‘But now I don’t have a hat!’ Aggie Hoof cried.
‘Be quiet,’ Felicity Bat snapped.
‘Yes, Fel-Fel.’
Over at the Towers, there were towers EVERYWHERE. On top of the hill, down the side of the hill – there were even a couple of pointy roofs sticking out from the ground, so Tiga assumed there must be towers in the hill as well.
Some were built with black bricks, others with black marble; one was built with black stones and some were built with black wood. Most were tall and narrow with all sorts of roofs, some swirled like the top of an ice cream cornet, and some had flat roofs like the top of an ice cream that someone had jumped on.
‘We’re never going to find the right tower! There are hundreds of them!’ Tiga cried. ‘What did the clue say?’
‘We need to look for a shouting big, bald pest,’ Peggy said with a shrug.
They weaved in and out of the towers, listening for shouts and looking for something bald.
Each door had a number, but underneath, in tiny letters, there were also words. At first Tiga thought they were the names of the people who lived inside, but when she got closer she realised it wasn’t that at all.
THE CUPBOARD IN CAKES, PIES AND THAT’S ABOUT IT REALLY.
‘Um, Fran, why is this sign on the door?’ Tiga asked. She knew Cakes, Pies and That’s About It Really was all the way back in town, near Linden House.
‘It’s a shortcut, dear,’ said Fran.
‘Don’t you have shortcuts in the world above the pipes?’ Peggy asked.
‘Well, yes,’ said Tiga. ‘But a shortcut above the pipes is something like a road that is quicker than another road, not a tower on a hill.’
Fran twirled in the air. ‘Well, here at the Towers each tower is a shortcut to somewhere else. So the witches who live in them live on the second floor and any other floors above that, and on the ground floor is a hole. That hole is a shortcut to somewhere else. When a witch buys a tower, she gets to pick where she wants her shortcut to go. These witches obviously like cakes and pies and That’s About It Really tarts!’
Tiga ran from tower to tower looking at all the signs. PEARL PEAK BOOKSHOP, CLUTTERBUCKS (MEMBERS ONLY), THE GULL AND CHIP TAVERN, BROLLYWOOD PRODUCTION STUDIOS …
She stopped and stared up at one of them. No.17 BROLLYWOOD PRODUCTION STUDIOS.
Brollywood.
The place where someone knew who had put her forward for Witch Wars. Brollywood …
‘Ah, Brollywood!’ Fran said. ‘Home.’
Tiga reached for the handle. ‘I think we should check Brollywood for a clue.’
‘Brollywood?’ Peggy asked, sounding confused. ‘That’s not what the clue said.’
‘I know,’ said Tiga. ‘I mean a clue about who put me forward for Witch Wars. Fran said they know in Brollywood.’
Peggy stared at Fran.
‘They might know,’ Fran said.
‘Well, we could go. It might make us fall behind in the competition, but I know it’s important to you …’ Peggy muttered.
Tiga jumped up and down. ‘Thank you, Peggy!’
Something fell out of Tiga’s pocket.
‘Tiga,’ Peggy said, bending down to pick it up. ‘You dropped Sinkville Spells, Potions and Cat Food Recipes! Where did you find this?’
Tiga grabbed the book. ‘I borrowed it from Linden House, to help.’
Peggy nodded. ‘Let’s see if there is a spell to help us find the right tower! Then we can go to Brollywood.’
Tiga reluctantly opened it. It was ninety per cent cat food recipes.
‘Um …’ she said, flicking through the pages. ‘What about … ?’
Fran zoomed around her head. ‘That won’t work. Not that one. The last thing you want is to make the towers invisible! No, that one will make everything explode …’
‘WHAT ABOUT THIS?’ Tiga cried, pointing at a spell called ‘Highlight’. ‘This spell will highlight what you’re looking for,’ she read.
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Peggy, standing back as Tiga shouted, ‘High-light, high-light, make the answer outrageously bright!’
An obscenely bright light waved about madly on top of one of the towers.
‘The others will see that too and know which tower it is now, won’t they?’ Tiga said, shaking her head.
Peggy wrinkled her nose. ‘Um, probably, yup. It’s not ideal BUT YOU DID A SPELL! Well done.’
Tiga felt like a complete failure and a genius all at once.
They scuttled around the towers and reached the glowing one.
‘CLIMB UP MY SILKY BLACK HAIR! CLIMB UP THE HAIR!’ shouted a very bald witch high up in the tower.
‘THE HAIR, DEARS! CLIMB IT!’ the bald witch cried.
‘Um,’ Peggy said, shifting from foot to foot. ‘You … don’t … have any?’
‘I don’t think she knows she’s bald,’ Tiga whispered.
‘CLIMB THE SILKY HAIR TO REACH THE SHORTCUT!’
Tiga looked at the tower door – it wasn’t like the others. Instead of a sign saying where the shortcut led to, this one had nothing.
‘REACH THE SHORTCUT BY CLIMBING MY SILKY HAIR!’
Tiga and Peggy stared at her blankly.
‘CLIMB MY SILKY HAIR!’
Peggy inched closer towards the door and twisted the handle and frowned. ‘It’s locked!’ she hissed.
‘DID YOU JUST TRY TO OPEN THE DOOR?’ the witch bellowed. ‘DID YOU JUST TRY TO GET INTO MY TOWER THROUGH THE DOOR? YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO CLIMB MY SILKY HAIR!’
‘Maybe we could try a spell?’ Tiga whispered.
‘GOOD LUCK FINDING A SPELL THAT OPENS THAT DOOR! CLIMB UP MY SILKY HAIR!’ the witch yelled.
The witch was yelling so loudly that Tiga almost didn’t hear the footsteps.
‘Is that –?’ Peggy began.
‘It’s Molly and Milly!’ Fran bellowed.
‘Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, where do we hide?’ Peggy said, leaping from foot to foot, and falling over again. She grabbed her hat and checked her shrivelled head. It was fine.
‘This way!’ Tiga yelled. They raced from tower to tower, to tower to tower, and straight through a door and down a shortcut.
‘Funny we ended up falling down the Brollywood shortcut,’ said Peggy with a smile.
‘I know! How weird,’ Tiga said unconvincingly. ‘Well, we might as well look into who nominated me. Since we’re here.’
‘I AM SO EXCITED I GET TO SHOW YOU ALL OF BROLLYWOOD. BECAUSE WE MIGHT AS WELL SINCE WE’RE HERE AND EVERYTHING, AND OH! NOT FAR FROM HERE IS MY LITTLE MINI CARAVAN. You won’t be able to sit in it because you’re far too big. But I can tell you about it, oh yes!’
Fran was rambling like a mad fairy.
Peggy and Tiga were slumped on a chair, surrounded by costumes and hats and glasses and wigs and shoes, and there were some cars and a fake grey parrot sitting in an old bucket.
‘We’re in the prop cupboard. Although it’s more of a large room than a cupboard,’ Fran said.
‘Which witch would know who nominated me?’ Tiga asked.
‘Why, the Witch Wars producer, of course!’ said Fran.
Tiga leapt off the sofa. ‘Then take me to the producer!’
Fran nodded. ‘OK, but only if you call me fabulous!’
Peggy giggled.
‘Fabulous Fran,’ Tiga said with a sigh, ‘please take me to the producer of Witch Wars.’
‘Oh, you’re too kind, Tiga!’ Fran said. ‘Now, grab an umbrella.’
Brollywood was exactly how Tiga imagined it would be from the map in Linden House. There were a lot more pipes hanging in the sky than there were in Ritzy City, which meant it was much, much wetter.
‘They once did a hilarious programme about people who accidentally fall down the pipes in Brollywood!’ Fran chuckled as she ducked and dived, trying to avoid the streams of water.
‘Normal people, not witches?’ Tiga asked.
Fran nodded. ‘Occasionally it happens. Of course we send them straight back. I like
to return them with a little memento – a framed and signed picture of my face, for example. You can buy them in there.’ Fran was pointing at a small shop with hundreds and hundreds of pictures in the window, mostly of her. Next to it stood a big van filled to bursting with huge lights. And next to that was a shiny black building shaped like a castle.
‘Patricia the producer works in there,’ Fran said, nodding at the fake castle. ‘Oh, here she is now!’
Tiga looked up and saw a witch soaring through the air holding an umbrella.
‘She saw it in a film once and now it’s the only way she’ll travel,’ Fran said, looking at the producer in awe.
‘Supercallifrag– oh FROGBISCUITS!’ Patricia cried as she crash-landed at Tiga’s feet. She got up and straightened her gigantic glasses and tiny hat.
‘Ah, hello. You’ll not find any Witch Wars clues in Brollywood. I probably shouldn’t tell you that …’
‘Oh! So you know all the clues!’ Peggy said. ‘How can we get into the bald woman’s tower?’
Patricia the producer cackled. ‘Ha, I can’t tell you that!’
‘Who nominated me for Witch Wars?’ Tiga asked, taking a step forward.
‘Afraid I can’t tell you that either – it’s confidential,’ Patricia the producer said, which was not what Tiga wanted to hear at all.
‘But everyone else knows who nominated them! Peggy knows it was her gran; Fluffanora knows it was her mum!’
‘Well, they aren’t meant to tell,’ Patricia the producer said, sounding a tad annoyed.
Her walkie-talkie crackled. ‘Oi, Patricia! They want you on set five. There’s a fairy stuck in a melon.’
She sighed. ‘We’ll be happy to have you back on Cooking for Tiny People when Witch Wars is over, Fran. It’s proving to be a bit of a disaster without you.’
Fran looked smug as Patricia walked away.
‘Sorry they won’t tell you,’ Peggy said, turning and heading back to the prop cupboard. ‘Shall we go and figure out how to get into the bald woman’s tower?’
‘Not yet,’ Tiga said as she marched towards the fake castle.
‘You’re bald,’ Felicity Bat snapped. ‘Stop shouting about your hair.’
‘WHAT DID YOU SAY?’ the bald woman cried.
‘BALD,’ Felicity Bat said impatiently.
Aggie Hoof was staring up at the woman, shaking her head. ‘It makes me so sad to see a bald witch when I have such perfect hair.’
Felicity Bat ran at the door again.
‘Fel-Fel, I don’t think it’s going to open.’
‘Be quiet!’ Felicity Bat snapped.
‘CLIMB UP MY SILKY HAIR TO GET TO THE SHORTCUT!’ the bald woman cried.
‘OH, WILL YOU BE QUIET?’ Felicity Bat bellowed.
‘Maybe Piggy and that girl from above the pipes already got inside and locked it!’
‘Unlikely,’ Felicity Bat said, fiddling with the handle. ‘Check on them.’
Aggie Hoof stared at one of the bricks on the tower and mumbled ‘TV’ a lot. A moving image appeared on the brick. It was Lizzie Beast walking along a path with Patty Pigeon.
‘It’s just showing that big lump of a witch walking along a path,’ Aggie Hoof said.
But then the channel switched to an image of Peggy and Tiga surrounded by huge piles of paper. ‘Where are they?’
Felicity Bat dropped the door handle she had just snapped off and stared intently at the brick.
‘That’s Brollywood – look at the water outside the window. They obviously got the first clue wrong.’
‘Are you sure, Fel-Fel? Toad says you should never trust someone with frizzy hair and Piggy has the frizziest hair I’ve ever seen.’
Felicity Bat sighed. ‘We’re wasting time here. If this irritating bald lady won’t let us through the door, we’ll just have to do it her way.’
‘Her way?’ Aggie Hoof asked as Felicity Bat levitated up and up until she was nose to nose with the bald witch. She grinned a menacing grin as the bald witch stumbled backwards.
Papers soared through the air.
‘It’s not here!’ Peggy said from the heap she was sitting on.
‘I just want to say, I am not OK with this,’ said Fran.
Tiga slumped in a comfy chair behind a massive black desk. They had emptied every filing cabinet in Patricia the producer’s office.
‘We aren’t having much luck,’ Tiga said, slamming her head down on the desk.
It was really lucky she did that, because as soon as she did a drawer in the desk shot out and hit her in the stomach.
‘The Witch Wars files!’ she squealed, pulling a clump of papers out of the secret drawer. ‘Peggy, I found them! I FOUND THEM!’
Peggy and Fran raced over.
‘Felicity Bat,’ Tiga read, ‘recommended by Mrs Bat, Moira the Mean and Nasty Nancy.’
‘Felicity Bat knows all the bad witches in Sinkville,’ Peggy said.
Tiga held the paper close to her face. It couldn’t be right. All the others had names next to them. Peggy had her gran, Fluffanora had her mum, but Tiga didn’t have a name. It just said, Anonymous letter.
‘A-n-o-n-y-m-o-u-s letter,’ Peggy read slowly.
Tiga pulled a letter from the pile.
Tiga Whicabim for Witch Wars was all that was written on it. She flipped it over and stared at it in disbelief.
‘Do you recognise the writing?’ Peggy asked.
Tiga shook her head. ‘Is this A JOKE? They must know who sent it. It must be a mistake.’
‘Oh, we don’t make mistakes in Sinkville,’ Peggy said. ‘Sure, we once accidentally built a circus instead of a hospital, and there was that time we tried to wear jelly, but we never make mistakes when it comes to Witch Wars.’
Tiga stared at the letter, and all across Sinkville witches watched the footage from Fran’s camera on the backs of their spoons and said, ‘Ooooh.’
Patricia the producer, who had just finished fishing a fairy out of a melon, spotted the Witch Wars coverage and now knew that Tiga and Peggy had broken into her office.
‘Get them,’ she said to ten huge witch security guards.
‘Why are those witches so HUGE?’ Peggy cried as she and Tiga raced as fast as their little witch legs would carry them. ‘THEY ARE AT LEAST TEN TIMES TALLER THAN NORMAL WITCHES!’
Tiga didn’t dare to look back – she just ran, her eyes fixed on the prop cupboard door. Please open, she thought as she flew at it. She tumbled through with Peggy and Fran close behind.
‘I’M SO SORRY, PATRICIA! IT’S NOT ME, I HAVE TO FOLLOW THEM!’ Fran yelled. ‘DON’T JUDGE ME, PATRICIAAAAAAAA!’
Peggy dived for the hole in the floor, but Tiga stopped and raced to the back wall of the cupboard.
‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’ Peggy cried.
The rumble of massive shoes was getting louder and louder.
Tiga grabbed some things off the wall.
‘DON’T STEAL!’ Peggy shrieked as Tiga raced back, grabbed her arm and they jumped down the hole.
Tiga glanced back just in time to see the limbs of ten huge and angry witch guards squashed in the door frame.
‘You took things from the cupboard! Why would you do that?’ Peggy asked as they were spat out of the shortcut on to the tower floor.
Tiga held up a handful of black, grey and white wigs.
‘Not just any old things.’
‘SILKY BLACK HAIR, CLIMB UP MY SILKY BLACK HAIR!’
Tiga took a step forward. ‘Um, I’m afraid to inform you … you don’t actually have any hair.’
‘OH YES I DO.’
‘You definitely don’t,’ said Peggy.
‘But we,’ Tiga said, holding up the wigs, ‘have some hair for you.’
Tiga opened her book of spells, flicked past all the cat food recipes, and tapped a finger on a potion called ‘Grow’.
Peggy took off her hat and carefully, so as not to accidentally crush the shrivelled head, laid it on the ground. ‘For the potion.’
; ‘I thought witches used cauldrons?’ Tiga said.
Peggy shook her head. ‘That was in the olden days. Now we use pots and pans. Or anything that can hold the ingredients. Who’s going to lug a massive iron cauldron around with them?’
Tiga smiled and read out the ingredients.
‘Some hair.’
Peggy plucked a hair off her head.
‘A drop of water.’
Peggy shook some water off the leaves of a nearby bush.
‘A dragon’s bone.’
Peggy looked around. ‘That one might be a problem. Let’s improvise with … a tiny stone?’
‘Will that work?’ Tiga asked.
Peggy tossed the stone into the hat along with the wigs, and they waited.
The wigs started to wriggle like cats.
‘Well, they’re growing, but they aren’t stopping!’ Tiga cried, holding up the wigs that were getting longer and longer by the second.
She held them in the air and waved them. ‘New hair for you!’
The old witch’s eyes lit up. ‘Ooooh, grey!’
Fran rolled her eyes, grabbed hold of the wig and lugged it up the tower to the witch. She plonked it on her head.
‘What do you think?’
‘LOVELY!’ Tiga and Peggy said together.
The no-longer-bald witch let down her grey wig and Tiga grabbed hold of it, but she spotted something odd on the tower. On one of the bricks there was a little moving image. It was the TV spell Aggie Hoof had cast earlier.
‘Pegs, look,’ she said.
‘Is that … ?’ Peggy began.
Tiga nodded and pointed at the bottom of the screen. It said, Felicity Bat.
‘Is she … ?’ Peggy said.
Tiga nodded. It looked to her like Felicity Bat was in bed all the way back in Linden House.
‘She’s miles behind!’ Peggy cried. ‘What on earth is she doing? Having a nap?’
Tiga stared at the image of the witch asleep in bed. ‘Something isn’t right.’
‘We’ll beat her at this rate!’ Peggy said, grinning at the screen.
Witch Wars Page 6
