The Grand High Witch
The next day, a man in a black suit arrived at the house carrying a brief-case, and he held a
long conversation with my grandmother in the livingroom. I was not allowed in while he was there,
but when at last he went away, my grandmother came in to me, walking very slowly and looking
very sad.
"That man was reading me your father's will," she said.
"What is a will?" I asked her.
"It is something you write before you die," she said. "And in it you say who is going to have
your money and your property. But most important of all, it says who is going to look after your child
if both the mother and father are dead."
A fearful panic took hold of me. "It did say you, Grandmamma?" I cried. "I don't have to go
to somebody else, do I?"
"No," she said. "Your father would never have done that. He has asked me to take care of you
for as long as I live, but he has also asked that I take you back to your own house in England. He
wants us to stay there."
"But why?" I said. "Why can't we stay here in Norway? You would hate to live anywhere
else! You told me you would!"
"I know," she said. "But there are a lot of complications with money and with the house that
you wouldn't understand. Also, it said in the will that although all your family is Norwegian, you
were born in England and you have started your education there and he wants you to continue going
to English schools."
"Oh Grandmamma!" I cried. "You don't want to go and live in our English house, I know you
don't!"
"Of course I don't," she said. "But I am afraid I must. The will said that your mother felt the
same way about it, and it is important to respect the wishes of the parents."
There was no way out of it. We had to go to England, and my grandmother started making
arrangements at once. "Your next school term begins in a few days," she said, "so we don't have any
time to waste."
On the evening before we left for England, my grandmother got on to her favourite subject
once again. "There are not as many witches in England as there are in Norway," she said.
"I'm sure I won't meet one," I said.
"I sincerely hope you won't," she said, "because those English witches are probably the most
vicious in the whole world."
As she sat there smoking her foul¹ cigar and talking away, I kept looking at the hand with the
missing thumb. I couldn't help it. I was fascinated by it and I kept wondering what awful thing had

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