Lukalock

“I bet Mrs Snapperly had no teeth and talked to herself, right?” said Miss Tick.
“Yes. And she had a cat. And a squint,” said Tiffany. And then it all came out in a rush: “And so after he vanished, they went to her cottage and they looked in the oven and they dug up her garden and they threw stones at her old cat until it died and they turned her out of her cottage and piled u pall her old books in the middle of the room and set fire to them and burned the place to the ground and everyone said she was an old witch.”
“They burned the books,” said Miss Tick in a flat voice.
“Because they said they had old writing in them,” said Tiffany. “And pictures of stars.”
“And when you went to look, did they?” said Miss Tick.
Tiffany suddenly felt cold. “How did you know?” she said.
“I’m good at listening. Well, did they?”
Tiffany sighed. “Yes, I went to the cottage next day, and some of the pages, you know, had kind of floated up in the heat? And I found a part of one, and it had all old lettering and gold and blue edging. And I buried her cat.”
“You buried the cat?”
“Yes! Someone had to!”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men