Witch Switch

by Sibéal Pounder

  ‘Just a minute!’ Mrs Clutterbuck called sweetly. A bead of sweat dribbled down her nose and plopped into a We-Hate-Celia-Crayfish cocktail.

  ‘We could always hide in the world above the pipes! Sneak out the back and up a pipe!’ Tiga cried. ‘They would never look there.’

  ‘I think it’s pretty safe to say Felicity Bat will be guarding the pipes,’ Mrs Clutterbuck rambled nervously. ‘She knows you know that world well, Tiga. She’d expect you to hide back up there.’

  ‘Well, we can’t let them find us,’ Tiga said. ‘They’d only do something to get us out of the way. Probably whatever they’ve done to Peggy!’

  Boom, boom, boom!

  The knocks were getting louder now.

  ‘Oh, boom, boom, BOOM,’ Fluffanora said, rolling her eyes. ‘She’s a complete pain!’

  Tiga leapt to her feet.

  ‘I know what to do!’ she cried. ‘The Boom!’

  She grabbed the Clutterbucks menu and waved it in Fluffanora’s face.

  CLUTTERBUCKS

  Makers of the best bubbly drinks since winks were invented

  Ritzy Original – 5 sinkels

  The Witching Whirl – 8 sinkels

  Flat-Hat Fizz – 6 sinkels

  The We-Hate-Celia-Crayfish Cocktail – 6 sinkels

  Witch Wars Mix – 5 sinkels

  The Big Exit Bubble Mix – 5 sinkels

  Brilliant Big Sue Supreme – 8 sinkels

  The Peggy Pigwiggle Punch – 8 sinkels

  BOOM* – 9,000 sinkels

  *WARNING: This drink transports you back in time for ten minutes to Ritzy City a hundred years ago. (Two hundred years ago if you drink it through your nose.)

  ‘What? Go back in time?’ Fluffanora said.

  BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. ‘If you don’t let us in, we will huff and we will puff and we will then kick the door until we have knocked it down!’ Felicity Bat said.

  ‘I’m not kicking the door, look at my shoes,’ they heard Aggie Hoof say.

  Mrs Clutterbuck shakily poured out some Boom drink.

  Fluffanora pulled 18,000 sinkels out of her pocket.

  Thank frogs they only needed to go back a hundred years, so Tiga didn’t have to drink the thing through her nose.

  ‘Good luck, dears,’ Mrs Clutterbuck said, as they downed the drinks. Mrs Clutterbuck’s voice instantly warped and became all funny – kind of like someone with a really squeaky voice speaking under water.

  Within seconds, it felt like they had turned to jelly and someone was gently rolling them down a hill.

  The knocking faded into the distance, and they could just about make out Mrs Clutterbuck saying, ‘They aren’t here, Felicity Bat …’

  10

  BOOM!

  Pretty soon, there was nothing but a bright white light and silence. Then Fluffanora said, from somewhere Tiga couldn’t see, ‘Is this what a hundred years ago looked like? It’s BORING.’

  BOOM!

  The pair of them were all of a sudden magically smack bang back in Clutterbucks, but not the Clutterbucks they knew. Not the Clutterbucks they had just left.

  There was no Felicity Bat and the place was awash with bright colours! Not the usual black, white and grey. And everyone was wearing huge dresses with big ruffles on the bottoms and much smaller hats.

  Tiga glanced around the room in amazement. Instead of the fancy Clutterbucks drinks machines, there were cauldrons bubbling everywhere and Mrs Clutterbuck looked about twelve.

  ‘Welcome to the past, dears!’ she cried. ‘Future me hasn’t sent anyone back on the BOOM in a very long time. I was worried something terrible had happened in the future! Like a spell had got out of hand and everyone had accidentally been turned into jam. Jam that was then eaten by some birds.’

  ‘That’s quite a specific worry,’ Fluffanora said.

  Mrs Clutterbuck spooned some liquid from the cauldron into two thin glasses. ‘When you want to go back, you drink these. Remember to drink it before the time is up or you will be stuck in the past FOR EVER.’

  Two other women popped up from behind the counter. They looked identical to Mrs Clutterbuck.

  ‘Hello, I’m Mrs Clutterbuck,’ one of them said.

  ‘And so am I,’ said the other.

  Tiga stared at them blankly. ‘Three Mrs Clutterbucks?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the first Mrs Clutterbuck. ‘We three sisters run this place.’

  ‘Clutterbucks was started by the three of them,’ Fluffanora whispered. ‘Two of them vanished during the Big Exit – went above the pipes with the evil witches.’

  Tiga eyed the other two suspiciously as they grinned and blinked at her.

  They didn’t look very evil …

  Tiga turned round slowly and took everything in. All the floating tables and chairs in Clutterbucks were the same, and the cakes. Lots of witches looked down at her from their floating chairs and waved. In a little cove in the wall a cluster of fairies was acting out some sort of play. One witch was holding up a crooked wand and flicking it in their direction.

  ‘Is she controlling them like puppets?’ Tiga asked.

  The witch flicked her wand again and sent a fairy soaring up and crashing back down. ‘Now dance!’ she cried as the other witches burst into a chorus of cackles and clapped.

  Fluffanora nodded. ‘Fairies were just things to play with in the olden days. They didn’t have any rights. They were kept like pets. And witches didn’t have TVs they could watch on the backs of spoons, so they would do live shows instead.’

  One of the fairies looked suspiciously like a very young Fran.

  ‘I think the play would be much better if you changed my line to –’

  ‘BE QUIET, FAIRY!’ the witch shouted.

  ‘That’s Fran!’ Tiga cried.

  The fairy looked up in amazement. ‘A fan?’ she mouthed, clutching her heart.

  Tiga waved.

  ‘Some things never change,’ Fluffanora said with a smile.

  ‘Why don’t witches use wands any more?’ Tiga asked. ‘I’ve not seen any around Ritzy City.’

  Fluffanora ran her finger along the edge of a cake and swirled the icing into a neat clump. ‘Wands look like twigs, Tiga. They are silly.’

  ‘Witches stopped using wands because they looked silly?’

  ‘Nah, that’s just my opinion,’ Fluffanora explained. ‘No, actually, wands were only used by witches for a brief spell of time, only for two hundred years or so. Traditionally witches used their fingers or made potions in cauldrons or spoke spells out loud. Then a very brash witch called Hilda Yoohoo! – that exclamation mark is part of her name – created wands and made them fashionable, said it was a great way for witches to enhance their spells. Apparently she got the idea when she went above the pipes and saw non-witches using these things called chopsticks to eat their food. Originally, when wands were first introduced, witches actually used two wands, like chopsticks, to cast spells. But that looked nuts so they stopped.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Tiga with a smile.

  ‘After a while, the fashion for wands faded and witches just started using their fingers again, sometimes decorating them instead. Like this.’ Fluffanora pulled a long piece of silver chain out of her pocket – it was covered in little silver stars. She wrapped it around her finger from top to bottom. ‘A witch doesn’t need a wand, you see. All the magic ultimately comes from the finger.’

  ‘OUCH!’ a witch yelled from the corner of the room. She was holding a hand over her eye.

  ‘Also, a lot of witches kept accidentally poking other witches in the eye.’

  Tiga giggled as the witch covering her eye threw a drink at her friend and shouted, ‘Why did you have to get the massive FORTY-SEVEN-INCH ONE, SUE?!’

  ‘Anyway, that’s enough on the history of the wand. We’re running out of time, Tiga – what should our plan be?’ Fluffanora asked. ‘Do we just wait here until the time is up?’

  ‘That’s all we can do, isn’t it?’

  �
�I suppose so …’ Fluffanora said, as a woman they both recognised glided past. She was wearing a floaty yellow dress covered in black and orange swirls. Her hat, like everyone else’s, was small – but it had a massive, fluffy pompom sitting on top of it. It looked, well, ridiculously fabulous.

  ‘EDDY EGGBY!’ they roared.

  Eddy Eggby was a famous fashion explorer (whatever that is) from the past whom Tiga had once learned about from the ancient cove witches. She had given Eddy Eggby’s fashion notes to Fluffanora as a present and it was fair to say that Fluffanora had since become OBSESSED with her. The strange thing was, no one knew what had happened to Eddy Eggby. About a hundred years ago she had just disappeared …

  ‘Fluffanora,’ Tiga said. ‘This is a hundred years ago, around the time Eddy Eggby went missing!’

  Eddy Eggby was eagerly swanning towards them, clearly intrigued by these two strangers who knew who she was and were clad in such strange clothes.

  ‘Eddy Eggby, Fashion Explorer,’ she said confidently, shaking Fluffanora’s hand.

  Fluffanora nearly fell off her seat.

  ‘We’re from the future,’ Tiga said, without thinking for a second how ridiculous that sounded.

  But Eddy Eggby wasn’t surprised at all. ‘Ah, that explains the clothes. I thought I’d missed a new fashion. You’ve been on the BOOM.’

  ‘Oh, Eddy Eggby,’ Fluffanora butted in. ‘I think something is going to happen to y–’

  ‘WHOOPS!’ cried Mrs Clutterbuck as she accidentally tipped an entire cauldron of juice over Fluffanora before she could finish her warning.

  ‘You can’t mess with the past,’ she whispered.

  Tiga nodded and took a different approach. ‘Where are you off to now, Eddy Eggby?’

  ‘Oh, above the pipes, of course! I need to stop off and see Cornelia Crayfish first, one of our old ruling witches. Her darling daughter, Celia, just turned one today, I’m going to give her this Clutterbucks drinks machine as a birthday gift – it’s a prototype, they haven’t started using them yet! Very special. It was wonderful to meet you both. Perhaps we will catch up and have a Clutterbucks in the future when I am much, much older!’

  ‘Perhaps …’ mumbled Fluffanora as she flicked her finger and tried to magic a hairdryer over her juice-soaked head. Of course they didn’t exist in the olden days so a huge old rag fell on her instead.

  And off Eddy Eggby went.

  Fluffanora ripped the rag off her head and turned to Tiga with her mouth hanging open. ‘Oh. My. FROGS.’

  ‘What?’ Tiga asked. But she knew what Fluffanora was getting at. Celia Crayfish, the baby Eddy Eggby just mentioned, was Felicity Bat’s grandmother. When she grew up she had become a ruling witch, the worst of the lot, most people said, apart from her fans.

  Fluffanora raised a finger in the air. ‘I think Celia Crayfish did something terrible to Eddy Eggby.’

  ‘You think a one-year-old did something terrible to Eddy Eggby?’ Tiga asked.

  Fluffanora nodded. ‘YES. I think we’ve landed right smack bang on the day Eddy Eggby went missing! I’ve been researching her a lot and she’s wearing the same outfit as the one she was wearing on the day she disappeared!’

  ‘Maybe she wore it more than once, Fluffanora …’

  ‘No, Tiga! Eddy Eggby never wore the same thing more than once! She was famous for it! That hat – she only wore it once, and I remember that pattern on the dress. Her disappearance must have something to do with that evil baby!’

  Tiga didn’t agree, but since being adopted by the Brews she had learned that there was no use trying to change Fluffanora’s mind.

  ‘We need to go back soon,’ Tiga said. ‘I hope Felicity Bat isn’t still in Clutterbucks.’

  ‘Why don’t you go in disguise?’ Mrs Clutterbuck of The Past suggested.

  ‘Yes!’ Tiga and Fluffanora cried.

  ‘But where do we get disguises?’ Tiga asked, peering out of the small hatch. Tiga could see a group of witches huddled outside.

  ‘I heard she’s bringing it into town to pick up Eddy Eggby,’ the tallest witch said.

  ‘They say it’s beyond evil. Last thing we want around here is an evil baby,’ another added.

  ‘I told you,’ Fluffanora hissed at Tiga.

  ‘You don’t have much time, you need to hurry,’ the first Mrs Clutterbuck said as she wriggled out of her skirt. ‘Here, take my skirt.’

  Her pants were as ruffled as her skirt.

  ‘And you can have my hat and shawl,’ another witch said, throwing it at Tiga.

  ‘You’d better get back on the BOOM,’ Mrs Clutterbuck said, pushing the drink into Tiga’s hand. ‘Before it’s too late.’

  Fluffanora held her nose and gulped it down. ‘One, two …’

  BOOM!

  Inferior Fashion Followers! In today’s Toad we will be discussing a lot of stuff about me. I was thinking of changing the name of the magazine simply to HOOF. Or something that combines the two names, like Toof. Hoad? Hoofoad? But actually I can’t be bothered.

  Now, NEW TREND ALERT: Wearable Cats.

  It occurred to me, completely by myself and not because I saw Fluffanora do it, that we just do not take advantage of the fact that there are so many cats that we could wear.

  They are soft and fluffy and have claws so they can attach themselves to any outfit. You could, say, put one on your head, like a hat, or get a load of them to stick their claws into your legs and form a skirt shape.

  Fashion is full of endless possibilities. And one of those possibilities is catwear.

  I have put together some examples of how you could wear cats, modelled by me. First up, the casually cool, CAT CARDIGAN.

  I know, I look GREAT.

  Or why not make a statement with some CAT SHOES?

  Note: difficult to walk without the cats running away.

  And now, finally, for those cold winter nights, why not go for this CATSUIT?

  11

  The Secret Passageway

  ‘I can barely see!’ Tiga shouted through the shawl that Fluffanora had draped over her hat.

  ‘Shhh,’ Fluffanora said, in her huge Mrs Clutterbuck dress, as she wriggled her ruffle-bottomed way down the street and through an open window at the back of the Brews’ house.

  Inside, Mrs Brew’s office had been ransacked. ‘Felicity Bat and Aggie Hoof have obviously been here looking for us,’ Tiga whispered, climbing over the piles of paper and fabric on the floor.

  ‘Well, that’s good. That means they won’t be back,’ Fluffanora said.

  ‘For now …’ Tiga grumbled. ‘Or they could still be in the house …’

  Fluffanora thought about this for a moment. ‘Well then, let’s take the secret passageway upstairs. They won’t know about that.’

  Mrs Brew had had the secret passageway built so she could zoom from her office to any room in the house in an instant.

  She mainly used it for zooming to the kitchen for snacks.

  All you had to do was sit on the chair behind the desk and mumble,

  Secret chair, secret chair, take me to,

  YOU KNOW WHERE.

  And it would take you to whichever room in the house you were thinking about.

  Fluffanora jumped on to the chair and Tiga squeezed in next to her. She inhaled a mouthful of fabric – the skirt was so ruffley that when smooshed on the chair both of them could barely see over the layers and layers of fabric.

  ‘You give the order,’ Fluffanora said, slapping Tiga’s leg. Tiga closed her eyes, mumbled the magic words and thought of Mrs Brew’s bedroom upstairs.

  ‘We’ll pick up some supplies and then we’ll set out to find Peggy,’ Tiga said as she took off her hat and the annoying shawl.

  The chair spun around. The desk moved backwards and the carpet underneath it rolled up, revealing a trap door in the floor.

  Fluffanora sighed and inspected her nails – she had taken the chair a million times. Tiga, who had only ever been shown the chair, and told never to use it
, clung on for dear life.

  The chair dived forward into the darkness and whooshed along a dark corridor.

  Little lanterns lined the walls, which were decorated with hundreds of sketches of dresses.

  The chair zoomed left and then right and then began moving upwards, like a lift, spinning as it went.

  Tiga squeezed her eyes shut.

  When she opened them again, the chair was moving quickly along another corridor. A nightdress magically appeared on top of the dress Tiga was wearing. And then some slippers magically appeared on her feet. Tiga looked up just in time to see a hairnet being lowered on to her head. It came down too far and stuck to her face instead.

  Then a glittery powder floated down on to them.

  ‘That’s beautiful,’ Tiga said through the hairnet.

  Fluffanora’s eyes widened. ‘Did you think about Mum’s bedroom when you got in the chair?’

  Tiga nodded. ‘Yeah, why?’

  ‘SHE FINDS IT DIFFICULT TO SLEEP SO SHE MADE THAT GLITTERY STUFF TO HELP HER SL–’

  ‘Fluffanora?’ Tiga asked, as Fluffanora’s head lolled forward and she snorted and snored loudly.

  And then everything went black.

  12

  Felicity Bat Makes a Plan

  Meanwhile, back at Linden House …

  ‘Fel-Fel! Fel-Fel! Fel-Fel! Do you want to read my article for Toad, Fel-Fel? It’s excellent.’

  Felicity Bat shoved her out of the way. ‘No. I’m thinking. I can’t believe you lost them!’

  ‘You did too,’ Aggie Hoof dared to point out.

  ‘I’M THINKING!’ Felicity Bat snapped.

  ‘Plotting-thinking, Fel-Fel?’

  ‘Always,’ Felicity Bat snapped.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re plotting-thinking very hard, because wherever Tiga and Fluffanora are hiding it is a very hidden spot,’ Aggie Hoof said.

  Felicity Bat clenched her fists. ‘They aren’t going to ruin this for me. I am meant to rule Sinkville. ME! My family rules Sinkville the best – we always have and we always will. Sinkville is MINE.’