Fran and her leaf were on a mission. There was something very important in the shed at the bottom of Miss Heks’s garden. That something was a girl called Tiga Whicabim.
‘You!’ Tiga said, pointing at a slug that was sliding its way across an old stone sink. ‘You will be the star of my show! You will play the role of Beryl, an ambitious dancer with severe hiccups.’
Tiga had been in the shed for hours. The evil Miss Heks had been her guardian for as long as Tiga could remember and she had quickly learned to keep out of her way. If she didn’t, the old bat would make her sew up the holes in her disgusting, scratchy dresses. Or she would force Tiga to run up and down the garden in her gigantic, ugly shoes, bellowing things like ‘FASTER!’ and ‘OH, DID YOU TRIP?’ from the kitchen window.
Tiga shone a torch on the slug.
‘You are going to be the best actor the world has ever seen!’ she cried.
Fran sighed when she saw that.
Not because she’d finally found Tiga, after a long and perilous journey that had almost ended with her being eaten by a dog.
No, the reason Fran sighed was because she loved a bit of acting!
Despite her small size, Fran was a big deal in the world of show business. Everyone called her Fran the Fabulous Fairy (a name she had made up for herself). She had hosted many award-winning TV shows like Cooking for Tiny People and The Squashed and the Swatted and she’d played the lead role in Glittery Sue – a tragic drama about a small lady called Sue who got some glitter in her hair and couldn’t get it out again.
‘An actor you say!’ Fran said, making Tiga jump.
Tiga stared, mouth open, at the small person that marched across the shed and – very ungracefully, and with much grunting – climbed up the leg of her trusty old rocking chair.
Fran stretched out a hand.
‘Very delighted to meet you, Tiga! Now, it’s pronounced Teega, isn’t it? That’s what I thought! I’m very good at names and absolutely everything else. I’m Fran the Fabulous Fairy. But you can call me Fran. Or Fabulous. BUT NEVER JUST FAIRY. I hate that.’
Tiga, understandably, assumed she had gone mad. Or at the very least fallen asleep.
She squinted at the little thing with big hair and then looked to the slug for reassurance, but it was sliding its way across the floor as if it knew exactly who Fran was, and was trying to escape.
‘I don’t think,’ Fran said, pointing at the slug, ‘that she should be acting in the lead role. She is slimy and not paying much attention.’
Fran wiggled a foot and a beehive of hair just like her own appeared on top of the slug’s head.
‘Much, much, much better,’ she said.
Tiga panicked – the slug had hair! Not any old hair, a beehive of perfectly groomed hair! It was a split-second reaction, but with a flick of her hand she batted the fairy clean off the rocking chair.
Fran wobbled from left to right and tried to steady herself.
‘Did you just swat me?’ she snapped. ‘The ultimate insult!’
Tiga tried to avoid eye contact and instead looked at the slug. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked a lot like it was shaking its head at her.
‘WITCHES ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SWAT FAIRIES. IT IS THE LAW,’ Fran ranted.
‘I’m sorry!’ Tiga cried. ‘I didn’t think you were real – I thought you were just my imagination! You don’t need to call me a witch.’
‘Yes I do,’ said Fran, floating in front of Tiga with her hands on her hips. ‘Because you are one.’
‘I am one what?’ Tiga asked.
‘One witch,’ said Fran as she twirled in the air, got her puffy dress caught in her wings and crash-landed on the floor.
‘BRAAAAT!’ came a bellow from across the garden. ‘Time to leave the shed. Your dinner is ready!’
Tiga glanced nervously out of the window. ‘If you are real, although I’m still not convinced you are, you’d better leave now. Miss Heks is a terrible old woman and she will do horrible, nasty, ear-pinching things to you.’
Fran ignored her and went back to twirling in the air. ‘What are you having for dinner?’
‘Cheese water,’ Tiga said with a sigh. ‘It’s only ever cheese water.’
Fran thought about this for a moment. ‘And how do you make this cheese water?’
‘You find a bit of mouldy old cheese and you put it in some boiling water,’ said Tiga, looking ill.
Fran swooped down lower and landed on the sink. ‘Well, I’m afraid we don’t have cheese water in Ritzy City – it’s mostly cakes.’
Tiga stared at the fairy. ‘Ritzy where?’
‘Riiiitzzzzzy Ciiiiity!’ Fran cheered, waving her hands in the air.
Tiga shrugged. ‘Never heard of it.’
‘But you’re a witch,’ said Fran.
‘I am not a witch!’ Tiga cried.
‘You SO are!’
‘I am not!’
‘Definitely are,’ said Fran, nodding her head. ‘Even your name says so.’
And with that she flicked her tiny finger, sending a burst of glittery dust sailing across the room.
TIGA WHICABIM, the dust read.
Then it began to wobble and rearrange itself into something new.
I AM A BIG WITCH.
‘You’ve cheated somehow,’ Tiga mumbled, moving the dust letters about in the air. Most people would’ve believed Fran by this point, but Tiga wasn’t used to magic and fun and insane fairies. So, despite this very convincing evidence that she might just be a witch, Tiga still walked towards the door. Towards the cheese water.
‘TIGA!’ bellowed Miss Heks. ‘YOUR CHEESE WATER HAS REACHED BOILING POINT.’
‘Cheese water,’ Fran chuckled. ‘Wait! Where are you going, Tiga?’
‘To eat dinner,’ said Tiga. ‘Bye, Fabulous Fairy Fran. It was lovely to meet you.’
Fran raised a hand in the air. ‘Wait! What? You’re not coming with me to Ritzy City, a place of wonder and absolutely no cheese?’
Tiga paused. Even if it was a mad dream, it was better than cheese water. She turned on her heel and walked back towards Fran.
Fran squealed and squeaked and did somersaults in the air.
‘WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE? I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME, YOU LITTLE MAGGOT!’ Miss Heks shouted.
Tiga could see Miss Heks stomping her way towards the shed.
‘Quick!’ Fran cried. ‘We must go to Ritzy City right now!’
‘How?’ Tiga cried, frantically looking around the shed for an escape route.
‘Down the sink pipes, of course,’ Fran said as she shot through the air and straight down the plughole.
‘Come on, Tiga!’ her shrill little voice echoed from somewhere inside the sink.
Tiga leaned over the stone sink and stared down the plughole.
There was nothing down there. No light. And certainly no city, that was for sure.
The door to the shed flew open and splinters of old wood went soaring through the air.
‘WHAT IS GOING ON?’ Miss Heks bellowed.
‘NOW!’ Fran yelled.
Tiga wiggled a finger in the plughole.
This is nonsense, she thought, just as she disappeared.
Ritzy City
Tiga slid down the pipe at a slug’s pace.
It was not magical.
She had imagined if anything was going to happen it would be slick – something with a little whoosh. Instead it was more of a smoosh. With her cheeks squashed against the sides of the pipe, she squeaked her way very slowly to somewhere else. That somewhere else was Ritzy City, because although Fran may have been a bit mad she was no liar.
Tiga slipped out of the pipe, fell through a layer of thick black clouds and let out a yelp as she landed with a thud on the roof of a small market stall.
‘An impressive landing!’ Fran shouted as Tiga peeled her face off the soft canvas roofing. ‘NO BROKEN BONES OR DEATH! WELL DONE.’
Tiga blinked as her eyes shifted from the fairy flying in front of her f
ace to what lay beyond.
For as far as she could see, everything was black and grey. There wasn’t a drop of colour in the place. Even Fran’s dress had changed from purple to a deep dark grey. But it wasn’t all black and grey in a horrible way, like the shed at night. It was beautiful. Black fluffy clouds with soft grey edges hung in the sky. The pavements were lined with smart black market stalls that stretched as far as Tiga could see. Behind the stalls towered buildings built in shiny black stone that went up and up and disappeared into the clouds. From those clouds came trickles of water. But it wasn’t rain. Tiga imagined it might be what rain looked like if someone forgot to turn it off properly.
She jumped down off the stall roof and peered out from behind it.
Further down the road, huge black vases held delicate grey flowers and little pruned shrubs sat proudly outside the gleaming black doors of townhouses trimmed with black polished railings. And all along the street women marched about in the most magnificent dresses of every possible shape and fabric – silk, chiffon, velvet, long, short, puffy. And every woman in every dress wore the same wide-brimmed black hat.
Tiga just stood there with a huge, dozy grin slapped on her face. Ritzy City was the most incredible city she had ever seen.
‘Oh dear,’ said Fran as a woman pushing a sparkly black cannon pulled up next to them. ‘Tiga … you might just want to cover your ear–’
‘NEWS FLASH!’ the woman bellowed as the cannon spun to face the sky and …
BANG!
Tiga dived to the ground.
When she looked up, hundreds of bits of paper were slowly floating back down to earth.
‘Is that … ?’ she began.
‘It’s the Ritzy City Post, our daily newspaper,’ Fran said as a copy landed on Tiga’s head.
WITCH WARS BEGINS TOMORROW was stamped on the front page.
Tiga raised the paper in the air. ‘What’s Witch Wars? Where exactly are we? And why is that woman allowed to wander around town firing a cannon?’
Fran opened her mouth to answer, but the witch manning the stall on which Tiga had fallen interrupted them.
‘Hello, I’m Mavis. Jam?’
Tiga shyly shook her head.
‘But witches love jam,’ said Fran. ‘They can’t get enough of it.’
‘That’s why all these stalls sell jam,’ said Mavis. ‘Apart from that one at the end. It sells cats and jam.’
Tiga got to her feet and dusted herself off. ‘I’m not a witch, Fran. I don’t care if my name says so.’
‘Everyone’s a witch!’ said Mavis, organising her jam jars in a neat row. ‘Well, everyone here at least.’
Tiga watched the women striding past her. They didn’t look anything like witches.
‘The hats are wrong for a start,’ she thought aloud. ‘Why aren’t they pointy? The tops are completely flat and not witch-like at all.’
‘Ah ha!’ said Fran, twirling in the air. ‘That means you’ve only seen a witch up there above the pipes in your world. When a witch travels up there, although frog knows why they’d want to, they’re sucked up the pipes, you see. It destroys the hat, making it all pointy. And some witches get horrible warts on their faces from all the grime – it depends on the condition of the pipe they travel in. Some knock their noses and it makes them crooked. Their dresses become all torn and tattered. Pipe travel is a horrible business.’
Mavis handed Tiga a tissue. ‘You’ve not done too badly, only a bit of slime on your cheeks.’
Tiga grabbed the tissue and started madly rubbing her face.
‘I thought you were going to be one of those ones whose nose goes all warty,’ Fran chuckled.
‘What about the water?’ Tiga asked. ‘It’s not rain, is it?’
‘No,’ said Fran, watching trickles fall from the dark clouds. ‘It comes from houses where you’ll find a witch, up there in the world above the pipes. Some of them don’t even know they’re witches,’ she added, with an eyebrow raised.
Tiga sighed. It was becoming very clear that there was no arguing with Fran.
‘Right, we’d best be off or we’ll be late,’ Fran said, clicking her fingers in Tiga’s face. And with that they waved goodbye to Mavis and her jam, and made their way along the bustling city street.
‘So this is Ritzy Avenue,’ Fran explained, while perched on Tiga’s shoulder. ‘It’s the main shopping street. Over here we have Cakes, Pies and That’s About It Really, the baker’s. They make beautiful cakes and pies and That’s It Really, which is a special type of tart only available in Ritzy City. Very delicious.’
Tiga pressed her hands up against the window and stared open-mouthed at the cakes, but just beyond them, further into the shop, was a very peculiar scene. Inside, all the witches were staring, open-mouthed, back at her.
‘Oh, and over there,’ Fran said with a squeak of excitement as she pulled on Tiga’s hair, ‘is Brew’s designer clothes shop. I love it! They make special dresses for me because I’m quite fabulous and famous, and also abnormally small. Mrs Brew is Ritzy City’s best fashion designer, but you almost never see her. She spends most of her time in that studio up there.’ Fran nodded towards a large round window at the very top of Brew’s.
Tiga was almost certain she saw the shadow of someone walk past it. Then a chattering line of ladies burst out of the door and trotted down the street carrying black bags stamped with a huge swirly ‘B’.
‘Cool,’ Tiga said, heading towards the door.
‘No time for clothes shopping!’ Fran said, zooming on ahead. Tiga reluctantly scuttled after her. She didn’t want to lose the only person she knew in Ritzy City.
Fran screeched to a halt outside the most beautiful townhouse Tiga had ever seen. And she had seen three townhouses.
‘This is Linden House,’ said Fran.
Tiga felt small and insignificant next to the huge building. On it there was a gigantic sign covered in lights that read WITCH WARS, and below it hung nine huge flags. On them were nine huge faces. Tiga didn’t recognise any of them, apart from the last one.
It was her.
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in October 2017 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
This electronic edition published in October 2017 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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BLOOMSBURY is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Text copyright © Sibéal Pounder 2017
Illustrations copyright © Laura Ellen Anderson 2017
Activity illustrations copyright © Marco Bonatti 2017
The moral rights of the author and illustrators have been asserted
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ISBN: 978-1-4088-9204-6 (PB)
ISBN: 978-1-4088-9205-3 (eBook)
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Witch Snitch Page 11