Eva Ibbotson - Not Just a Witch

‘What a pretty place!’ said Dora. ‘The dovecote and the trees, and the way the river runs through the garden!’

‘It’s called Paradise Cottage,’ said Mr Knacksap. ‘And what I want more than anything else in the world, is to live there with you!’

For a moment he wondered whether to go down on his knees, but Dora wasn’t very good at dusting, and anyway there was no need — the silly witch was looking adoringly into his eyes.

‘Oh, Lewis!’ she said. ‘You mean you want to marry me?’

‘I do,’ said Mr Knacksap.

The next day, he bought two of the cheapest engagement rings he could find and had them engraved with his initials. But it wasn’t of the two bamboozled witches that he was thinking as he left the shop. It was of a man in a distant country who was almost as crazy and greedy as he was himself.

The name of this man was Abdul el Hammed and he was an exceedingly rich sheikh who lived between the Zagros Mountains and the Caspian Sea. The sheikh was rich because his country was full of oil wells, but he was also very old-fashioned — so old-fashioned that he had one hundred and fifty wives, just as Eastern rulers used to do in the olden days. The wives lived in a palace all of their own and the sheikh liked to show them off, all dressed alike in beautiful clothes and fabulous jewellery, so that everyone would be amazed that anyone could have so many women and be so generous.

In the summer, the country in which the sheikh lived was very hot, but in the winter, because there were high mountains near by, it was very cold — and it was then that he liked to dress his one hundred and fifty wives in valuable fur coats. But it is not easy to find a hundred and fifty coats made of priceless skins and all alike. The sheikh had been looking round and had sent messengers to all the furriers in Europe and he had not found what he was looking for.

This sheikh wanted to see every one of his wives dressed in a coat made of snow leopards.

Tigers are beautiful and exciting, so are jaguars and ocelots, and people who like fur coats swear by sable or mink. But in all the world, there is nothing like a coat made of snow leopards.

Snow leopards live in the highest mountains in the world — on the slopes of the Himalayas and the Karakoram, where there are no people, only ice and eagles and the sighing of the wind. They are so graceful and so fearless — and above all so rare — that to look at one is to feel a lump come into your throat. There are so few left now that to shoot or trap one is to risk being sent to prison and only a person with no soul would dream of trying it. To kill one snow leopard and make his skin into a fur coat would be almost impossible. To find three hundred (because at least two leopards are needed for a single coat)… well, no one but a mad, rich sheikh would even dream of it.

But the sheikh Abdul el Hammed did dream of it. The more he couldn’t have what he wanted, the more he was determined to have it. He had offered a thousand pounds for a snow leopard skin and then fifteen hundred, and at last two thousand and more just for one skin. But there simply weren’t any snow leopards to be had. Not even the greediest people were willing to break the law which protected these marvellous and unusual beasts.

And then came the day when Mr Flitchbody, a skin trader who operated in London, but had a network of trappers and hunters all over the world, got a telephone call.

‘Hello. Is that you, Flitchbody?’ a throaty voice said.

‘Yes, Flitchbody speaking. Who is that?’

‘It’s Knacksap here. Lionel Knacksap from Wellbridge. Tell me, is that sheikh of yours still after snow leopard pelts?’

‘You bet he is. Three hundred, he wants, and he’ll sell his soul to get them — and I can’t find one.’

‘Well, I can,’ said Mr Knacksap. ‘I can get him the full quantity. If the price is right.’

‘The price is two thousand eight hundred per skin and I take ten per cent. But I don’t believe you for a moment.’

‘Well, you’d better believe me. I’ve found someone who’s been breeding them in secret. I can send you the bodies, but you’ll have to get them skinned down in London and no questions asked. Can you fix that?’

‘I can fix it. But I still think you’re bluffing.’

‘Well, I’m not. I’ll want the money in cash. Three-quarters of a million in notes, can you do that?’

‘If you can get me three hundred snow leopards, there’s nothing I can’t do.’

‘I’ll keep you posted,’ said Mr Knacksap, and put down the phone.

Mr Knacksap and Heckie were sitting side by side on Heckie’s sofa and being romantic. Mr Knacksap was holding Heckie’s hand — the one that didn’t have the Knuckle of Power — and they were looking into the gas fire and dreaming dreams.

Or rather, Mr Knacksap was dreaming dreams. Heckie’s foot had gone to sleep which sometimes happens when you are being romantic, but she didn’t like to say so.

‘I was thinking, my dear,’ said Mr Knacksap, ‘about when we are married and living in our cottage in the hills. Paradise Cottage.’

‘Yes, dear?’ said Heckie. ‘What were you thinking about it?’

‘I was thinking how beautiful the mountains are up there. Beautiful, but bare. Terribly bare.’

‘Well, yes. Of course there is the heather, isn’t there?’ said Heckie. ‘That’s very pretty when it flowers.’

‘But it only flowers in August. I would like to be able to look up at the hills and see them covered with something really wonderful. With animals that are happy in high places and that are graceful and lovely and a joy to gaze at all the year round. Heather is all right for ladies,’ said Mr Knacksap, ‘but gentlemen like something a little stronger.’

‘What sort of something?’ Heckie wanted to know.

Mr Knacksap let go of her hand and turned to look into her eyes. ‘I am going to tell you a secret, Hecate,’ he said. ‘Something I’ve not told anyone in my life. Always, I’ve had the same dream. That I wake in the morning and I look up — and there, on the mountain-side above me, are the loveliest and most impressive animals in the world.’

Heckie was very interested. ‘Really, dear? And what are they?’

Mr Knacksap blew his nose. Then he said: ‘Snow leopards.’

‘Snow leopards?’ Heckie was very surprised. ‘But, dearest, you don’t find snow leopards in the Lake District. They’re not English things at all. You find them in the Himalayas.’

‘I know, dearest,’ said Mr Knacksap. ‘So far you don’t find them in England. But you could .’ He seized both her hands. ‘You could make my dream come true,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘You, my dearest, sweetest witch, could fill the hillside with snow leopards. You could grant me my greatest wish! Every morning I would lift up my eyes and there they would be! They’re the most valuable… I mean, the most beautiful creatures in the world. Their pelts… I mean, their fur, is the deepest, the palest; their tails are thick and long. They have golden eyes and every day as I ate my porridge and kippers, which you would cook for me, I would see them roaming free and lovely over the hills. If I could do that, I think I would be the happiest man in the world.’

He looked sideways under his sinister eyebrows at Heckie who was looking very worried indeed.

‘But, dearest, a whole hillside of snow leopards… I don’t see how I could do that. And I’m afraid they’d eat the sheep.’

‘Oh, but once the snow leopards came, it would become an animal reserve, that’s certain. And think of the tourist trade, and the work it would bring to the unemployed.’