More Pongwiffy Stories

by Kaye Umansky

  ‘Isn’t he lovely?’ sighed Pongwiffy to Sharkadder. ‘Oh, Scott, Scott! Do you think he’ll ever forgive me, Sharky? After that Other Business?’

  ‘No,’ said Sharkadder shortly. ‘And I’d rather not talk about that Other Business if you don’t mind, Pongwiffy.’

  (In order to understand the above exchange, you should know that Pongwiffy has had dealings with Scott Sinister before – but that, thankfully, is another story.)

  ‘Have you got the Wishing Water safe?’ Pongwiffy asked, staring around uneasily at their fellow competitors. Their fellow competitors stared right back, and several made rude faces and poked their tongues out. ‘I don’t trust this lot, do you? A right bunch of riff-raff.’

  ‘Of course I’ve got it. It’s in my handbag.’

  ‘I think I ought to have it,’ insisted Pongwiffy. ‘After all, it’s my spell. I found the recipe.’

  ‘Nonsense. Sourmuddle gave it to me to look after. Ssh, he’s just about to introduce Pierre.’

  ‘Next, our cookery expert, the very popular Pierre de Gingerbeard!’ trumpeted Ali Pali, indicating a genial-looking Dwarf sporting a tall chef’s hat and a curling ginger beard.

  ‘Pierre! Bongjoor, Cousin Pierre!’ shouted Sharkadder. ‘Over here! It’s me, Sharkadder! He’s my cousin, you know,’ she informed everyone importantly.

  ‘And now, O ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for your own, your very own Mr Dunfer Malpractiss, local shopkeeper!’ announced Ali Pali, to a chorus of jeers. ‘Chosen because of his winning ways and the fact that in the last month he has sold an astonishing one thousand cans of Reeka Reeka Roses! Congratulations, Dunfer! See me afterwards.’

  ‘I ’ope this won’t take long,’ grumbled Dunfer Malpractiss. ‘I gorra get back to the shop.’

  ‘And last of all,’ said Ali Pali, ‘we have last year’s winner, Batty Bob and his Boring Birds.’

  ‘Booooo!’ screamed the audience as a mild little man in a heaving cardigan got to his feet and bowed. ‘Boooo! Fix. Loada rubbish!’

  ‘All right, simmer down, simmer down. Well, that’s the introductions over, apart from saying a big thank you to the Yeti Brothers for doing the bar snacks. And let’s hear it for the Witchway Rhythm Boys – Arthur on piano, O’Brian on the penny whistle, and Filth the Fiend on drums.’

  A little burst of tuneless music came from the orchestra pit, followed by a nasty thud as Filth dropped his stick.

  ‘And now,’ continued Ali Pali, ‘now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Time to get down to the real business of the evening – the Spells!’

  Ali Pali snapped his fingers and a small blue metal waste bin appeared at his feet. It appeared to be full of folded scraps of paper.

  ‘In time-honoured fashion, the running order will be decided by picking names out of the bin. Right, here goes. The first entry for the Spell of the Year Competition is Scurfgo, the Celebrated Miracle Anti-dandruff Shampoo, entered by Witch Scrofula.’

  A general sigh went up.

  ‘Oh no, not again!’

  ‘Seen it! Seen it!’

  ‘Every year it’s the same! Honestly, you’d think she’d at least change the name or something . . .’

  Scrofula shot from her seat and flounced determinedly up to the stage with a foaming bucket in her hand. She always entered her Celebrated Shampoo and made the Judging Panel try and guess which side of her head had been washed in ordinary soap and which had been treated with the special stuff in the bucket. The Judges always got it wrong. Scrofula always retired hurt. It was all very boring and predictable.

  In fact if one was honest, the Spell of the Year Competition as a whole was getting boring and predictable. Every year, the same old spells got dragged out and dusted off, maybe given a new name, but essentially the same as last year’s offering.

  After the Judging Panel had cast a hasty eye over Scrofula’s hair, failed as always to spot the difference and sent the tearful loser scurrying back to cry on Barry’s shoulder, it was the turn of a Wizard.

  ‘The next entry is Frank the Foreteller’s Astonishing Oracle Tea Bag, without which no soothsayer’s kit is complete,’ announced Ali Pali.

  The audience sat up a little and took a bit more notice. An Oracle Tea Bag didn’t sound exactly earth-shattering, but at least it was new.

  To Wizardly cheers, Frank the Foreteller strolled onstage and gave a knowing smirk. From one sleeve he produced a kettle and from the other, a cup and saucer. Then from under his hat, he produced a small square tea bag, which he held carefully between thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I will now demonstrate this remarkable new fortune-telling Oracle Tea Bag,’ said Frank the Foreteller. ‘This tea bag is the only one of its kind! This tea bag is quick, reliable, and saves all those messy tea leaves. And you can use it again and again. Could I have a volunteer, please?’

  Quick as a flash, a small, furry Thing wearing a Moonmad T-shirt was on the stage, hopping about excitedly and waving to its cheering friends in the audience.

  ‘Right, sir, if you’d just like to stand to one side while I concentrate my amazing powers on boiling this kettle,’ said Frank the Foreteller, shutting his eyes, holding his breath and going bright red. After a moment or two, steam poured from the spout and the kettle gave a shrill whistle.

  The Wizard contingent clapped heartily and shouted encouragement. The rival Witches put in a bit of ostentatious yawning, and several members of the general public began talking amongst themselves.

  ‘Huh. I could do that before I could walk,’ remarked Pongwiffy. ‘This is so boring. I wish it was our turn next.’

  ‘It won’t be,’ said Sharkadder. ‘We’re sure to be on last. We’ll have to sit through Sludgegooey’s Wart Cream, Gaga’s Motorised Rotating Bat Rack, Macabre’s Sporran of Invisibility, Ratsnappy’s Handy Pocket Wand Set, Greymatter’s Dictionary of Useful Magical Terms . . .’

  ‘Stop! Stop!’ begged Pongwiffy. ‘It’s all the same as last year!’

  ‘. . . and that’s just us Witches,’ finished Sharkadder. ‘The Wizards’ll be dredging up loads of dreary old stuff, if this act’s anything to go by, and so will the rest of ’em.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sitting around watching. It’s making me nervous. Shall I get us all an ice cream? There’s a bar at the back.’

  ‘Oh, yes please, Pong,’ said Sharkadder, surprised. ‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’

  ‘The only thing is, I haven’t got my purse.’

  Sharkadder gave an exasperated sigh.

  ‘Go on, then,’ she said. ‘Take my handbag. And make sure you check the change. And don’t go getting anything too expensive. It’s my money, remember.’

  ‘All right. What d’you want?’

  ‘A Bogberry lolly,’ said Sharkadder.

  ‘What does Dudley want?’

  A growled response from somewhere under Sharkadder’s chair indicated that Dudley wanted a Mouse ’n’ Vanilla cornet.

  ‘What about you, Hugo?’

  Hugo didn’t care as long as it had nuts.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  An Encounter at the Bar

  At the very back of the hall, on a rickety bench, behind a pillar, miles from the stage and in a freezing draught, sat the Goblins. Being Goblins, they had automatically been given the worst seats in the house.

  Plugugly sat on the far left. Then came Slopbucket, Eyesore, Stinkwart, Hog, Sproggit and Lardo. They sat with blank, uncomprehending faces, jaws drooping, eyes fixed on the distant stage, watching Frank the Foreteller go through his paces.

  Frank the Foreteller had now made his cup of tea, and was explaining to the Thing in the Moonmad T-shirt that the mystic art of tea-bag reading relied on the accurate, mathematical counting of the exact number of wrinkles in the tea bag and the scientific way it lay in the bottom of the cup, etc.

  ‘Wot’s ’e on about?’ Plugugly wanted to know.

  ‘Beats me,’ said Hog wonderingly. ‘Makin’ tea, ain’t ee?’


  ‘Probably the interval,’ said Sproggit knowledgeably. ‘You gets tea in the interval, see.’

  ‘Nah, it ain’t the interval,’ disagreed Hog. ‘Issa spell, innit? Issa Spell Competishun, innit?’

  ‘Whatever it is, iss rubbish,’ observed Plugugly.

  The Spell of the Year Competition wasn’t for Goblins. Goblins couldn’t understand all this Magic business. All those long words and all that finger-wiggling was far too complicated for them. In fact, they had only come in because it was raining.

  ‘Now wot’s ’e doin’?’ asked Eyesore.

  Frank the Foreteller was carefully handing the steaming cup to the Thing in the Moonmad T-shirt, with instructions to sip slowly. The Thing, who had been nodding solemnly throughout, suddenly lost patience, snatched the cup, fished out the Amazing Oracle Tea Bag with hairy fingers and, much to the horror of Frank the Foreteller and the delight of everyone else, swallowed it.

  And that was something else Frank the Foreteller failed to predict.

  ‘Rubbish,’ repeated Plugugly firmly.

  ‘Lardo’s cryin’ again,’ young Sproggit sniggered unkindly. The other Goblins looked hopefully along the bench. Sure enough, huge tears were welling up in Lardo’s eyes, brimming over and splashing down his cheeks. Slowly, unconsciously, his hand crept for the thousandth time to his head and searched in vain for his missing bobble.

  ‘’Ee’s in mournin’ fer ’is bobble,’ jeered Slopbucket, and the rest of the Goblins collapsed in fits. This was more like it. This was something they could understand. You could keep your old spells. A nice bit of spiteful teasing, now that’s what you called entertainment.

  ‘I’m not,’ protested Lardo, snatching his hand down. ‘I gotta runny eye ’cos I gotta cold. An’ I gotta sore throat too. I’m fed up with this old Speller the Year. I’m gonna buy a drink. Oo else wants one?’

  ‘Me! Me! I do!’ cried all the Goblins, eagerly shooting their hands in the air.

  ‘Well, ’ard luck, get yer own!’ retorted Lardo and stood up. Plugugly being at the other end, the bench shot up and deposited all the Goblins on the floor.

  Blowing his nose, Lardo made his way around the back of the hall to the bar. He cast his eye over the audience, and thought he caught a glimpse of that Tree Demon, the one with the scissors who had made him take his hat off before subjecting him to a humiliating short back and sides. And then his bobble had got stolen and . . . Lardo shivered and hurried on to the bar.

  A burly Yeti in a grease-stained waistcoat and gold medallion was leaning on the counter, idly watching the far stage where Witch Gaga was demonstrating her Rotating Bat Rack. In the background, another identical Yeti in a floral pinny, with a knife in its huge hairy paw, was chopping tomatoes. (These were the Yeti Brothers: Spag Yeti and Conf Yeti – Pasta and Weddings a Speciality.)

  A couple of Skeletons were propped at the bar, sipping long drinks through straws and sharing a packet of crisps. They looked up as Lardo approached and haughtily turned their backbones on him.

  ‘Yeah? Whata ya wanna?’ said the waistcoated Yeti (Spag).

  ‘Demonade, please,’ said Lardo.

  ‘You Gobleena?’

  ‘Eh?’ asked Lardo, playing for time.

  ‘I aska you Gobleena? Cosa we dona serva no Gobleena. You Gobleena?’

  Lardo thought hard. Then, suddenly, in a flash, the right answer came to him. It was clever, it was cunning, and it just might work. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Datsa OK den,’ said Spag. ‘Justa checkin’. No ’fensa. Demonada, huh? I getta froma de back, OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Lardo happily. ‘Take your time. I’ll just wait here.’

  Congratulating himself on his clever little bit of subterfuge, he leaned casually on the bar and half turned to watch the stage, where Gaga’s Rotating Bat Rack was spinning wildly out of control and showering the audience with dizzy Bats.

  It was at this point that Lardo saw Pongwiffy wending her way towards him up the aisle. She was holding a large black handbag which Lardo didn’t recognise as hers.

  ‘I bet you stole that handbag, Pongwiffy,’ said Lardo as she came up. Just as a pleasant opening conversational remark.

  ‘Go boil your bobble, Lardo,’ retorted Pongwiffy, elbowing past him to the bar. ‘Awful haircut, by the way,’ she added unkindly.

  Lardo desperately tried to think of a fitting insult, but for the life of him he couldn’t. All that quick-witted repartee with the Yeti had exhausted him. So he resorted to what he always said in these circumstances. ‘Ah shut up,’ he said. Feeble, but the best he could do.

  ‘By the way,’ said Pongwiffy, standing on his foot. ‘Where is your disgusting bobble? Didn’t it used to live on the top of your horrible hat?’

  Tears welled up in Lardo’s eyes. He couldn’t bear talking about his bobble.

  ‘Someone took it,’ he said.

  ‘Is that so? Now, why in the world would anyone do that? Unless, of course, they intended to chop it up and use it in a spell, ha ha. Hey! Spag! Let’s have some service here! One small Mouse ’n’ Vanilla cone, one stingy-sized Bogberry lolly, something small and cheap with nuts for Hugo and an Extra-Special-Double-Scoop-Mega-Chocko-Jammy Surprise with Extra-Rich Cherry Sauce and Double Cream for me.’

  ‘Letsa see your money firsta, Pongwiffy,’ said Spag. ‘An’ I donna meana dat Magic coin what always go backa to your pursa neither.’

  ‘I don’t know, the service these days,’ grumbled Pongwiffy, scrabbling in the cavernous depths of Sharkadder’s handbag. ‘Oh bother, I can’t find her purse. And I can’t see a thing in this light. Hang on.’

  And without more ado, she emptied the contents of Sharkadder’s handbag on to the counter. Combs, brushes, mirrors, tweezers, files, pliers, tubes of lipstick, pots of powder and about a thousand hairgrips spilt everywhere. Several tiny, surprised-looking hedgehogs poked their heads out of a frilly sponge bag, climbed out and trotted away. In the midst of the clutter lay Sharkadder’s purse.

  And, of course, the small green demonade bottle containing the precious Wishing Water.

  ‘Ah!’ cried Pongwiffy, seizing upon the purse. ‘Here it is. I knew it was in there somewhere. Look, see? I’ve got loads of money. So I want a small Mouse ’n’ Vanilla, a stingy . . .’

  ‘Your drinka, Signor. Sorry to keepa you waiting,’ said the Yeti in the red waistcoat, returning to the counter with Lardo’s drink.

  Now, all this time, Lardo had been thinking. Pongwiffy’s casual little remark about chopping up his bobble had set him off on a train of thought. It was the sort of train that went very slowly, stopped frequently and invariably arrived late. But it got there in the end.

  ‘’Ere,’ said Lardo. ‘Wachoo mean about my bobble . . . ?’

  But he never found out. At exactly that moment, there came an announcement from the stage.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Witch Gaga’s Rotating Bat Rack has been disqualified on safety grounds. So, without more ado we shall move on to the next act, which is a highly secret double entry from Pongwiffy and Sharkadder. Could we have the contestants on stage, please?’

  ‘It’s us!’ gasped Pongwiffy in a panic. ‘Oh bother, why didn’t anyone tell me we were next? Wait for me! I’m coming, I’m coming!’

  Unceremoniously, she scooped Sharkadder’s junk back into her handbag, snatched up the precious bottle of Wishing Water and scuttled back down the aisle. Several legs stuck out to trip her up, but she cunningly avoided them.

  She met up with Sharkadder at the foot of the stage. Sharkadder was suffering from stage fright, pacing anxiously up and down with her back to the audience, gnawing on her fingernails.

  ‘Oh, Pong, where have you been? It’s our turn. Have you got the Wishing Water?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course I have. What d’you take me for? Come on, let’s get onstage. The audience are getting restless.’

  Indeed, the audience was starting a slow handclap, and a group of Banshees at the back had set up a shrill, impatient screa
ming. Scrofula and Barry were encouraging some synchronised booing and Agglebag and Bagaggle had come up with a nice line in hissing. Right now, Pongwiffy wasn’t the most popular name on everyone’s lips.

  ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, I need my lipstick. I want to look my best for my public. Oh my badness! Whatever have you done to my handbag?’

  ‘Never mind that now!’ snapped Pongwiffy crossly. ‘It’s all your fault anyway! You said we were on last.’

  ‘Oh, do stop going on! There. I’ve done my lips. Now, just give me the Wishing Water, and we’ll get on-stage.’

  ‘What d’you mean, give you the Wishing Water? If anyone’s carrying the Wishing Water it’s me. It’s my spell. I found the recipe.’

  ‘Oh, the cheek of it! Who helped you make the brew? Who baked you a sponge when all your other so-called friends deserted you? Eh?’

  ‘Having problems, ladies?’ enquired the silky tones of Ali Pali from the stage.

  ‘Certainly not,’ snapped Pongwiffy. ‘Stand back, Pali, and prepare to be amazed. Me and my assistant are coming up.’

  And up they went.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Wishing Water

  ‘All right, you lot, simmer down! Get lost, Pali, I can do my own announcements, thanks very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I have here, in this perfectly ordinary small green demonade bottle, the most won—’

  ‘What did you mean, “my assistant”?’ enquired Sharkadder.

  ‘Eh? Oh, shush, Sharky, now’s not the time to get on your high horse. Ahem. As I was saying, ladies and gentlemen . . .’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, but I’d like to get this clear from the start. What exactly did you mean by “my assistant”?’

  Pongwiffy’s brain spun madly. If Sharkadder took offence now, everything could be ruined. Luckily, inspiration came.

  ‘Because you’re the beautiful one, of course. Haven’t you ever noticed? Conjurors’ assistants are always very glamorous and dressed in lovely clothes and things. Like you.’