'What is it?'
Ada displayed the plate with a smile. On it sat two little golden brown mice. Hecate looked at them curiously.
'It's a new sweet from Mrs Cosie's tea shop. She sent a sample. I thought we might have it as a treat.'
'I don't think I would care to partake' said Hecate frostily. Anyone would think that she eschewed sugar by the face she was making. Ada smiled. She thought she knew what the hesitation was.
'I can take off the face if you like.'
Hecate hated faces on her food. She never could stomach eating a fish with the head still intact, glaring at her with blank eyes. A while ago she'd confessed that when she was young, her grandfather had chased her around the dining room table with the head of the carp that had been roasted for dinner that night. Everyone else had found it funny, Hecate had found it terrifying. If she were to ever eat fish again, it was to be fishfingers. They were far less threatening, sitting on her plate, innocently stripped of their original form. Ada's laughter had not assuaged her feelings on the matter. Seeing her face, Ada had apologised for being so thoughtless. Hecate's reaction at Yuletide had now made sense. Dimity had baked gingerbread men and was exceptionally proud of the way they'd turned out. It was customary to bite the head off them and Hecate had winced and refused to take one. Eventually she'd nibbled on a piece of torso Ada had broken up for her and had agreed that it was delicious.
'I'll sentence it for treason and guillotine it' Ada said cheerfully. 'Then it won't be a mouse. It'll crumble but it'll taste just the same.'
Hecate stared the mouse down. She reached out and took one, inspected it. Slowly brought it to her mouth and nibbled an ear. It smelt deliciously of butterscotch and treacle. She nibbled the other ear. Ada didn't try to hide her amusement. If her deputy headmistress was going to face her fear by way of nibbling ears, then good luck to her. She followed suit.
'Mrs Cosie's really excelled herself this time' she said. Hecate nodded, too busy crunching on the bones of her enemy. She still wasn't going to start eating anything presented with eyeballs or a tongue on it. She shuddered with the memory of the last All Hallows Eve that Dimity had thrown jelly eyeballs in her direction. In her nightmares, her grandfather had chased her around with an eyeball on a fork. And the times where cows tongue was on the menu, Hecate flat out refused to eat it.
'Maybe next time you could work your way up to decimating a gingerbread man' said Ada. 'I get great satisfaction in pretending that it's the Grand Wizard. It's a good way of imagining how to stop him pontificating.'
Hecate's lips twitched. The mouse didn't look so scary anymore. They sat down and continued attacking the sugar with vigour.
