‘Yes,’ Felicity Bat said with a nod. ‘You’re right, the Karens are still going strong.’
‘I didn’t say that!’ Tiga cried. ‘She’s mind reading again, Peggy!’
Peggy opened her mouth to say something, but Felicity Bat slipped a piece of paper in to stop her.
‘Mhut mar mu moing?’
‘They’re on the lookout for more wishers again,’ Felicity Bat explained as Tiga fished the piece of paper out of Peggy’s mouth. ‘Read it. I got it just before I walked in here.’
DO YOU WISH EVERYONE WOULD JUST BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER EVIL AND ANNOYING?
You saw our Kake – you know that
WE CAN MAKE YOUR WISHES COME TRUE
(not like a genie, we’re better than
that rubbish).
VISIT THE KARENS! Take the Sinkville
Express to The Badlands and follow signs for:
The Jelly Castle,
Boulder Boulevard – access via
Entrance C.
Tiga stared up at Felicity Bat, who was levitating awkwardly above her. ‘Felicity, I …’
‘Don’t worry about it, Tiga!’ Felicity Bat said, faking a cackle. ‘That would never be my wish.’
‘I don’t think you’re evil,’ Tiga said. ‘Honestly.’
‘Nor do I!’ Peggy added.
‘NOR ME,’ Fran bellowed.
‘I’m on the fence,’ Fluffanora joked.
Felicity Bat straightened her hat and cleared her throat. ‘Well. I hope I’m still a bit annoying. Genius can be infuriating to be around – all that perfect levitating and brilliant spells.’
‘Fine,’ Tiga said through gritted teeth. ‘You’re annoying. But we love you.’
Felicity Bat looked awkwardly at Tiga. Tiga stared back at Felicity Bat, a strange feeling swirling in her stomach. ‘Wait a second,’ she said. ‘Something is weird.’
‘It’s my face,’ Felicity Bat said apologetically. ‘Happy emotions make it look bizarre.’
‘No,’ Tiga said slowly, scanning the wish paper from the Karens. Her eyes stopped dead on a sentence that was new.
You saw our Kake.
‘Kake!’ Tiga cried. ‘THEY TRICKED US!’
‘YES, CAKE! FETCH THE CAKE!’ Fran roared. ‘IN A CRISIS, ROLL OUT THE CAKE. THAT’S WHAT I SAY IN CHAPTER FOUR OF MY BOOK FABULOUS. FLAWLESS. FRAN.’
‘No,’ Tiga said, shaking her head. ‘It usually says you’ve seen our book, meaning The Karens, which we destroyed. But now it says Kake.’
Peggy turned slowly to look at her, her face warping from cheery to crushed. ‘The cake they gave me. The one I gave to Cakes, Pies and That’s About It Really, to put in their window.’
‘Ugh!’ Tiga cried. ‘Taking advantage of Peggy’s kindness. What complete toads!’
‘When I was levitating here, I noticed the Cakes, Pies and That’s About It Really window was smashed – something about a gift basket flying through the window. I saw the Kake sitting there, prominently displayed,’ Felicity Bat said, casually floating about the room. ‘Should I smash the Kake?’
‘Yes, please,’ Peggy said. ‘Squash it.’
Felicity Bat clapped her hands. ‘Done,’ she said smugly.
‘Your powers worry me sometimes …’ Peggy said.
‘I’ll show you how to do it. Hold your hands up and –’
There was a rumble of witches’ feet. Excited screeches competed with the howling wind, a whiff of tragedy and sinister cake in the air.
Peggy walked slowly to the window, as tiny bits of paper swarmed angrily outside. ‘This is all about to get way out of control,’ she said, opening the window and catching one.
Nottie, Owner of Jam Stall 7,
DO YOU WISH YOU WERE THE ONLY STALL THAT SOLD CATS AND JAM? THEN VISIT THE KARENS!
You saw our Kake – you know that
WE CAN MAKE YOUR WISHES COME TRUE
(not like a genie, we’re better than
that rubbish).
VISIT THE KARENS! Take the Sinkville
Express to the Badlands and follow signs
for:
The Jelly Castle,
Boulder Boulevard –
access via Entrance C.
No hot drinks, thank you.
‘Oh, frogtruffles, hundreds of witches must’ve seen that Kake by now,’ Peggy said quietly.
‘They’ll all race to the Badlands now,’ Fluffanora added.
Peggy paced back and forth. ‘I’ll shut down the Sinkville Express.’ She nodded at Felicity Bat, who flew obediently out of the door. ‘That’ll slow them down.’
Tiga got up and took the piece of paper flapping in Peggy’s hand, as witches raced past the window waving little wish slips above their heads, squealing and occasionally banging into lamp posts and walls. ‘This is a disaster …’
48
Peggy in Trouble
Peggy tried to calm the growing crowd of furious witches standing outside Linden House.
‘OPEN UP THE SINKVILLE EXPRESS. WE WANT TO VISIT THE KARENS!’
‘WE WANT TO GET WISHING!’
‘THEY PROMISED ME RICHES!’
‘THEY PROMISED ME NEW TOES.’
Peggy shook her head, her hands raised in the air, urging them to hush. ‘The Karens are incredibly dangerous. I was recently trapped inside the walls of their jelly castle.’
The crowd fell silent.
‘It was awful,’ Peggy added, before everyone burst out laughing.
‘HOW COULD A JELLY CASTLE BE AWFUL?’ someone cried. ‘IT’S ABSOLUTELY MAGICAL.’
‘B-b-b-but,’ Peggy stuttered. ‘Look what they did to Fran.’ She thrust her hand in Fran’s direction. She was curled up in the street like a gigantic pooch. She waved and smiled, delighted with the attention.
‘Look more distressed,’ Tiga hissed at her, but Fran couldn’t hear.
‘SHE WANTED TO BE THAT SIZE, AND THAT’S WHAT SHE GOT!’ someone shouted.
Tiga stepped forward, standing next to Peggy. ‘No, Fran just wanted to be witch-sized, but the Karens tricked her.’
‘SERVES HER RIGHT FOR NOT SPECIFYING WHAT SIZE SHE WANTED TO BE!’ a witch yelled.
‘EXCUSE YOU?’ Fran bellowed, getting to her feet, the ground rumbling as she did so. She loomed large over the crowd, waggling a fist.
‘WELL, IF YOU WON’T TELL FELICITY BAT TO REMOVE THE GIGANTIC SPIKY WALL AROUND THE STATION AND LET US ON THE SINKVILLE EXPRESS, WE’LL JUST FLY TO THE BADLANDS!’ a witch shouted.
‘That’ll take ages,’ Fluffanora said casually.
Peggy bit her lip. ‘We need to control this,’ she whispered to Tiga before clapping her hands. ‘VERY WELL. I WILL REOPEN THE SINKVILLE EXPRESS SO YOU CAN GET TO THE KARENS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. IT WILL JUST TAKE A BIT OF TIME TO GET IT BACK UP AND RUNNING.’
‘What?’ Tiga cried.
The witches in the crowd leapt up and down, shouting things like ‘WISHES!’ and ‘JELLY BUILDINGS!’
Peggy turned to Tiga. ‘I’ll stall them as much as I can, but I won’t be able to hold them for long. They’ll fly otherwise. You have two hours to figure out how to stop the Karens once and for all.’
49
Fluffanora Knows
the Answer
‘You seem Stressed, Tiga. May I Offer you a Massage?’ Fran asked, reaching towards Tiga with a hand gigantic enough to crush the whole of Linden House.
‘No!’ Tiga said quickly, ducking to avoid it. ‘Thank you, though.’
Fran took a seat, wedging herself between the buildings of Ritzy Avenue and sending the pavement rippling like a delighted wave.
Tiga paced back and forth; she tried to grab hold of her thoughts and steady them, but like a disobedient pony, they galloped on, making her brain feel as unsteady as her feet.
There was only one person who might be able to help her, one person who was just the right amount of weird and brains to fix this – her mum. But she was miles away in Silver City. The Sinkville Express was out of action and they
couldn’t start it up again without a bunch of witches jumping on and racing to the Karens’ jelly castle. It would take three to five hours to fly to Silver City, depending on the wind, even if she persuaded Felicity Bat to levitate and give her a lift. She momentarily contemplated some sort of time-freeze spell, but even that could take hours of looking through the Linden House library.
Felicity Bat came gliding down the street. ‘Any ideas? They’re queuing up outside Ritzy City station, little pieces of paper in hand …’
Tiga shook her head. ‘Zero ideas.’
‘Here,’ Fluffanora said, handing her a takeaway Clutterbucks. ‘What are you thinking?’
Tiga sighed and explained she needed to get to her mum but there was no quick way, especially without the Sinkville Express.
‘There’s a quicker way than the Sinkville Express,’ Fluffanora said, sipping her drink. ‘I know someone who could get you there in five minutes.’
‘Nonsense,’ Felicity Bat said.
‘Really?’ Tiga cried. ‘Who?’
Fluffanora stared at the massive, glittery bulk of oversized fairy in front of them. ‘Well, Ritzy City’s resident giant, obviously.’
50
Ahoy, NAPA!
Gretal Green stood in her NAPA office in Silver City, fiddling with a string of teeth Zarkle had brought her.
‘And I hope you paid the above-the-pipes children for these?’ she said sternly. ‘You didn’t steal them?’
Zarkle, now shrivelled and fly-like, still had a perfect smile. She nodded and jiggled a coin purse. ‘I always pay.’
There was a rumble, subtle at first, but soon strong enough to dislodge the books from their shelves, sending them tumbling to the ground.
‘What the frogtruffles?’ Gretal Green spluttered, the string of teeth wriggling in her hand.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
Gretal Green walked to the window and squinted at the large thing that was bounding towards them as Zarkle disappeared with a pop.
‘Oh, you’re just going to leave me on my own?’ Gretal Green said, as the thing gained ground, now close enough for her to make it out.
‘Fran?’ she said, as Tiga, perched precariously on the fairy’s shoulder, came into view.
‘MUM! IT’S ME!’ she cried, waving madly.
‘Tiga!’ Gretal Green shouted, opening the window and holding out her arms. ‘That looks incredibly dangerous!’
‘I’M AS STRONG AS A FABULOUS, GLITTERY ROCK, DON’T YOU WORRY, GRETAL GREEN.’
Tiga clambered through the window, followed by Felicity Bat and Fluffanora.
‘Hello, girls,’ Gretal Green said, sounding slightly baffled. She frowned. ‘Fran is even more massive, I see …’
‘Mum,’ Tiga said urgently, grabbing her mum’s arm. ‘We need help. The Karens. Two hours to stop them. Wishes. Everyone. Sinkville is going to be plunged into jelly-covered chaos.’
‘Slow down, slow down,’ Gretal Green said, giving Tiga a hug. ‘What is going on?’
Tiga explained everything – the Kake, the wishes, the urgent need to stop the Karens.
Gretal Green nodded. ‘I suspected perhaps the key to making Fran small again was to deal with the Karens. It seems like a somewhat unbreakable spell. I sent the spy slugs to the Badlands to do some detective work. I sent them at first to look for you, but by the time they got there you’d come back. I left them there to gather more information. I’m fascinated by that jelly castle. There’s nothing like it anywhere else in Sinkville.’
‘Is Sluggfrey there?’ Tiga asked. She didn’t like the idea of her slug being in the Badlands.
Gretal Green nodded. ‘He’s fine. He’s very well trained. Now, let’s start with slugs.’
Tiga looked at the window of her mum’s office – it was lined with screens that showed each of the slugs’ views.
Fran, exhausted from the run from Ritzy City, began to sway, her head lolling, her eyelids closing.
‘Fran,’ Tiga said slowly. ‘FRAAAAN!’ But it was too late – the fairy’s enormous head went straight through the window, smashing the screens.
‘Fran!’ they all shouted at once.
‘SHOW BUSINESS!’ Fran snorted, snapping out of her slumber.
‘What are we going to do now?’ Tiga cried, picking up a shard of smashed screen.
‘Not to worry,’ her mum said. ‘I can probably hook the slug view up to some spoons and we can watch it on those!’
It was one of the many things Tiga loved about her mum – she never gave up.
Tiga sat in her mum’s desk chair and peered at all the spoons hovering in front of her. Her mum was clicking her fingers, trying to tune each of the TVs to the slugs’ views.
Tiga could see the hazy darkness of the Badlands in all except one, which was showing a rerun of Fran on Cooking for Tiny People before she was gigantic. She was making a pineapple head.
Tiga felt a lump in her throat. Everything was beginning to feel completely hopeless. She’d saved Fran from the Karens, but that didn’t seem to matter; soon Fran would be gone. She just couldn’t win.
The image on the final spoon flicked from Fran to another slug view. This time in the Jelly Castle Garden.
‘That’s Sluggfrey,’ Gretal Green said.
Tiga grabbed the spoon and held it tightly, as if by holding it as tightly as she could, the Karens couldn’t get him.
‘What is that?’ Felicity Bat asked.
‘Move forward,’ Gretal Green ordered.
Sluggfrey obliged and stopped right next to something: a toad climbing on a jelly horse.
‘I didn’t see any toads when we were there, did you?’ Felicity Bat said to Tiga.
‘Well, toads are quite small, so you might not see them,’ Fluffanora said.
‘Turn right,’ Tiga said.
There, in the corner of the garden, was another toad, only this time next to the broken smog machine.
‘They used the smog machine to try to make the place creepy,’ Tiga explained to Fluffanora.
‘Two toads,’ Felicity Bat said. ‘Do you not think that’s strange?’
But no one was listening to her.
‘I don’t think this is going to help,’ Tiga said. ‘I can’t see a Karen in any of the spoons.’
Felicity picked up a spoon with an interior view of the jelly castle.
A toad waddled past.
A toad carrying a cheese grater.
RITZY CITY POST
* * *
* * *
FRAN SMASHES MAVIS’S
JAM STALL
* * *
* * *
‘She just came crashing past and squashed the lot. Every time someone ruins my jam (and sometimes cat) stall! EVERY TIME,’ Mavis told our reporter.
Unfortunately, our reporter fainted due to UTTER FEAR before finishing this interview. The fainting occurred because Mavis recently befriended Zarkle, the fairy who once presented Cooking for Tiny People but now collects teeth. Our reporter found out that Zarkle suggested Mavis could spruce up the cats she was selling at her jam (and sometimes cat) stall by giving them some teeth. Big teeth she’d collected from above-the-pipes children. ‘Witches would like that,’ Zarkle said.
They secured the teeth with jam.
‘It’s not terrifying,’ Zarkle said.
51
Help?
‘ALMOST READY!’ Peggy cried from inside the Sinkville Express station. Outside, a beefy line of eager witches waited for the doors to open. She looked at her watch. Only thirty minutes to go …
‘Tiga,’ she whispered to herself. ‘You had better think of something fast!’
52
Felicity Bat
Figures It Out
‘They’re toads,’ Felicity Bat said, levitating around the room grandly, as she liked to do.
‘What are you talking about?’ Tiga said.
‘Toads. The Karens are toads. I did wonder why they never left the jelly castle. Surely, if you
wanted to ask a witch to make a wish, you’d just fly out of there and come to Ritzy City, but no. They sat there quietly for years, waiting for someone to discover the book, or for the Sinkville Express to start up again. And unfortunately for us, thanks to Tiga, both happened pretty much at the same time.’
‘They can’t be toads!’ Tiga laughed. ‘I saw them. You saw them. They were witches.’
‘You know,’ Gretal Green said, getting to her feet and walking over to Felicity Bat, ‘my spy slugs see past certain magic concoctions, anything that would prevent them from spying accurately. Things like spells to hide or disguise, that sort of thing.’
‘So wait a minute,’ Fluffanora said. ‘There’s a chance the Karens are coated in a spell that would make them look like witches when, say, Tiga sees them, but actually they’re just toads?’
Tiga had to sit down. ‘But toads?’ she said. ‘Really?’
‘Who do you think put the spell on them in the first place, then?’ Fluffanora asked Felicity Bat.
She shrugged. ‘Not sure, but I have my suspects.’
‘Who?’ Fluffanora asked eagerly, but she was interrupted by a gasp from Tiga.
‘We only have twenty minutes left!’
‘Twenty minutes?’ Gretal Green asked.
Tiga nodded frantically. ‘Yes. Peggy is trying to stop the town from going to the Karens by themselves. She told them she’d open the Sinkville Express if they were patient. It was a way of buying us some time to fix this, but she only gave us a couple of hours.’
‘She’ll be panicking by now,’ Felicity Bat said. ‘I shouldn’t have left her alone.’
Gretal Green paced the room. ‘Well, let’s look at what we’ve got so far. The Karens are toads, coated in some sort of spell that makes them appear to be witches. Spells like that always have something that keeps them going – Tiga, think of it like an above-the-pipes battery. Without the battery, the spell wears off.’
Witch Glitch Page 10
