A Hat Full Of Sky Read Online Free PDF

you’d like to start with the more physical aspect of the procedure.”
    “Could I no’ mebbe just learn the writin’ and leave the readin’ to someone else?” Rob asked, without much hope.
    “No, my man’s got to do both,” said Jeannie, folding her arms. When a female Feegle does that, there’s no hope left.
    “Ach, it’s a terrible thing for a man when his wumman gangs up on him wi’ a toad,” said Rob, shaking his head. But when he turned to look at the grubby paper, there was just a hint of pride in his face.
    “Still, that’s my name, right?” he said, grinning.
    Jeannie nodded.
    “Just there, all by itself and no’ on a WANTED poster or anything. My name, drawn by me.”
    “Yes, Rob,” said the kelda.
    “ My name, under my thumb. No scunner can do anythin’ aboot it? I’ve got my name, nice and safe?”
    Jeannie looked at the toad, who shrugged. It was generally held by those who knew them that most of the brains in the Nac Mac Feegle clans ended up in the women.
    “A man’s a man o’ some standin’ when he’s got his own name where no one can touch it,” said Rob Anybody. “That’s serious magic, that is—”
    “The R is the wrong way roond and you left the A and a Y out of Anybody,” said Jeannie, because it is a wife’s job to stop her husband actually exploding with pride.
    “Ach, wumman, I didna’ ken which way the fat man wuz walkin’,” said Rob, airily waving a hand. “Ye canna trust the fat man. That’s the kind of thing us nat’ral writin’ folk knows about. One day he might walk this way, next day he might walk that way.”
    He beamed at his name:

    “And I reckon you got it wrong wi’ them Y’s,” he went on. “I reckon it should be N E Bo D. That’s Enn…eee…bor…dee, see? That’s sense !”
    He stuck the pencil into his hair and gave her a defiant look.
    Jeannie sighed. She’d grown up with seven hundred brothers and knew how they thought, which was often quite fast while being totally in the wrong direction. And if they couldn’t bend their thinking around the world, they bent the world around their thinking. Usually, her mother had told her, it was best not to argue.
    Actually, only half a dozen Feegles in the Long Lake clan could read and write very well. Theywere considered odd, strange hobbies. After all, what—when you got out of bed in the morning—were they good for? You didn’t need to know them to wrestle a trout or mug a rabbit or get drunk. The wind couldn’t be read and you couldn’t write on water.
    But things written down lasted. They were the voices of Feegles who’d died long ago, who’d seen strange things, who’d made strange discoveries. Whether you approved of that depended on how creepy you thought it was. The Long Lake clan approved. Jeannie wanted the best for her new clan, too.
    It wasn’t easy, being a young kelda. You came to a new clan, with only a few of your brothers as bodyguards, where you married a husband and ended up with hundreds of brothers-in-law. It could be troubling if you let your mind dwell on it. At least back on the island in the Long Lake she had her mother to talk to, but a kelda never went home again.
    A kelda was all alone.
    Jeannie was homesick and lonely and frightened of the future, which is why she was about to get things wrong.
    “Rob!”
    Hamish and Big Yan came tumbling throughthe fake rabbit hole that was the entrance to the mound.
    Rob Anybody glared at them. “We wuz engaged in a lit’try enterprise,” he said.
    “Yes, Rob, but we watched the big wee young hag safe awa’, like you said, but there’s a hiver after her!” Hamish blurted out.
    “Are ye sure?” said Rob, dropping his pencil. “I never heard o’ one of them in this world!”
    “Oh, aye,” said Big Yan. “Its buzzin’ fair made my teeths ache!”
    “So did you no’ tell her, ye daftie?” said Rob.
    “There’s that other hag wi’ her, Rob,” said Big Yan. “The educatin’ hag.”
    “Miss Tick?”