Witch Switch

by Sibéal Pounder

  ‘I didn’t realise Sinkville was yours, but that explains why you get so angry and your face goes like that when other witches try to stop you,’ Aggie Hoof said airily. ‘I’m surprised more witches aren’t on your side considering Sinkville is yours …’

  Felicity Bat stared at Aggie Hoof and then grinned.

  Aggie Hoof wasn’t used to the grinning so she took a nervous step backwards.

  ‘We’ve been wasting time looking for them when we can make the other witches do it for us!’ Felicity Bat said, as she opened a book titled The Celia Crayfish Years.

  ‘But how, Fel-Fel?

  Felicity Bat cupped her hands to her mouth and started mumbling some words.

  ‘What are you doing, Fel-Fel?’

  ‘Starting a storm,’ Felicity Bat said with a cackle.

  ‘But I HATE storms.’

  Outside the window on Ritzy Avenue, everything grew darker. A crack of thunder sounded as the wind picked up and thousands of bits of paper flew past, soaring fast and flapping furiously. One stuck to the window.

  ‘Oooh,’ said Aggie Hoof.

  WANTED. SHE’S NOT A WITCH was stamped on the paper, along with a huge picture of Tiga’s face.

  Aggie Hoof shook her head. ‘Lots of witches won’t bother to read that, I never read stuff like that.’

  Felicity Bat smirked. ‘I’m not finished …’

  She cupped her hands to her mouth again, mumbled something and then clapped her hands once.

  Aggie Hoof raised an eyebrow. ‘What did you just do?’

  Felicity Bat said nothing.

  ‘What did you do, Fel-Fel? Was it–’ She looked down at her skirt.

  ‘Ooh, my skirt’s made of paper posters!’ she squealed. ‘… OH MY FROGCAKES, FEL-FEL! DID YOU KNOW TIGA’S WANTED FOR NOT BEING A WITCH?!’

  13

  Dribble

  Tiga and Fluffanora had been lying in a ruffled heap on the chair for an hour before something made them stir.

  ‘Idiots,’ a cat hissed.

  Tiga rubbed her eyes. A fuzzy ball of black fluff slowly came into view.

  ‘Mrs Pumpkin?’ Tiga mumbled, as the cat jumped on to Fluffanora and batted her face with her paw.

  Fluffanora wiped some dribble off her chin. ‘Wha– where? DRAGONS!’

  Tiga got up and steadied herself.

  ‘Tiga, your skirt!’ Fluffanora gasped. ‘It’s made of posters!’

  ‘Idiots,’ Mrs Pumpkin hissed again.

  Tiga bent over and read her skirt. ‘It says … Not … a … witch. But I am a witch!’

  ‘What does the small print say?’ Fluffanora asked, holding up her own skirt, also made of Felicity Bat’s silly posters.

  ‘It says she will destroy us all,’ Tiga grumbled.

  ‘No she won’t! You’ve beaten Felicity Bat once, you’ll beat her again.’

  ‘No, that’s what the poster says – about me. “Tiga Whicabim will destroy us all,”’ Tiga said, slumping on the ground.

  ‘Ah,’ said Fluffanora, waving her hand dismissively. ‘Well, that’s just ridiculous. Who’s going to believe that?’

  ‘We need to find Fran,’ Tiga said.

  Fluffanora stared at Tiga for a moment. ‘Or … maybe … we could, I don’t know, not find Fran? She’s loud. You’re a wanted witch. That’s a dangerous pairing if ever I heard one. Also her glittery dust, Tiga. It gets everywhere.’

  Tiga laughed. ‘No, we need Fran. I just have no idea how we’re going to find her if I have to hide.’

  ‘I am as sure as a frog in the rain that good old Fran will find us,’ Fluffanora said as Mrs Pumpkin wandered over to the window and miaowed pointedly.

  Tiga got off the chair and followed her and peeked outside. Over a hundred witches had already assembled on the street.

  ‘Psst,’ one of the witches whispered. ‘Maybe Tiga Whicabim’s hiding in here …’

  ‘They say she’s the reason Peggy left,’ another whispered. ‘You can’t be too near to a non-witch, it does strange things to you. She drove Peggy away!’

  ‘Frogmuffins, this is not good,’ Tiga grumbled.

  ‘I THINK I JUST SAW HER IN CAKES, PIES AND THAT’S ABOUT IT, REALLY!’ a witch roared, and off they all scuttled down the road.

  ‘You never know … they might not be trying to hunt you down,’ Fluffanora said as she peered nervously out of the window at all the witches charging down the road in SHE’S NOT A WITCH poster skirts.

  14

  Tiga and Fluffanora Also Make a Plan

  Tiga sat curled up on her bed as Fluffanora paced the room. Tiga’s slug was peering out through the window of its little doll’s house at her. Mrs Brew had bewitched the doll’s house so that when the slug slimed its way around, the doors to the various rooms opened for it. And the stairs moved like an escalator.

  ‘We don’t have time for this nonsense,’ Tiga said. ‘I can’t believe they think I’m to blame for her disappearance. I just don’t understand what could have happened to her – she could be anywhere!’

  Fluffanora nodded, ‘Mmm, it’s weird … She went to see Celia Crayfish and then, GONE.’

  ‘FLUFFANORA!’ Tiga yelled, leaping to her feet. ‘Focus! We are meant to be looking for Peggy. I was talking about Peggy. P-E-G-G-Y. We are meant to be looking for her. Not Eddy Eggby. Stop thinking about where Eddy Eggby disappeared to. That was hundreds of years ago.’

  ‘Only one hundred,’ Fluffanora corrected her. ‘But, yes, sorry. You’re right. Peggy first.’

  She opened the black iron gate that surrounded her side of the room, climbed up the spiral staircase that led to her bed and plonked herself down.

  They had decided, when Tiga moved in, to share a room. Tiga’s side was all neat and filled with bookshelves crammed with spell books. Her bed was a simple four-poster one and Mrs Brew had designed a special fabric with a slug print to hang as curtains around it.

  Fluffanora’s side of the room was a lot busier. She had a large traffic light that had fallen from one of the pipes years ago. When Tiga moved in, Fluffanora had removed the lights and bewitched a picture of Eddy Eggby’s face into the ‘go’ part, and a picture of a squashed frog into the ‘stop’ part. Eddy Eggby’s face meant you could enter; the squashed frog meant you could not.

  Behind the traffic light was an iron fence with lots of clothes hanging off it. Beyond the iron fence, Tiga found when she was allowed inside for the first time, sat a squishy sofa and an armchair, around a little table that was magic – a hand always popped out of it holding your favourite cake. Fluffanora also had a magic teacup that refilled with tea as soon as you finished it. And she had pristine bookshelves filled with her favourite stories from when she was little. Tiga’s favourite was Melissa’s Broken Broom by a witch called Gloria Tatty. It was Sinkville’s bestselling picture book and it was about a little girl called Melissa who kept trying to eat her broom and breaking it. Tiga’s favourite chapter was the one where Melissa made an elaborate sandwich with all kinds of layers (including a broom layer!) and then tried to eat it, breaking four of her teeth.

  Then you climbed a spiral staircase to Fluffanora’s bed, which sat high up in the room – so high you could touch the roof when you lay down. The roof was bewitched to look like the world above the pipes.

  Tiga would lie in her bed and crane her neck over the edge so she could see the buses and dogs and people running past.

  Of course, it was only what Mrs Brew imagined the world above the pipes to be, so occasionally a pigeon the size of a car would waddle past. Or someone would be flying on a Hoover.

  ‘We have no evidence to go on. All we know is two days ago Peggy was in Linden House and now she isn’t,’ Fluffanora shouted down.

  Tiga stood up and walked over to the traffic light. It changed from the squashed frog to Eddy Eggby.

  ‘ENTER!’ Fluffanora called.

  Tiga walked through the iron gate, past the little table, which offered her a strawberry tart, and up the spiral staircase to Fluffanora�
�s bed.

  ‘I don’t even know where to begin,’ Tiga said with a sigh. She flicked her finger and a little notebook appeared in her hand, along with a pen. It started scribbling what Tiga was saying. ‘Peggy could be anywhere. Who knows where she went from Linden House.’

  Fluffanora grabbed the pen and chucked it away. ‘Let’s just keep it simple. The last known place she was seen was Linden House, so we start there.’

  ‘How are we going to get in there without being seen?’ Tiga said with a sigh.

  Fluffanora jumped off her bed and slid down the spiral staircase. She flicked her finger and one of the bookshelves swung open, revealing a huge walk-in wardrobe.

  ‘We’ll get in, Tiga, don’t you worry.’

  Tiga followed her. ‘Fluffanora, there is no way we can sneak in there. It’s too risky.’

  ‘We aren’t going to sneak in, Tiga …’

  ‘What?’ Tiga said, instantly intrigued, as Fluffanora chucked clothes all over the place.

  ‘We are going straight in through the front door. All we need is a good disguise …’

  15

  Shoeland

  ‘You’re from where?’ Aggie Hoof said, an eyebrow raised.

  ‘Smock Alley in the distant town of … Shoeland,’ Tiga said in a sort of old-lady-who-has-just-stubbed-her-toe voice. She adjusted her disguise, pulling her hat forward over her eyes. She was wearing an outfit Fluffanora had hastily thrown together for her – a combination of one of Fluffanora’s black fluffy jumpers and a DISGUSTING spotted, frilly skirt Fran had bought Tiga as a Welcome to Ritzy City, For Ever! present. Fluffanora had fastened the skirt and top together with some huge black and white buttons. It looked outrageous.

  ‘Shoeland …’ Aggie Hoof repeated.

  Smock Alley was in fact a real place. It was in Silver City, the next biggest city in Sinkville after Ritzy City. Mrs Brew had studied design there when she was younger and Fluffanora had been once. But Shoeland was completely made up by Tiga in a moment of panic.

  ‘You haven’t heard of Shoeland?’ Fluffanora bellowed in a deep and raspy voice, while shooting Tiga a look. ‘Why, I thought you knew everything about fashion. You are the editor of Toad!’

  ‘Oh, I do, and I’ve definitely heard of Shoeland,’ Aggie Hoof insisted. ‘It’s … lovely there.’

  ‘Can we come in, then?’ Tiga asked. ‘We have many outfits for you to try on – very exclusive. No one in all of Bootland, I mean Shoeland, has seen them yet. And certainly no one from Ritzy City!’

  Aggie Hoof giggled and leapt about on the spot. ‘Oh, I’ll be the first to see! Is that silly skirt you’re wearing going to be the next big thing?’

  Fluffanora looked down at the garment she’d made by attaching teacups to her skirt and wrapping about ten glittery belts around it. ‘No, this is actually almost out of fashion now. But we have some FABULOUS new things in these boxes here …’

  ‘YOU MUST COME IN!’ Aggie Hoof squealed, eagerly eyeing the boxes. ‘I want to see EVERYTHING!’

  And in the two of them went, right through the front door, just like Fluffanora had said they would.

  ‘Shoeland. Really?! You almost blew it!’ Fluffanora hissed at Tiga.

  ‘Is your little friend here, dear?’ Fluffanora asked Aggie Hoof as she nervously peered down the corridor.

  Aggie Hoof might have fallen for their disguises, but Felicity Bat certainly wouldn’t.

  ‘She’s out getting everything set up for the Witch Trials!’ Aggie Hoof said from the screen she was changing behind. ‘She’s going to put Tiga on trial when the townspeople find her!’

  Tiga wiped a bead of sweat off her head and straightened up her wig. ‘We don’t have time for dressing-up games,’ she whispered to Fluffanora.

  ‘Oh come on, it’s hilarious,’ Fluffanora said as Aggie Hoof emerged from the changing room.

  ‘So I hook the shoes over my ears?’ she asked as she hooked a shoe heel over her ear. ‘And it’s really the new fashion to wear the pants over your skirt?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Fluffanora said, stifling a giggle. ‘Now, let’s make sure we get a picture.’

  ‘May I use your bathroom?’ Tiga asked.

  ‘Along the corridor,’ Aggie Hoof said as she pulled a pair of tights on to her head.

  ‘So beautiful,’ Fluffanora said.

  Tiga tore down the corridor.

  ‘Peggy?’ she hissed.

  ‘PEGGY?’

  Right, I am an evil witch and I need to hide another witch. Where do I hide her? Tiga thought.

  In a cupboard!

  Under a rug!

  Behind a curtain!

  She didn’t come up with anything good!

  ‘Pegs? Where are you?’ she called as she dived in and out of rooms.

  She stopped by the study. A lone lamp sat on the desk casting a warm light over a pile of papers. Tiga scuttled into the room and began rifling through them.

  ‘I think this outfit will do. You’re right, it is better with the pants over my skirt,’ she heard Aggie Hoof say. ‘You sure know fashion in Shoeland. And the hats on my feet, what do you call them?’

  ‘… Hateels,’ Tiga heard Fluffanora say.

  The papers were useless. Tiga flicked through them, discarding them as she went. Mostly they were requests for law changes that had been sent from other witches. Just as Tiga was giving up, she spotted something. It was a small scrap of paper, but it was clearly Peggy’s handwriting in the corner.

  Call Miss Flint about the doll

  Miss Flint was the owner of Desperate Dolls, the creepy doll shop in the Docks. Tiga stuffed the piece of paper in her pocket. It wasn’t much, but maybe Miss Flint and Peggy had arranged to meet. Maybe Miss Flint had been the last person to see her.

  ‘OK, well, we’d better be off back to beautiful old Shoeland,’ Tiga heard Fluffanora say. She raced down the corridor and met them just as they were walking out into the hallway.

  Aggie Hoof looked like a bunch of naughty cats had tried to dress her.

  ‘Be sure to walk around town and show off our fabulous designs!’ Fluffanora said, barely able to contain her laugher.

  ‘Oh I will,’ mumbled Aggie Hoof through the stripy sock pulled over her face. ‘Bye.’

  It’s me again, for another issue of Toad! I think we all know it’s going to be MAGIC.

  You will see I have themed this issue SHOELAND. Shoeland is a place, although it isn’t on any map I’ve seen, so I don’t know where it is but some people from Shoeland visited me so it definitely exists. Shoeland is full to the brim with the most wonderful fashions. I have filled the magazine with examples, all modelled by me. And IF YOU DON’T WEAR SHOELAND FASHIONS YOU WILL BE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE, OK?

  Bye.

  Aggie Hoof,

  Editor. Co-Ruler. Shoeland fan.

  16

  Miss Flint

  ‘I’ve told you once and I’ll tell you again, I DON’T speak to them vile witches from above the pipes and I certainly ain’t never speaking to a witch from Ritzy. So I ain’t speaking to either of you,’ Miss Flint ranted.

  They were back in Desperate Dolls. Tiga was thinking about the first time she had visited the place, with Peggy when they competed in Witch Wars. It seemed so long ago now. She was completely lost in thoughts of adventures with Peggy when a familiar buzzing sound butted in and disturbed her.

  ‘What about meeee?’ Fran said as she shot through the air and landed on Miss Flint’s desk. There was a large doll sitting on it with an arm missing and Miss Flint was sticking an old doll leg on in its place. ‘Will you talk to meeee?’

  ‘FRAN!’ Tiga cried. She had never been so happy to see the bossy, buzzy thing.

  Fran zoomed up to her face, slapped against her cheek and gave her a sort-of face cuddle. ‘I’ve been trying to find you. Everyone has. Oh I’m so worried, little dear, I –’

  ‘Get out, all of you,’ Miss Flint snapped.

  ‘But I want to ask you something, Miss Flint,’ Fran said, twirling i
n the air and sending glittery dust shooting everywhere.

  ‘What?’ Miss Flint asked impatiently.

  ‘What do I want to know?’ Fran whispered to Tiga.

  ‘You want to know,’ Tiga whispered back, ‘when she last saw Peggy and if Peggy contacted her about a doll.’

  Fran relayed the message to Miss Flint, who shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen nor heard from Peggy for about a month. Last time I saw her she was opening the fancy new shoe houses across the road there.’

  Tiga showed her Peggy’s note. ‘So you don’t know what this could mean?’

  Miss Flint peered down at it and shook her head.

  17

  No Such Place as Shoeland

  ‘There’s No Such Place as Shoeland,’ Felicity Bat said, prodding Aggie Hoof’s head through the stripy sock.

  ‘They definitely said Shoeland,’ she mumbled.

  Felicity Bat sighed. ‘Well, they were definitely lying then, weren’t they?’

  ‘I don’t think they were, they knew all about the fashions there …’

  Felicity Bat crushed the dainty little teacup in her hand. ‘Well, at least we know they haven’t left Ritzy City.’

  ‘Who?’ Aggie Hoof asked.

  Felicity ripped the sock off Aggie Hoof’s head. ‘Tiga and Fluffanora, you complete IDIOT.’

  ‘OUCH!’ Aggie Hoof squealed.

  Felicity Bat cackled. ‘It’s only a matter of time before we catch them, my friend.’

  ‘Best friend,’ Aggie Hoof corrected her.

  18

  The Witch Trial

  ‘And did I tell you about my hair?’ Fran asked as Tiga and Fluffanora ran along the alleyways in the Docks. ‘And do you know what Felicity Bat has done to Brollywood? BANNED FAIRY 5, the best TV station. It’s hideous, just hideous!’

  ‘Why did she do that?’ Tiga asked.