiffany was a bit surprised at not crying, but she wasn’t going to tell Miss Tick that. She left a sort of space in her head to burst into tears in, but it wasn’t filling up. Perhaps it was because she’d wrapped up all those feelings and doubts and left them up on the hill by the pot-bellied stove.

‘And if of course you were feeling a bit downcast at the moment, I’m sure you could open the present he—’ Miss Tick tried.

‘Tell me about Miss Level,’ Tiffany said quickly. The name and address was all she knew about the lady she was going to stay with, but an address like ‘Miss Level, Cottage in the Woods near the dead oak tree in Lost Man’s Lane, High Overhang, If Out Leave Letters in Old Boot by Door’ sounded promising.

‘Miss Level, yes,’ said Miss Tick, defeated. ‘Er, yes. She’s not really very old but she says she’ll be happy to have a third pair of hands around the place.’

You couldn’t slip words past Tiffany, not even if you were Miss Tick.

‘So there’s someone else there already?’ she said.

‘Er… no. Not exactly,’ said Miss Tick.

‘Then she’s got four arms?’ said Tiffany. Miss Tick had sounded like someone trying to avoid a subject.