Witch Switch

by Sibéal Pounder

  ‘She finds fairies ANNOYING,’ Fran said, twirling in the air and shooting glittery dust everywhere. ‘Annoying. Can you believe it?!’

  ‘Well …’ Fluffanora began, dusting herself down, but Tiga elbowed her before she could say any more.

  A poster flapped on a nearby lamppost. FIND TIGA, THE FAKE WITCH, it read.

  ‘That’s a lovely photo of you!’ Fran said, pointing at the poster.

  Tiga sighed and shook her head just as something tiny shot out from behind it and darted towards her.

  ‘STOOOP!’ it squealed.

  It smacked into Tiga’s face. Not the face on the poster. Her real face.

  ‘Frognails!’ Tiga squealed.

  ‘Crispy,’ Fran said through gritted teeth.

  Tiga peeled the irate fairy off her nose, going cross-eyed as she tried to focus on her. ‘What are you doing, Crispy?!’

  ‘I am arresting you!’ said Crispy jubilantly.

  Fran wagged a finger in Crispy’s face. ‘I forbid it!’

  Crispy took out a tiny pair of handcuffs and attached them to Tiga’s finger. ‘Aha! Got you!’

  Fluffanora rolled her eyes and watched as Crispy puffed and panted and tried to pull Tiga along the road.

  ‘Why am I under arrest?’ Tiga asked.

  Crispy fumbled in her tiny pocket for something. She pulled out a little scroll of paper. ‘You are under arrest for not being a witch!’

  ‘I am a witch. When you jumble up the letters in my name it spells “I am a big witch”,’ Tiga said flatly.

  ‘Before I take you to Linden House though,’ Crispy said quietly, ‘I need a very quick favour …’

  19

  TOE PINCHERS

  ‘I refuse to play any part in this!’ Fran said as she floated about in the air, hands on her hips, nostrils flared.

  Tiga found herself standing in the middle of a set in Brollywood. There was a curtain floating magically in front of them. It swayed slowly. Lizzie Beast was holding a small spotlight over the set. She nodded at Tiga.

  Tiga smiled back.

  ‘But TOE PINCHERS is going to be the greatest film ever made. It will almost certainly win Best and Only Fairy Film of the Year,’ Crispy said to Fran. ‘I just need one more tiny toe pincher.’

  ‘If I do it, will you let Tiga go?’ Fran said through gritted teeth.

  Crispy thought for a moment.

  ‘No. I have to turn her in.’

  ‘Why do you have to?’ Fran asked.

  ‘So I look really clever for catching her, of course.’

  Fran crossed her arms. ‘Well … that sort of makes sense. But if you are going to turn Tiga in, I have no incentive to act in TOE PINCHERS.’

  ‘What about HER?’ Crispy asked, suddenly distracted by a small thing sliming its way across the floor.

  ‘My slug!’ Tiga cried, scooping up the slug and patting its beehive of hair. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘She must have hidden in your hat,’ Fran said with a tut.

  ‘She is PERFECT!’ Crispy cheered.

  ‘For TOE PINCHERS?’ Tiga asked defensively, holding the slug close to her.

  Crispy nodded madly.

  Just then all the fairies filed in. Tiga hadn’t seen them since Witch Wars – the Sulky Sisters and Millbug-Mae and Donna and Julia Jumbo Wings (although, technically, it’s just Julie). They were all dressed in matching black dresses and looked really bored. Some of them were making noises like ‘mmmmm, brrrr, aaaaah, weeeee’.

  ‘They’re warming up,’ Lizzie Beast explained. ‘They also like to dance to music before we start filming, to loosen up.’ She flicked her finger and a small box floated through the air. It looked just like a jewellery box and slowly opened to reveal a little statue of a fairy.

  Lizzie Beast nodded and the tiny box started shaking furiously and blaring really loud music.

  Tiga covered her ears.

  Fluffanora groaned.

  All the fairies started clapping their hands and soaring around in the air.

  Glittery dust was EVERYWHERE.

  ‘MY EYES ARE BURNING!’ Fluffanora screamed.

  The fairies continued to wiggle about in the air. Even the Sulky Sisters, who were usually miserable, had huge grins smacked on their faces and were shimmying across the room doing jazz hands.

  ‘IT’S ONE OF THE SILVER RATS’ NEW SONGS. IT’S CALLED “PULL SHAPES”. THEY LOVE IT,’ Lizzie Beast shouted over the noise of the tiny box.

  Donna the fairy swung her hair around, and Millbug-Mae danced right up to Tiga’s face and clapped, sending glittery dust shooting up her nose. She sneezed, dropped the slug and, before anyone knew what was happening, TOE PINCHERS was being filmed with the slug playing the role of the sixth fairy. Sorry, toe pincher.

  ‘Right, everyone,’ said Crispy from her tiny director’s chair. ‘ACTION!’

  The slug inched on to the set.

  Tiga was watching from behind the camera. The slug’s beehive came into view. After about five minutes, because slugs move really slowly.

  A voiceover, which sounded a lot like Crispy trying to speak in a deep voice, came on:

  In this land of twisted trees and excellent fairies, there lives a mutant collection of evil things. These evil things are fast!

  The slug inched a little further into the shot.

  These evil things are TERRIFYING.

  The slug’s beehive of hair flopped into view.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Fran said under her breath. Fluffanora was holding her nose to stop herself from laughing. Tiga just shook her head in amazement.

  Two huge, fake feet were lowered into view by Lizzie Beast.

  Mrs Flufferknuckle, a very nice old lady, just thought she was out for a walk.

  Lizzie Beast moved the feet.

  ‘Mrs Flunterbuffle is out for a walk with no shoes on, is she?’ Fran asked.

  ‘IT’S FLUFFERKNUCKLE,’ Crispy screeched. ‘And shhh.’

  But little did she know she was going to be attacked by A TOE PINCHER!

  Fluffanora looked like she was about ready to burst.

  The slug looked at the camera, confused.

  ‘Never look at the camera,’ Fran muttered under her breath.

  ‘Go on,’ Crispy hissed.

  The slug slimed slowly up to the fake feet and then climbed on to the big toe.

  THE TOE PINCHERS! THEY ATTACK!

  The slug slimed all over the toe.

  ‘It’s just getting slime everywhere,’ Donna the fairy pointed out. ‘It’s not even pinching one bit!’

  Crispy sighed.

  The slug flopped off the big toe and slimed off the set.

  Fluffanora burst out laughing. ‘This is the least scary film of all time!’

  Crispy scrunched up her face and little streams of glittery dust shot out of her ears. ‘I’m taking you all to Linden House RIGHT NOW.’

  Tiga scooped up the slug and grabbed Fluffanora’s arm. ‘NO YOU’RE NOT!’

  Lizzie Beast threw her an umbrella, Tiga grabbed it, flicked her finger and before she knew it, they were flying fast towards the ceiling.

  ‘DON’T DAMAGE THE SET! THE SET!’ Crispy cried, as they smashed right through the roof and out into the drizzly Brollywood air.

  20

  Oh, Fran!

  ‘WHERE DO WE HIDE? WHAT DO WE DO? I AM IN PANIC MODE!’ Fran shouted as she did a huge loop in the air, banged into Fluffanora’s back and flopped on to the floor.

  ‘You know this place better than anyone, Fran,’ Tiga said encouragingly. ‘Where can we hide?’

  Fran thought for a moment. ‘I know the perfect place! THIS WAAAAAY!’ And then she shot off down the road towards Set Five.

  COOKING FOR TINY PEOPLE, read the sign on the door.

  Tiga and Fluffanora raced in and skidded to a halt.

  Fran was bouncing up and down on top of a kitchen counter. It was about the size of a shoebox.

  Tiga looked around the room. The chair was the size of a small mug. The cupboar
ds were no taller than two tins of stacked beans.

  ‘If anything,’ said Fluffanora, a finger raised, ‘this room is the opposite of hiding.’

  Fran looked up at them, two huge witches in a room filled with very tiny things.

  Tiga tried to hide her foot behind the fridge (about the size of an upright banana) and knocked it over.

  ‘I didn’t think this through …’ Fran said, as Crispy shot through the door and shouted, ‘ARRESTED!’

  ‘Frogs,’ Tiga grumbled.

  Fluffanora pelted out the door.

  ‘GOT YOU!’ Crispy shouted up Tiga’s left nostril.

  Tiga winced and glanced around the room. ‘Did Fluffanora leave?!’

  ‘Well, my fridge is well and truly broken,’ said Fran.

  21

  The Witch Trials

  All of Ritzy City stared up at Tiga, who was perched on a stand outside Linden House.

  ‘She’s not a witch!’ someone cried.

  ‘SHE’S NOT A WITCH!’ the crowd chanted as Tiga stared at them all in disbelief.

  ‘I am a witch!’ she yelled back.

  ‘SHE’S NOT A WITCH!’ they all continued to shout.

  Felicity Bat stepped on to the platform and raised a hand in the air. The crowd went silent.

  ‘As you all know,’ she said firmly, ‘strange things have been happening in this town. Important witches have started to vanish!’

  ‘Like Darcy Dream, the editor of Toad,’ a witch cried.

  ‘She’s not missing, she’s just playing hide-and-seek with herself,’ Aggie Hoof said.

  ‘Yes, well, many others have been reported missing on this very day,’ Felicity Bat went on, glaring at Aggie Hoof. ‘There have been strange noises! The town’s cats have been crying!’

  ‘People are wearing mad clothes!’ a witch from the crowd screeched, pointing at Aggie Hoof.

  ‘It’s the fashion in Shoeland, actually,’ Aggie Hoof corrected her.

  The witch looked confused.

  ‘The only thing that could cause all of this is a witch among us who is not a witch at all! TIGA WHICABIM!’ Felicity Bat shouted, riling up the crowd.

  Someone threw a shoe at Tiga’s head.

  ‘OUCH!’

  ‘She feels pain! She’s not a witch!’ someone cried.

  ‘Witches feel pain,’ Tiga argued.

  ‘She SPEAKS! So she’s not a witch!’ another witch from the crowd yelled.

  Tiga threw her hands in the air. ‘You’ve all gone mad!’

  ‘She’s not a witch – she has HANDS!’ another witch yelled.

  Felicity Bat was grinning a mad grin, clearly enjoying the hysteria she had whipped up.

  ‘Non-witches can cause great trouble in Sinkville. They are to be feared! To be hated! To be HUNTED DOWN!’ she said.

  The crowd went wild. Someone lobbed another shoe at Tiga. This time she caught it.

  ‘SHE CATCHES THINGS! SHE’S NOT A WITCH!’

  Tiga sighed.

  Fran hovered above the crowd. ‘Witches can catch things, and so can fairies!’ she shouted.

  A witch threw a shoe at Fran and knocked her out of the air.

  ‘SHE’S NOT A WITCH!’ another cried at Tiga.

  Tiga spotted an elaborate hat moving about in the crowd. Witches started to whisper and pass around a piece of paper.

  The hat tilted upwards and Tiga could make out the face – it was Fluffanora!

  She winked at Tiga.

  ‘What evidence do you have that I’m not a witch. Real evidence?’ Tiga demanded.

  Felicity Bat cackled. ‘Aggie Hoof, read out the evidence!’

  Aggie Hoof stepped forward and adjusted the skirt that was hanging around her neck. ‘Number one, you arrived in Ritzy City recently from the world above the pipes where non-witches live.’

  ‘Where I lived with a witch called Miss Heks,’ Tiga responded.

  ‘Number two,’ said Aggie Hoof, ignoring her. ‘You used to wear jeans, like non-witches.’

  ‘Because I lived above the pipes!’ Tiga said, sounding exasperated.

  ‘Number three. You do not have a cat like most witches. Your familiar is this,’ she held up the slug and gagged.

  ‘Put it down!’ Tiga yelled, lunging forward.

  Aggie Hoof threw it on to the ground and Felicity Bat flicked her finger, sending the slug soaring high up into the air.

  Tiga gasped as she watched it fall fast. Fluffanora was shuffling left and right in the crowd.

  ‘Catch it!’ Tiga yelled just as the slug slopped into Fluffanora’s hand. She held it up and smiled.

  ‘A small victory,’ said Felicity Bat. ‘But it is clear you are not a witch.’

  ‘I can do MAGIC!’ Tiga shouted, flicking her finger, but nothing happened. She tapped it against her leg and tried again. She just wanted to flick off one of the witches’ hats in the front of the crowd, that’s all! She tried again. Nothing. She was getting better at spells but she was rubbish under pressure.

  ‘SHE NOT A WITCH!’ the crowd yelled. ‘Her finger IS USELESS!’

  Felicity Bat nodded. ‘Exactly. Not a witch. And so you must be punished.’

  ‘Not so fast,’ came a voice from the crowd. It was Mavis, the witch who owned the jam stall. ‘According to this, you are not a witch, Felicity Bat.’ She held up a piece of paper.

  Felicity Bat grabbed it and cackled. ‘Well, this is obviously made up … by YOU,’ she seethed, pointing at Fluffanora.

  ‘How could I make up a photograph?’ Fluffanora said with a shrug, as all the witches in the crowd began speaking in hushed voices.

  Tiga peered over at the piece of paper. It was Felicity Bat, sitting smartly on a seat in her Pearl Peak Academy school uniform. On her head was a hat with big neon lights that read, I AM NOT A WITCH.

  ‘She’s messed with the photo and added that stupid hat,’ Felicity Bat said smugly, scrunching the piece of paper up into a ball.

  Everyone in the crowd held a piece of paper up to their noses and examined them.

  ‘FROGSTICKS!’ Felicity Bat screeched.

  ‘I made some copies,’ Fluffanora said casually.

  Felicity Bat charged into the crowd. ‘You,’ she seethed.

  Tiga watched as Fluffanora subtly flicked her finger.

  The crowd erupted into hysterical cackles!

  On Felicity Bat’s head, there now sat the very same hat from the photo. Only this time the light was flashing on and off: I AM NOT A WITCH. I. AM. NOT. A. WITCH. IAMNOTAWITCH.

  Felicity Bat didn’t notice until Aggie Hoof yelled, ‘Fel-Fel, your hat! It’s saying you’re not a witch lots!’

  Felicity Bat tore the hat off her head and marched back into Linden House. ‘I’ll get you, Tiga Whicabim,’ she hissed, as the crowd cried with laughter.

  22

  The Eddy Eggby Photo

  After the ridiculous trial, if you can even call it that, Felicity Bat went into hiding, clearly mortified, and completely sure she should never have trusted an idea inspired by something Aggie Hoof said. Aggie Hoof continued to walk around town dressed in the ‘Shoeland’ fashions, and Tiga, Fluffanora and Fran carried on with their search for Peggy, safe in the knowledge that nobody believed Tiga was responsible for Peggy’s disappearance. But witches were still disappearing, and most of the witches – well, the good ones anyway – wanted Felicity Bat out of Linden House. No one more so than Tiga.

  She and Fluffanora, assisted with glitter and much shrieking from an enthusiastic Fran, travelled to the depths of Waverly Way, and to the tip of Pearl Peak.

  They made a long list of all the places Peggy was most likely to be and were dangerously close to ticking them all off. Fluffanora had suggested that the terrible pair might have taken Peggy further afield – to one of the other cities in Sinkville. There was Silver City, where Mrs Brew went to university, and where most of the buildings were perched high on spindly silver stilts. And there was Driptown, but there wasn’t much to see there. Most of it was underwater. Apparentl
y, according to Fluffanora, none of the other cities were as good as Ritzy City. And they were completely empty since the Big Exit – all the witches had just left. That didn’t mean that Aggie Hoof and Felicity Bat couldn’t have ventured to one of the empty cities and hidden Peggy there, though …

  Tiga lay in bed wide awake, thinking about the huge map of Sinkville painted on the wall in Linden House and how IMPOSSIBLE it was going to be to find Peggy. Her slug snoozed and slimed on the pillow next to her.

  Fran had decided to sleep in the slug’s little house, since it was the perfect size for her. The slug hadn’t seemed happy about that. But it’s always difficult to tell, because a slug doesn’t really have much of a face.

  Tiga couldn’t understand how everyone could get to sleep so easily when Peggy was in peril. Didn’t they care? What if they couldn’t find her? What if Felicity Bat destroyed Sinkville and made it all evil and terrible? What if Aggie Hoof never took those shoes off her ears?

  She’d had enough.

  ‘Fluffanora?’ she whispered. ‘Are you asleep?’

  Fluffanora didn’t answer. Tiga climbed out of bed and walked over to the other, much more messy side of the room.

  ‘Fluffanora?’

  The traffic light showed the squashed frog. But that didn’t stop Tiga. She pushed the iron gate open.

  Fluffanora was sitting on her sofa, surrounded by piles of paper, a single light dancing above them.

  ‘Fluffanora,’ she whispered, ‘I can’t sleep. I’m so worried about Peg–’ Tiga stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what Fluffanora was looking at. ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’

  The hand shot up from the table, producing another strawberry tart for Tiga and knocking the papers everywhere.

  ‘FROGLUMPS!’ Fluffanora cried as the papers soared through the air.

  ‘Shhh,’ Tiga hissed. ‘You’ll wake up the whole house!’

  Mrs Pumpkin was curled up next to Fluffanora on the sofa. ‘Idiots,’ she hissed.

  ‘There’s no one here, apart from Fran!’ Fluffanora said. ‘And the slug. And this old thing.’

  Mrs Pumpkin shook her head and fell back asleep.

  ‘I just want to know what happened!’ Fluffanora said. ‘Is that terrible?’