by Kaye Umansky
‘Wizards,’ muttered Scott. ‘Bizzards, cizzards, dizzards, fizzards, gizzards. Lizards. Blizzards. Hmm.’
‘What are you doing, Scott?’ said a voice in his ear. Scott jumped a mile, knocking over the ink-pot. A black tide spread across the desk and dripped into his lap.
Standing behind him were two Witches, Broomsticks in hand. Pongwiffy and Sharkadder, both smiling at him, a bit out of breath from the flight. Pongwiffy was her usual dishevelled self. Sharkadder was a vision in purple, with matching lipstick.
‘Don’t do that,’ he snapped, dabbing himself with a hanky. ‘Who let you in? Look what you’ve made me do!’
‘We let ourselves in,’ explained Pongwiffy. ‘Flew straight in through the downstairs window. Can’t be bothered with butlers. You remember my friend, Witch Sharkadder?’
‘Yes,’ said Scott shortly. ‘I do.’ His tone was rather bitter. There had been a certain incident in the past involving Sharkadder, himself and a beauty demonstration that went horribly wrong. Well, let’s put it like this. He lost a lot of face.
‘Hello, Mr Sinister,’ trilled Sharkadder. ‘Lovely to see you again. I expect you’re all excited? With it being the Big Day next Saturday?’
‘Leave it to me to do the talking, Sharky, if you please,’ said Pongwiffy firmly. ‘He’s my friend.’
‘Did you say next Saturday?’
‘Time flies, doesn’t it, Scott?’ agreed Pongwiffy. ‘I hope you’re prepared. It’s a very important job, commentating. Nobody’ll know what’s happening unless someone’s explaining it.’
‘I don’t know what’s happening.’ Scott pointed out rather crossly. ‘I’d appreciate a little direction. I don’t even know what the games are, or who’s in them or anything.’
‘Yes, well, it’s all a bit complicated, organising a whole O’Lumpicks,’ said Pongwiffy. ‘We’re still working things out. But it’ll all come together in the end. If it’s any help, the first thing you have to do is introduce the teams in the Grand Opening Parade.’
‘Well, yes. I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Scott. ‘In fact, I’ve had a rather good idea. I’m thinking of welcoming each team with a short rhyming couplet. I have a couple here, if you’d like to . . . ?’
‘Go ahead,’ said Pongwiffy. ‘Although I don’t know what poetry’s got to do with Sport.’
‘Clap your hands and shout and scream,
Here comes the amazingly fit and wonderful Skeleton team.’
‘Not bad,’ said Pongwiffy. ‘Although I’d shorten it a bit. Cut out amazingly fit and wonderful and I think you’re there.’
‘I’ve got another one,’ said Scott.
‘You have?’
‘They come from the mountain, where there’s blizzards.
Welcome to the gallant, athletic Wizards.’
‘They’re not athletic,’ scoffed Pongwiffy. ‘Pathetic, more like. Anyway, they haven’t sent in an entry form, so you’ve wasted your time there. Have you done one for us Witches?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, make sure it’s good. Make it longer than the others. We’re far and away the best team, so we want the rhymiest introduction. Use words like astonishingly fit and toned.’
‘And vibrantly costumed,’ added Sharkadder.
‘Yes,’ said Pongwiffy. ‘If you must. Although I don’t think it’ll be easy finding a rhyme.’
‘But he’ll try,’ said Sharkadder. ‘Won’t you, Scott?’
‘And he’ll pop in a line about the Flag Holder, I expect?’ added Pongwiffy.
Both of them beamed at him.
‘Yes’ said Scott wearily. ‘I’ll try.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A Meeting with Ronald
You may remember that the Wizards had refused to enter for the O’Lumpicks. Well, all but one. Ronald the Magnificent, Sharkadder’s nephew, who we last saw being roundly jeered at for showing interest in them. It didn’t put him off, though.
Ronald was really excited at the whole idea of the forthcoming Games. Of course, he didn’t say so. But he couldn’t stop thinking about them.
Every day, he waited impatiently until everyone had finished with The Daily Miracle and hurled it disdainfully into the bin. He would sneakily fish it out with trembling fingers and run upstairs to his room to pore over the latest thrilling O’Lumpick news.
The pages were full of pictures of the various competing teams, grinning at the camera with their thumbs up. Everyone wore shorts and clutched little bottles of water. There were interviews with Skeletons, Trolls, Ghouls, Banshees and Zombies, each claiming to have developed a unique, foolproof training programme. Instead of advertisements for Sugary Candy’s, there were full page spreads dedicated to healthy eating. Sharkadder’s Lemon Sprouts were proving particularly popular. Getting fit was the order of the day. There were a lot of gossip columns debating what costumes the athletes might wear in the Grand Opening Parade. Everyone was being very secretive, particularly about the design of their flag.
Sometimes, when the rest of the Wizards were snoozing in the lounge, Ronald tried turning on the spellovision, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was going on. He kept the volume low, but even so, someone always woke up and ordered him to turn it off, just to be mean. But the glimpses only whetted his appetite.
Just imagine it! A whole day devoted to Sport! Out in the fresh air! Wearing shorts!
Ronald had a pair of shorts. They were baggy and yellow. He had only worn them once, on a trip to the seaside. He kept them in his bottom drawer.
He pictured himself wearing them again. Strolling around casually chatting to his fellow competitors. Everyone saying, ‘Who is that young Wizard in the yellow shorts? He looks like a strong contender.’
What a change that would make from eating sausages and sitting around in the overheated lounge talking vaguely about Magic but hardly ever doing any. Ronald got bored sometimes. The only time he went out was to do the weekly sweet run. Being the youngest Wizard, he either got ignored or picked on, with nothing in between. It didn’t help that his aunt was a Witch either. He got a lot of stick for that.
Imagine if he competed in the O’Lumpicks, though! Competed, and won a gold medal! Things would be different then. The Wizards would have to clap him on the back and sing For He’s A Jolly Good Wizard. Maybe carry him back to the Clubhouse shoulder-high. Frame the medal and hang it in the foyer. Show him a bit of respect, for once.
Ronald sent off for an entry form. When it arrived, he scuttled down at the crack of dawn, snatched it from the doorstep, then hurried up to his room to study it in secret.
He skipped over the first bit, which looked boring, and went straight to the list of games, looking for ones he thought he would be good at.
The Three-Legged Race was out because there was only one of him. The Sack Race was out because it needed practice with a sack. He could try begging one from the kitchens, but didn’t hold out much hope because the cook didn’t like him. Tossing the Caber was out. He didn’t know what a caber was, or why it needed tossing. The elastic on his shorts was a bit feeble, so the High Jump presented major risks. Weightlifting sounded like hard work, and he would be up against Trolls and Zombies and probably Pongwiffy’s Hamster, who was a lot stronger than he looked. The Relay was a non-starter, as there was no one to pass the baton to. That left one race. The Egg and Spoon. The Wizards specialised in breakfast, so getting hold of the props to practise with was easy.
Ronald filled in the entry form. Where it said TEAM name, he wrote Ronald the Magnificent in his best handwriting. He wrote it again in the space opposite Egg and Spoon. Then he sent it off, with a second-class stamp because he’d run out of first-class and didn’t dare ask to borrow one in case he got quizzed about why he wanted it.
Every morning, when his fellow Wizards staggered from the dining room to the lounge, Ronald secreted away a boiled egg and silver spoon and slipped out the back way. He hurried down the mountain track, casting anxious glances over his shoulder in case
anyone spotted him. As soon as he reached the sheltering branches of Witchway Wood, he made for a quiet glade that only he knew about. There, he removed his Hat of Mystery, his Robe of Knowledge and his Cloak of Darkness. Then, clad only in shorts, sandals and socks, he took the egg from his pocket, carefully placed it in the spoon and tried running.
It wasn’t as easy as he had hoped. He had had visions of streaking along like a gazelle, arm triumphantly extended before him, egg snugly lodged in the spoon, miles ahead of everybody else and reaching the finish line to thunderous applause. That was until he tried doing it.
The trouble was the egg. Well, the egg and the spoon. Well, the egg, the spoon and the trembling hand. And the feet. And the shorts. The fact was that he couldn’t keep the egg steady and see what his feet were doing at the same time. Plus his shorts kept drifting downwards, on account of the limp elastic, so he had to use his other hand to keep them up.
He had been practising for days, but still couldn’t get the hang of it. If he took his eye off the egg even for one second, it fell out of the spoon and rolled away under a bush. But if he didn’t watch where he put his feet, he invariably fell flat on his face. Speed was out of the question. The best he could manage was a few shuffling paces at a slow crawl before the inevitable happened. It was all very disheartening.
He was on his hands and knees, crawling under a bush looking for the egg for the hundredth time, when Pongwiffy and Sharkadder found him. They had been flying overhead, on their way back from Scott Sinister’s holiday retreat when Pongwiffy spotted a flash of yellow below. She pointed it out to Sharkadder, who recognised her nephew in an instant and insisted on flying down to say hello, although Pongwiffy didn’t want to.
They alighted in the glade, propped the Brooms against a tree, folded their arms and surveyed Ronald’s rear end.
‘Well, well,’ said Sharkadder. ‘It’s you, Ronald. Why are you crawling around under a bush? In those hideous shorts?’
‘Looking for his brain,’ sneered Pongwiffy, who didn’t like Ronald.
Ronald crawled out of the bush, egg in hand, and scrambled to his feet, rather red-faced. There they stood, Aunt Sharky and her horrible friend, staring hard and making him feel self-conscious with his skinny legs and everything.
‘Hello, Aunty,’ said Ronald unhappily. ‘Lovely to see you.’
‘Is it?’ said Sharkadder. ‘Is it indeed? Well, I’m glad you said that, because I was beginning to think you’d forgotten all about me.’
‘I’ve been a bit busy,’ said Ronald, squirming a bit.
‘I don’t recall getting a thank you letter for the money I sent you for your birthday.’
‘I didn’t have a stamp.’
‘I see. Too busy to walk to the post office.’
‘Well . . . yes, actually. I’m in training, you see. For the O’Lumpicks.’
‘You’ve having a joke,’ said Pongwiffy. ‘You? Entering the O’Lumpicks? You?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Ronald sulkily. ‘It’s open to all.’
‘I don’t remember seeing an entry form for the Wizards,’ said Pongwiffy, adding, ‘Not that I was looking hard. Wizards and Sport. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I mean, they’d actually have to move. If it was a Sitting-In-An-Armchair-Lookin g-Beardy-And-Eating-Sausages Contest, that’d be different.’
‘Now then, Pong,’ scolded Sharkadder. ‘That’s not in the O’Lumpick spirit. You’re not allowed to be mean to Ronald. I am, but I’m his aunty.’
‘Actually,’ admitted Ronald, ‘actually, it’s just me.’
‘What – Team Ronald?’ Pongwiffy guffawed rudely. ‘I take it you’re going in for the Egg and Spoon? Or is that your lunch?’
‘As a matter of fact, I am.’
‘Well, you can forget it because the form hasn’t arrived. You’re not allowed to be in the O’Lumpicks unless you’ve filled in the form, isn’t that right, Sharky?’
Sharkadder hesitated. Rules were rules, but Ronald was family when all was said and done.
‘It’s in the post,’ said Ronald anxiously.
‘So you found a stamp for that, then?’
‘It was my last one.’
‘Too late,’ said Pongwiffy ruthlessly. ‘I’ve told Scott there aren’t any Wizards, so he won’t have a rhyme for you when he’s doing the commentary. And anyway, we don’t want thirteen teams, it’s unlucky.’
Ronald looked stricken. He looked down at his egg.
‘But I’ve been practising. Aunty, tell her.’
‘Try that again. Not forgetting that simple little word.’
‘Tell her, please. And thank you very much for the money. I’m saving it to buy you a big box of chocolates.’
‘No chocolates,’ said Sharkadder. ‘You don’t win sack races on chocolate.’
‘Flowers, then.’
Sharkadder relented.
‘Oh, I suppose so. We might as well let him, Pong. We’re supposed to be intermingling, aren’t we?’
‘There are limits, though,’ said Pongwiffy.
In the end, she agreed that Ronald could enter if his form arrived. It wouldn’t do to appear to be a bad sport.
It had been a busy day, and Pongwiffy had had enough. She accepted Sharkadder’s invitation to come back to her cottage for a healthy snack and a cup of water. After all that organising, she felt she deserved to put her feet up.
She sat on a comfy chair and idly switched on the spellovision while Sharkadder bustled around the kitchen preparing a bowl of prune and beetroot puree with a small jug of vinegar on the side.
The screen flickered into life. A short plump Genie stood before the palace gates, holding a microphone.
‘ . . . and behind these gates, even as I speak, the O’Lumpick stadium is being prepared by a hardworking team of Familiars. We had hoped to bring you footage, but it’s rather dangerous in there at the moment, with all the tree felling. Unfortunately, King Futtout is unavailable for comment, but I have with me Hugo the Hamster. Hugo, how’s it all going?’
The camera zoomed dizzyingly down and homed in on Hugo, holding a clipboard and looking businesslike with a tiny hard hat on his head.
‘Ah,’ said Pongwiffy. ‘Look at him. Sharky, come and look at my Hugo on the spello!’
‘What about Dudley?’ cried Sharkadder. ‘Is he there too?’
‘Well, no. He’s inside the grounds, digging up rose bushes. Or he will be if he knows what’s good for him.’
‘In that case,’ said Sharkadder, ‘I won’t bother.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Pongwiffy reached forward and turned up the volume. Sadly, she missed what Hugo had to say. He was scuttling off through the gates and the camera was wobbling up again.
‘So there you have it,’ said the Genie, beaming. ‘The O’Lumpicks are on track for next Saturday. You have it direct from the Hamster’s mouth. This is Ali Pali, returning you to the studio, where the Thing In The Moonmad T-Shirt Hour is about to begin, with special guest Grandwitch Sourmuddle, who once again will be explaining how she came up with such an unusual idea . . .’
Pongwiffy switched it off.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Bigger
Plugugly was struggling down the stairs with Philpot. It was as much as he could do to manage it. Big? My, was that baby big! Plugugly could no longer get his arms around Philpot’s ever-expanding middle. The only way was to hoist him up on to his back like a sack of potatoes, then bend forward into a low crouch. Even then, Philpot’s huge pink feet flopped down, thumping on each stair.
‘Hold on tight, Baby Philpot!’ gasped Plugugly. ‘Soon be down de stairs, don’t choke me, dere’s a good boy!’
‘TEE-HEE,’ giggled Philpot. Thump, thump, thump went his feet. ‘MEDSIN.’
Walking down to the gates to collect Philpot’s food remained a daily ritual. Cramming him into his pram was easier now he could sit up. There was more space for his bottom half with the rest of him sticking up in the air. His weight was still a problem, though, and t
he wheels were buckling badly. The pram wouldn’t last much longer.
Philpot shouldn’t be sitting up, of course. But as we know, his development is accelerating wildly. He is growing by the hour, not just by the day. He has other talents too. He can now say words (MEDSIN! MORE! ’GAIN! and NO!), has all his teeth and can take notice of things instead of just lying around gnawing his own feet. He is far too advanced for a two-week-old baby.
You will notice that Philpot’s baby vocabulary does not include the words MAMA or DADA. This is because Philpot sees very little of his mother and father. Taking full advantage of Nanny Susan, Bigsy and Largette have been going out on long, carefree bike rides, coming home late and sleeping in every day, safe in the knowledge that their offspring is being well cared for by a professional.
Plugugly and Philpot had reached the landing where the Stonkings had their bedroom.
‘NANNY SUSAN?’ called Largette. ‘IS THAT YOU? COULD YOU STEP IN HERE ONE MOMENT? BIGSY AND I WOULD LIKE A WORD.’
Plugugly’s ears pricked up. Perhaps they were about to give him his wages. That would be good. Plugugly loved looking after Philpot, but he loved sweeties more. He couldn’t wait to stride triumphantly into the cave, waving a big bag of gold! That would be the end of the nannying job, which would be sad, but not that sad. He was fond of Philpot, but a ton or two of sweets would certainly help him get over it.
‘NANNY SUSAN? ARE YOU COMING?’
Plugugly hesitated. He had a dilemma. He couldn’t spell it, and didn’t know what it meant, but a dilemma was what he had. On the one hand, he wanted his wages. On the other, he didn’t want the Stonkings to see Baby Philpot. They hadn’t been up to the nursery for days, and Plugugly didn’t want them to see him now. Plugugly could no longer be in denial. Even he could see that there was a real problem. And he had a bad feeling that it was all his fault. It was all down to the wrong diet. Plugugly suspected that he might be in trouble if the Stonkings caught a glimpse of their vastly oversized, frighteningly advanced offspring and the truth came out.