by Kaye Umansky
‘And vot he say?’ asked Hugo, struggling with a box of matches that was bigger than he was.
‘He said he didn’t call himself a Magic Shop, he called himself an Umbrella Shop. And he took me outside, and there it was. Malpractiss Umbrellas Ltd, right across the shop front. Trust him to cash in on the bad weather.’
‘Did you buy umbrella?’ enquired Hugo.
‘Of course I did. It was raining.’
‘Zere you are, zen! Take it and go visit a friend!’ cried Hugo.
‘No one wants me,’ explained Pongwiffy with a hurt little sniff. ‘Everyone’s got colds. No one’s answering their door, even Sharkadder. Yesterday I took her round a lovely Get Well card and Dudley scratched me and wouldn’t let me in. Huh! And she calls herself my best friend.’
‘Does she?’ asked Hugo doubtfully.
‘Certainly she does. And she was mine. Until yesterday. Now she’s my worst enemy, and I’m never speaking to her again. I’m going to tear up the card I bought her. On second thoughts, I’ll cross out the “Well” and write “Knotted” instead. Where’s a pencil?’
She sprang from her chair, marched to the kitchen table, pulled out the drawer and upended it on the floor. Hugo shook his head resignedly as she scrabbled about on hands and knees, hurling things over her shoulder and muttering, ‘A pencil, a pencil, where’s a flipping pencil?’
Then, all of a sudden, she stopped, sat back and rubbed her eyes.
‘Oh, Hugo,’ she said weakly. ‘Just listen to me. I’ve done nothing but shout at you all morning. You, my very own little Familiar who’s been so good to me. And now I’m about to send my very best friend a Get Knotted card. Whatever is happening to me? I’m changing personality.’
‘Is because you cooped up. You bored, zat’s all.’
‘I am, I am, you’re absolutely right. I need a change of scene.’
‘Vell, tonight you get ze chance. It ze monthly Meetink in Vitchvay Hall, seven-thirty sharp, remember? See all your friends. Have little chat, ya?’
‘I don’t mean that sort of change. Who wants to turn out on a rainy night to go to a boring old Coven Meeting? Half of them probably won’t turn up anyway, specially as it’s Gaga’s turn to bring the sandwiches. If I wasn’t Treasurer this month, I don’t think I’d bother to go. But Sourmuddle says I’ve got to take along the Coven savings.’
She glanced at her bed, under which the official Coven money box (labelled COVEN FUNDS – DO NOT TOUCH) was hidden, in case of burglars. And a very good place it was too. Any burglar who would remove something from under Pongwiffy’s bed would have to be really keen.
‘She wants to check and make sure I haven’t spent any,’ continued Pongwiffy, sounding slightly miffed. ‘I don’t think she trusts me – can’t think why. No, I mean a real change. Just go away for a few days, get away from all this rain . . .’
Right on cue, there came an interruption. The letter box flapped, and something flopped on to the mat. From outside, there came the sound of receding footsteps and the faint strains of tuneless singing, which soon mercifully died away to nothing.
‘Oh, goody!’ cried Pongwiffy, leaping to her feet. ‘The Daily Miracle’s arrived. At least I can do the crossword puzzle!’
And she scurried across to pick it up. But it wasn’t the paper. It was something much more interesting than that. There it lay, all glossy and gleaming, contrasting strangely with the surrounding Wilderness Where No Broom Dare Go (Pongwiffy’s floor). A small, square, sunny, bright blue island of paradise amidst a sea of squalor.
‘Well now,’ said Pongwiffy, a gleam in her eye. ‘Here’s an interesting thing! Look what’s just arrived, Hugo.’
Excitedly, she held it up.
‘ “Sludgehaven-on-Sea – Where Fun, Excitement and Olde Worlde Charm Combine to Create that Special Holiday Magic!” Oh, Hugo. Doesn’t it look lovely? Look at the colour of that sky! Not a cloud to be seen. Just think of it. Kippers for breakfast. Strolls along the prom. Sunshine. Sea breezes. That’d blow the cobwebs away.’
‘It take more zan sea breeze to blow zose cobvebs avay,’ observed Hugo, glancing grimly up at the shadowy ceiling, where dozens of cheeky spiders were currently running around with thimbles, trying to prevent their rafter from flooding. ‘It take typhoon to shift zat lot.’
‘I meant the cobwebs in our brains, silly. Oh, imagine going to the seaside, Hugo, you and me. Better still, what if we could all go! The whole Coven. Familiars, Brooms, everybody! Wouldn’t it be fun?’
She scuttled across to the kitchen table and settled herself down, thumbing through the glossy pages.
‘There’s even a pier, Hugo. I’ve always wanted to visit a pier. There’s a Hall of Mirrors and a Haunted House – and it says here “Star-studded entertainment in the Pier Pavilion”. Oh my! Do you know what I think, Hugo? I think I’m going to suggest it. I shall take this along to the Meeting tonight and persuade Sourmuddle that what everyone needs is a holiday.’
‘You never do it,’ said Hugo flatly. ‘ ’Olidays cost money. You know Sourmuddle. She don’t like to part viz ze money.’
‘Ah,’ said Pongwiffy. It was a meaningful sort of ah. ‘Ah. But she hasn’t got the money, has she? I’m Treasurer this month, remember? And what’s done can’t be undone, if you know what I mean.’
Hugo looked up sharply. His eyes widened.
‘You vouldn’t dare! Not vizout Sourmuddle’s permission!’
‘Why not? There’s loads in the money box.’
‘But zat not ours! It ze official Coven savinks!’
‘So? What are we saving it for?’
‘A rainy day. So Sourmuddle say.’
‘Well, there you are, then!’ cried Pongwiffy triumphantly. ‘You couldn’t get a rainier day than this, could you? No, Hugo, I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to go right ahead and book it. I’ll spring it on them as a lovely surprise. “Pongwiffy,” they’ll say, “trust you to come up with yet another brilliant idea . . .” ’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Hugo doubtfully.
‘No, actually,’ admitted Pongwiffy. ‘But I’m doing it anyway.’
CHAPTER TWO
The Meeting
‘All right,’ called Grandwitch Sourmuddle, Mistress of the Witchway Coven, banging her Wand sharply on the long trestle table. ‘Stop coughing, everyone, I’m about to take the register. The sooner I get it done the sooner I can deliver my summing-up moan and we can all go home. Pass me the register, Snoop.’
The small Demon sitting next to her obediently began to rummage around in a large bin liner.
‘How can we stop coughing?’ Witch Scrofula wanted to know. ‘You can’t stop coughing just like that.’
To prove her point, she coughed all over Witch Ratsnappy, who was sitting next to her. Ratsnappy retaliated by blowing her nose in Scrofula’s face, but Scrofula by now had moved on into a fit of sneezing and didn’t appear to notice.
‘Excuse me, Sourmuddle,’ interrupted Witch Greymatter, looking up from the poem she was currently co-writing with Speks (her Owl Familiar). It was entitled ‘Ode to Rain’ and Greymatter was rather hoping to read it out. ‘There are only six of us here. You, me, Scrofula, Macabre, Ratsnappy and Sharkadder. Everyone else is at home in bed. It’s hardly worth calling the register. It’s just a process of simple deduction.’
‘Hmm. All right, then. Who’s missing?’
‘Agglebag and Bagaggle, Bendyshanks, Bonidle, Gaga and Sludgegooey. Oh, and Pongwiffy. They’ve dictated a general sick note which they’ve all signed, except Pongwiffy. Shall I read it out?’
‘Go ahead,’ nodded Sourmuddle.
‘ “We the undersigned are all very poorly and can’t come to the Meeting.” ’
‘Well, that’s a bit of a cheek,’ complained Scrofula. ‘Barry and I succeeded in struggling along, though I don’t know how we managed it, do you, Barry? With our bad backs.’
The bald Vulture hunched mournfully on the back of her chair confirmed that no, he didn’t know h
ow they had managed it either.
‘Bad back? Is that all?’ sneered Witch Sharkadder, who was sitting on Scrofula’s right. She was dabbing delicately at her long red nose, which had developed a very nasty cold sore. ‘You wait till you’ve got ’flu, like me. And Duddles has it too, don’t you, darling?’
Dead Eye Dudley, the one-eyed tomcat, looked up from her bony lap and leered.
‘What aboot me, then?’ chimed in Witch Macabre from the depths of a large tartan hanky. ‘Ah’ve got bronchitis, a sore throat, gout an’ a frozen shoulder. And Ah’ve got Rory at home wi’ foot an’ mouth disease. Plus mah bagpipes have got the mange . . .’
But Macabre was unable to complete her catalogue of disasters. She was drowned out in a chorus of jeers.
‘Is that all? That’s nothing! I’ve got all that, and funny little red spots besides!’
‘Ah, but I’ve got all that and athlete’s foot!’
‘I’ve got a runny eye! Has anyone else here got a runny eye? Tell me that!’
Sourmuddle banged her gavel, and gradually the pathetic outcry died down, finally fizzling out in a sickly chorus of snuffles and sneezes and eye-wipings from Ratsnappy, who did indeed have a runny eye.
‘Order, order! Well, all right, so none of us is well, we all know that. It’s this dratted rain, gets into your bones.’
‘Talking about rain,’ said Greymatter, ‘I’ve got a poem here which I’d like to read out. It’s called “Ode to Rain”.
‘Rain, rain, you run down the pane.
Rain, rain, you go down the drain.
Rain, rain, you give me a pain.
Rain, rain, you’re hurting my brain.
Rain, rain, I wish you’d refrain.
Rain, rain, you make a worse noise than a train . . .’
‘I don’t think that last bit was very good,’ observed Ratsnappy.
Greymatter paused and gave her a steely glare.
‘Sorry,’ muttered Ratsnappy. ‘Do go on.’
‘Rain, rain, you’ll drive me insane.
Rain, rain, I wish you were champagne.
Or maybe chow mein.
And then I’d catch you in a bucket and eat you.’
‘That’s the end. Thank you.’
She sat down to a thin sprinkling of applause.
‘Thank you, Greymatter, that was very nice,’ said Sourmuddle. ‘And now I think we’d better move on to the main business of the evening. We’ll keep it short, because I for one am keen on getting home to a nice lemon drink.’
‘I don’t know why you’re complaining, Sourmuddle,’ sniffed Sharkadder. ‘You tell us all we mustn’t use Magic to interfere with the weather, but I notice you’ve got your own private bubble of dry air around you whenever you go out. I don’t think you’ve got wet once.’
‘That’s because I’m Grandwitch,’ said Sourmuddle. ‘And Grandwitches do what they like. And right now I’d like to have a sharp word with our missing Treasurer. She’s supposed to be bringing along the Coven funds for me to count. Anyone seen Pongwiffy recently?’
Everyone looked at Sharkadder, who was Pongwiffy’s best friend. Sometimes.
‘Don’t look at me,’ said Sharkadder with a shrug. ‘I’ve been in bed, remember?’
‘Anybody else had a sighting?’ enquired Sourmuddle.
It transpired that no one had seen Pongwiffy for a day or two. That was funny, because usually everybody saw a great deal too much of her, particularly at mealtimes.
‘Hmm,’ said Sourmuddle. ‘That’s worrying. Let’s hope our savings are safe. All right, let’s move on. Anybody got anything they want to discuss? No new spells? Recipes? Knitting patterns? Cold remedies? Anyone whacked any Goblins into next week? No? Deary me, it has been a slow month. What’s got into you lot? Call yourself Witches or what?’
‘Well, I don’t know about anybody else, but Barry and I have been much too ill to think about a thing,’ said Scrofula huffily.
‘That’s right, Sourmuddle,’ agreed Macabre. ‘None of us ha been up to it. There’s noo point in going on. We’re all run doon. Ye can’t make Magic when ye’re run doon. Apart from anything else, your nose keeps drippin’ in the brew . . .’
But she didn’t get the chance to finish, for the door suddenly blew open, admitting a squally shower of rain, a blast of chill air and a very familiar smell. Several candles flickered out and Sourmuddle’s register blew off the table. Barry the Vulture lost his grip on the chair-back and dropped to the floor, banging his head quite badly.
‘Sorry I’m late, everyone!’ cried a cheery voice. ‘Go ahead, start the Meeting, Sourmuddle, don’t wait for me. Hugo, you can come out now. We’re here.’
And in marched Pongwiffy, rain dripping from her rags, trailing muddy footprints behind her. Two pink paws appeared over the edge of her pocket and Hugo’s small furry head poked out. He spotted Dudley and immediately stuck his tongue out. Dudley stiffened and dug his claws into Sharkadder’s thighs.
‘Don’t do that, Dudley, darling,’ said Sharkadder with a little wince. ‘It hurts Mummy.’
‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, turning up now, Pongwiffy,’ Sourmuddle said sharply as Pongwiffy pulled up a chair. ‘I particularly asked you to be early so that I could count the Coven funds.’
‘Ah,’ said Pongwiffy. ‘Ah yes. The funds.’
‘The funds. I take it you’ve brought them?’
‘Ah,’ hedged Pongwiffy. ‘Well, actually, Sourmuddle, there is a slight problem with that.’
‘What d’you mean, problem? You don’t mean to tell me you’ve forgotten?’
‘Not exactly forgotten.’
‘Lost? You haven’t lost them, have you?’
‘Not exactly. More kind of – spent,’ admitted Pongwiffy, adding hastily, ‘But don’t panic, Sourmuddle, it wasn’t on myself. This will benefit everybody. The whole Coven.’
‘Spent?’ quavered Sourmuddle weakly, hand over her heart. ‘Spent? All our money?’
‘Yes, actually. But you’ll be thrilled when you hear what I spent it on. Look at this! This’ll cheer you up no end.’
And with a dramatic flourish, she took the brochure out from beneath her cardigan and slapped it triumphantly on the table, right under Sourmuddle’s nose.
‘We,’ she announced, ‘are going on holiday!’
CHAPTER THREE
Plans
‘“Sludgehaven-on-Sea,” ’ read Sourmuddle slowly, peering over her half-glasses at the glossy brochure, on which the Banshee bathers cavorted. ‘ “Where Fun, Excitement and Olde Worlde Charm Combine to Create that Special Holiday Magic!” What’s this all about, Pongwiffy?’
‘That’s it,’ said Pongwiffy. ‘That’s where we’re going. I’ve booked us seven carefree, sun-soaked days in glorious Sludgehaven. It’s all organised. I’ve done everything. I’ve even ordered a luxury motor coach to take us there. And yes, I used the Coven savings and I know I should have asked you first, Sourmuddle, but I knew you’d all thank me. I mean, look at us. I’ve never seen such a sickly bunch. If there’s one thing we all need, it’s a holiday. Don’t you agree?’ She appealed to the room in general.
The sickly bunch stared back at her. For the moment, even the coughing had been shocked into submission.
‘Holiday?’ said Greymatter, rolling the word experimentally around her mouth. ‘What, us?’
‘Us,’ said Pongwiffy firmly. ‘A lovely holiday in the sun.’
‘But we’re Witches. We’re noo supposed tae like sun. We’re supposed tae like blasted heaths and drippy caves,’ objected Macabre, who was a strong traditionalist.
‘Ah, but you like ice cream though, don’t you?’ asked Pongwiffy slyly. Macabre had to agree that yes, she liked ice cream. Especially porridge-flavoured.
‘Well, sea air would certainly be efficacious in removing the possibility of further infection,’ said Greymatter, who never used a short, simple word where a long, complicated one would do.
‘Absolutely!’ cried Pongwiffy, wh
o hadn’t understood a word but had a feeling that Greymatter was on her side.
‘It says here there are lots of rock pools full of jelly-like things with legs,’ observed Ratsnappy, craning over Sourmuddle’s shoulder and pointing at the brochure.
‘There you are, you see, it’s educational as well!’ cried Pongwiffy enthusiastically. ‘I knew you’d like that, Ratsnappy, with your interest in disgusting life forms. And there’s a pier with a Hall of Mirrors and a Haunted House and stuff. And Punch and Judy and clock golf and – oh, all sorts of things. So – er – what d’you say, Sourmuddle?’
All this time, Sourmuddle had been flipping over the pages of the brochure. Now she looked up.
‘I say you’re a rotten Treasurer, Pongwiffy,’ she said sternly. ‘You had no right to use our savings. We’re supposed to take a vote before we spend any money and then I overrule everyone and spend it on what I like. It’s in the Rule Book. I’ve a good mind to expel you from the Coven. For misappropriation of funds.’
There was a concerted gasp. Expulsion from the Coven! That was the worst punishment anyone could think of. Dudley sat up, looking hopeful. If Pongwiffy was expelled, that would mean at long last he would see the back of that cocky Hamster and regain his rightful place as leader of the Familiars. Oh joy! Oh fish heads and crab sticks, could it be?
‘On the other hand . . .’ Sourmuddle paused, ‘on the other hand, I am over two hundred years old. It’s time I had a break. We’ll take a vote on it. All those in favour of a holiday say “Aye”.’
‘Aye!’ came the thunderous response.
‘The ayes have it. Pongwiffy, you’re off the hook.’
‘One moment,’ said Greymatter. ‘What about our poor sick friends?’
‘What about them?’ asked Sourmuddle.
‘Well, they haven’t voted, and this is supposed to be a democratic Coven.’
‘Only when I say so,’ said Sourmuddle firmly. ‘And I say we’re going on holiday.’
A great cheer went up. Disgustedly, Dudley jumped from Sharkadder’s lap and went to sulk under the table.