Prologue
Her mother was well read and poorly educated. She'd seen the word in a book and thought it would make a nice girl's name, without knowing what the word meant. Which left Malignity Johnson rather jealous of her younger brother Frank (her father had had much more influence over the naming of the son) but not only because his name was much easier to spell. Frank Johnson was happy. Malignity was not happy.
Her father was a thatcher, like his father, and his father's father, and so on for more generations than records could show. Now that Frank had turned twelve, he was training to be a thatcher too. Malignity would have liked to have been a thatcher, but that wasn't how things were done.
Actually, Malignity would have hated to have been a thatcher. Thatch made her itch, made her sneeze. Sometimes she couldn't even give her father a hug at the end of the day without sneezing for ten minutes. No, thatching was not an option for Malignity, but she would have liked to be given the choice.
Malignity's job was looking after the chickens: Quark, Quantum, Qualia and Bob (Malignity's father had drawn the line at this point). It wasn't a very interesting job; it certainly didn't occupy her time enough to stop her mind from wandering. Recently it had wandered into creating a league table for the chickens' laying. So far, Quantum was winning.
The Johnsons lived in Bad Ass, where life was quiet. The highlight of Malignity's day would be a visit from Granny Weatherwax, occasionally accompanied by You. Malignity would watch the witch work, fascinated. Not that she had any desire to be a witch either. Stories had reached the village, eventually, and probably via Nanny Ogg, of a young girl from The Chalk who had become a witch at an age younger than Malignity's fourteen years, and it just sounded so hard.
But there was something about watching Granny Weatherwax deal with the infirm, new mothers, dying old men and even the ignorant who simply wanted reassurance. Granny Weatherwax had seen the world, yet here she was helping these little people live their little lives. Malignity found it hard to understand how the old woman could go out beyond the borders of Lancre and not want to just keep going.
For all that Malignity wanted to escape, there was one thing desperately holding her back. Although she didn't know the phrase, had never even seen a fishmonger, Malignity was victim of a crab bucket.
A/N - The concept of the crab bucket has already been covered in extreme detail in Unseen Academicals, but why should Glenda be the only one to get out?
Disclaimer - Discworld and all established characters are copyright Terry and Lynn Pratchett. Malignity and her family are mine, but if Sir Pterry wants them, he's welcome to do more with them than I ever could!