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and landed in a terrible spooky cave thing right under the house, and they said it was an old smugglers’ cave and was part of a tunnel which came all the way from the church,’ said my sister. ‘That’s what they said. And they should know, they’re grown up, after all.’
    â€˜Quite a decent idea,’ said Brian Beastly. ‘But I’d take it with a pinch of salt.’
    â€˜It is the smallest church in England,’ said my sister. ‘We’ll take you there if you like? Unless you are an un-goddy sort of person. Are you?’
    â€˜I don’t think it
is
the smallest church. From what myfather told me it’s only a fragment of a much larger building. And it’s not the smallest in England. I rather believe
that
is in the north somewhere.’
    We walked along in silence for a bit. I mean, he did rather put you off all the time and it was quite hard not to give him a good bonk on the nose, only he was a bit bigger than me, and wore glasses. So I thought I would just change the subject and asked him if he had managed all right in his room when he went to bed.
    â€˜Managed what?’ he said quite nicely, stooping under a huge tangle of bramble, which frightened a thrush so that it clattered off scolding.
    â€˜Well, last evening. You know, with your po. Chamber pot,’ I said, seeing he didn’t seem to know.
    And he laughed sort of and said, ‘Oh thanks, yes, managed all right. I didn’t have to use the chamber pot thing.’
    â€˜It’s the Guest’s one,’ said my sister. ‘It’s got a pheasant on the bottom.’
    â€˜I just piddled out the window,’ said Brian Thing.
    â€˜Out the window?’ I said.
    â€˜Well . . . only once.’
    â€˜The ginger beer,’ said my sister. ‘But how rude to do it out of the window. Just suppose Lally had been walking underneath.’
    â€˜It was quite late, and I heard her saying goodnight to you both from her room, so I was quite safe.’
    â€˜And right into the apple trees! I’ll never eat an apple off those trees ever again. And it’ll stain the tiles, I bet.’
    Brian looked very huffy, and his white face went quite red. ‘It didn’t go anywhere near the wretched apple trees. They’re miles away.’
    â€˜Well . . . I do think it’s very rude, especially when you’ve got your own po.’
    We got to the end of the gully near the rubbish tip of old cans and bits of bedstead, and then we scrambled up the slope and the cottage was in front of us, all shimmering in the sun and behind it you could see the big clump of elm trees where the little church was.
    â€˜If you don’t believe in smugglers, we have a witch’s house we could show you,’ said my sister, feeling quite brave again now that she was so near the cottage and could see Lally in her pinafore walking down the path past the lean-to. ‘She’s “gorn”, though, so you won’t see her, but he’ – she jerked her head at me as we started to climb over the rickety iron fence – ‘he could show you where she lived. It’s very creepy, and there are millions of cats everywhere.’
    Brian looked a bit startled and his shirt had come out again, so he tucked it back. But he didn’t say anything, so you could see he was a bit impressed by the idea of a witch’s house, even though it was just a caravan. But we didn’t say that.
    â€˜If you’d like to come and see it, I’ll take you. It’s not far from here. About two miles along the Downs.’
    â€˜Very kind,’ he said. But he was still looking at us in a peculiar way, as if we were dotty or something.
    Really. People are funny.
    â€˜Brian!’ said Lally in surprise. ‘Where have they taken you? Your good shoes caked in mud! I declare, I can’t turn my back on you two without you go and do something underhand. Give them to me. Come