Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

tears.
    “It’s terrible…terrible,” muttered one of them. “A terrible thing.”
    Magrat lent him her handkerchief. He blew his nose noisily.
    “Could mean a big slippage on the fault line and then we’ve lost the whole seam,” he said, shaking his head. Another dwarf patted him on the back.
    “Look on the bright side,” he said. “We can always drive a horizontal shaft off gallery fifteen. We’re bound to pick it up again, don’t you worry.”
    “Excuse me,” said Magrat, “there are dwarfs behind all that stuff, are there?”
    “Oh, yes,” said the King. His tone suggested that this was merely a regrettable side-effect of the disaster, because getting fresh dwarfs was only a matter of time whereas decent gold-bearing rock was a finite resource.
    Granny Weatherwax inspected the rockfall critically.
    “We shall have to have everyone out of here,” she said. “This is goin’ to have to be private.”
    “I know how it is,” said the King. “Craft secrets, I expect?”
    “Something like that,” said Granny.
    The King shooed the other dwarfs out of the tunnel, leaving the witches alone in the lantern light. A few bits of rock fell out of the ceiling.
    “Hmm,” said Granny.
    “You’ve gone and done it now,” said Nanny Ogg.
    “Anything’s possible if you set your mind to it,” said Granny vaguely.
    “Then you’d better set yours good and hard, Esme. If the Creator had meant us to shift rocks by witchcraft, he wouldn’t have invented shovels. Knowing when to use a shovel is what being a witch is all about. And put down that wheelbarrow, Magrat. You don’t know nothing about machinery.”
    “All right, then,” said Magrat. “Why don’t we try the wand?”
    Granny Weatherwax snorted. “Hah! Here? Whoever heard of a fairy godmother in a mine?”
    “If I was stuck behind a load of rocks under a mountain I’d want to hear of one,” said Magrat hotly.
    Nanny Ogg nodded. “She’s got a point there, Esme. There’s no rule about where you fairy godmother.”
    “I don’t trust that wand,” said Granny. “It looks wizardly to me.”
    “Oh, come on,” said Magrat, “generations of fairy godmothers have used it.”
    Granny flung her hands in the air.
    “All right, all right, all right,” she snapped. “Go ahead! Make yourself look daft!”
    Magrat took the wand out of her bag. She’d been dreading this moment.
    It was made of some sort of bone or ivory; Magrat hoped it wasn’t ivory. There had been markings on it once, but generations of plump fairy godmotherly hands had worn them almost smooth. Various gold and silver rings were set into the wand. Nowhere were there any instructions. Not so much as a rune or a sigil anywhere on its length indicated what you were supposed to do with it.
    “I think you’re supposed to wave it,” said Nanny Ogg. “I’m pretty sure it’s something like that.”
    Granny Weatherwax folded her arms. “That’s not proper witching,” she said.
    Magrat gave the wand an experimental wave. Nothing happened.
    “Perhaps you have to say something?” said Nanny.
    Magrat looked panicky.
    “What do fairy godmothers say ?” she wailed.
    “Er,” said Nanny, “dunno.”
    “Huh!” said Granny.
    Nanny Ogg sighed. “Didn’t Desiderata tell you anything? ”
    “Nothing!”
    Nanny shrugged.
    “Just do your best, then,” she said.
    Magrat stared at the pile of rocks. She shut her eyes. She took a deep breath. She tried to make her mind a serene picture of cosmic harmony. It was all very well for monks to go on about cosmic harmony, she reflected, when they were nicely tucked away on snowy mountains with only yetis to worry about. They never tried seeking inner peace with Granny Weatherwax glaring at them.
    She waved the wand in a vague way and tried to put pumpkins out of her mind.
    She felt the air move. She heard Nanny gasp.
    She said, “Has anything happened?”
    After a while Nanny Ogg said, “Yeah. Sort of. I hope they’re hungry, that’s