Witch's Business by Diana Wynne Jones

move, but the tin somehow missed her. Vernon roared with rage and seized another tin. Before he had a chance to throw it, Biddy fetched a whistle from under her sack and blew it.
    â€œRight. Get him!” said Buster. The gang were suddenly all round them in the bare patch, grinning and waving sticks.
    â€œHelp!” Jess shouted. Vernon threw the tin at Buster instead, and missed again. Biddy laughed and settled in the doorway of her hut to watch, while the gang closed in. “Help! ” Jess yelled.
    â€œCome on,” said Martin. “I’m okay now.” He and Frank pelted round the hut. By the time they reached the bare patch, Vernon was down, under six yelling boys. Jess was fighting three more, and still calling for help. Martin climbed onto the oil drums and jumped on top of Buster. Frank took the easier way, in through the gap, and charged with his head down at the three round Jess. Before long, he was down, too, and as he rolled and punched, he could hear Biddy laughing.
    Jess backed up against the drums, kicked them with her heel as she fought, and went on yelling. The thunder she made nearly deafened her. Perhaps Mr. Carter or someone was in the allotments. Jess hoped he might hear and come. She took Buster’s special friend, Stafford, by his hair and shook him. Stafford kicked her.
    Then, quite unexpectedly, everything was quiet. Jess propped herself against the drums and found Stafford backing away, looking sheepish. The heap of boys beyond was opening. Someone was peeling people off in layers. Jess saw it was a tall, vague-looking man. When she looked at him, he had Buster in one hand and Martin in the other, but he tossed them away, bent down and fished again in the heap, quite absentmindedly. He came up with Vernon and put him on one side. The two boys next scrambled up for themselves and backed away. Frank surged up to one side of Buster.
    â€œOh, thank you!” said Jess to the man.

FIVE
    It was plain that Biddy Iremonger was extremely displeased. She wrapped her sack about her, pushed her face forward in a peering, snaky way, and shuffled out from her hut toward the man.
    â€œWhat did you have to go and turn up for?” she demanded.
    The man gave her a vague, pleasant look. “I brought the books you wanted,” he said. “They’re on the drum there.”
    â€œThen go away,” said Biddy.
    â€œIn a minute,” answered the man. “We’ll just settle this roughhouse first, shall we?” He turned to Buster and his gang, who were standing glowering to one side of him. “Beat it,” he said. “Go on. There are at least twice as many of you. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you little cowards. If I catch you at it again, I’ll teach you something you won’t forget easily. Now beat it. And drop those sticks.”
    Sulkily, the gang cast down its sticks and moved off between the oil drums in a hunched and angry group. They loitered heavily up the path, until they reached the big bramble bush that hid the hut from the allotments. There, defiantly, they stopped. The man took no notice of them. He turned to Vernon.
    â€œAnd you,” he said. “You lot get out, too. I can’t have you disturbing Miss Iremonger like this.”
    Vernon nodded and went out through the gap in the drums. Martin and Frank followed him. Jess, before she went, too, tried to say thank you again. The man stopped her by absentmindedly patting her head.
    â€œGo on, little girl,” he said.
    Jess, rather indignantly, followed the boys. Because the gang was on the path to the allotments, they had to turn the other way, toward the river and the footbridge. The man waited in the gap in the oil drums until they were nearly at the bridge. Buster glowered, but he could do nothing about it. He just had to watch Vernon, Martin, Frank, and then Jess go out across the bridge and make for the safety of the field beyond. As they crossed the bridge,