Witch Switch

by Sibéal Pounder

  ‘But how?’ Aggie Hoof asked, her eyes as wide as cauldrons.

  ‘Well, we can just make the current editor disappear. I am in charge of this place after all. Slowly and quietly we are going to get rid of every good witch in Ritzy City.’

  ‘You can make Darcy Dream disappear and make me the editor of Toad, Fel-Fel?’

  Felicity Bat nodded.

  With that, Aggie Hoof leapt in the air and spun around the room, knocking over almost everything that could be knocked over, including Felicity Bat and the painting Lady Frank had almost finished.

  ‘On one condition,’ Felicity Bat said, pulling herself upright again.

  ‘Yes, Fel-Fel?’

  She leaned into Aggie Hoof and whispered in her ear, ‘You are not allowed to tell anyone what I did to Peggy.’

  ‘DEEEEEEAAAAAAAL!’ Aggie Hoof said as she spun around some more.

  They both cackled and Peggy, from the really squashed place where she was trapped, could hear it all.

  5

  Cauldrons Ahoy!

  Tiga mumbled a few words, waved her hand and grinned as her hair twisted itself up into a neat bun. Fluffanora flicked her finger and a stripy dress, a long white coat, some sunglasses and an extra large floppy hat came sailing down from the bedroom and flew into her arms.

  ‘It’s my sailing outfit,’ she said defensively as Tiga smiled.

  They climbed inside the cauldron, which was surprisingly roomy. There was a little ledge around the bottom with cushions to sit on, and above it sat a platform with a big steering wheel. Fluffanora stood next to it, her hat flapping about in the wind.

  ‘Good luck, girls!’ Mrs Brew called to them from the balcony. ‘And remember, Tiga, if you find yourself in trouble, send me the signal.’

  Tiga had learned the secret signal in the Brew household. It was used if anyone in the family was in trouble. The signal was a small fat spider called Sid who you could call on to land on the head of the person you needed to come and rescue you. He would jump up and down on their head screaming ‘TROUBLE! TROUBLE TROOOOUBLE!’ until they came and saved you.

  Fluffanora wasn’t allowed to use Sid any more, because she tended to use him for things like ‘I’M BORED’ and ‘Can you come and pick me up from Clutterbucks?’ Neither of which, Mrs Brew had pointed out, were emergencies.

  ‘Which way do we go?’ Tiga asked, waving a Sinkville map she’d spotted in the bottom of the cauldron.

  Fluffanora flicked her finger and a slim little frog wearing a skirt shot out of the water into her hand. She looked at it and said,

  Scream and sing and sometimes squeak

  I give you, quiet thing, the power to SPEAK!

  She held it up to her eye like a telescope. ‘What can you see?’ she asked.

  ‘Your eyeball on one side, and a clear route to Ritzy City. The sea is calm,’ said the frog.

  ‘DID THAT FROG JUST TALK?’ Tiga spluttered.

  ‘Also,’ said the frog, ‘Mrs Brew is wearing a very large and fussy hat, which I think might be too much.’

  ‘It is too much,’ Fluffanora said.

  The frog smacked its lips.

  ‘GO! GO! GO! GO! GOOOOOOO!’ Fluffanora shouted. ‘Tiga, hold on.’

  Tiga grabbed the wheel and the cauldron soared off around the edge of Bubble Beach and out into the silky grey expanse of sea.

  Fluffanora tapped the map in Tiga’s hand. ‘You guide me. I say we park in the Docks and walk to Ritzy from there. We don’t want to dock in Ritzy.’

  Tiga studied the map. They’d have to sail past Ritzy City to get to the Docks …

  ‘DANGER AHEAD!’ the frog bellowed.

  6

  Twins and Squid

  As the cauldron boat swirled about in the choppy water, Tiga leaned as far over the edge as she could and scanned the sea.

  ‘I can’t see any danger!’ she shouted back to Fluffanora.

  ‘Me neither!’ Fluffanora had accidentally dropped the slippery little frog back in the water before it had explained exactly what the danger was, and now she couldn’t find it. She flicked her finger and started grabbing the frogs that popped out of the water – one in a tie, one wearing some sunglasses, another wearing a wig. ‘No, wasn’t you!’ she kept shouting.

  Tiga began climbing up the pole that held the silky sail. She got all the way to the top before she saw what was coming.

  In the distance she could just make out two figures speeding towards the cauldron boat. She recognised the ballooning skirts and the bristly little tufts of hair sticking out of their hats straight away.

  ‘Milly and Molly!’ Tiga shouted.

  ‘What?’ Fluffanora said, flinging a frog in some spotted pants back into the water. ‘They are hardly a danger.’

  Tiga frantically pointed in their direction.

  ‘Ah,’ said Fluffanora, when she saw the gigantic black square thing with teeth they were riding on. ‘That’s a Cauldron Eater 5000.’

  ‘A WHAT?’ Tiga cried.

  Fluffanora rolled up her sleeves. ‘The Cauldron Eater 5000s were created when the cauldron factories were shut down. Many of the cauldrons that went to waste were just dumped in the water, which of course made a mess of the sea. The Cauldron Eater 5000s were designed to swim about and eat the cauldrons, to clean the place up. But then it became fashionable to create boats made out of old cauldrons … and, well, we didn’t ever find all of the Cauldron Eater 5000s – some of them went rogue.’

  Milly and Molly were getting closer now. Tiga could hear their cackles loud and clear.

  ‘So that thing they are riding will eat us?’

  Fluffanora nodded.

  Tiga threw her arms in the air. ‘How are we going to stop it?!’

  ‘We can’t,’ said Fluffanora.

  ‘We can’t?’ asked Tiga.

  ‘We can’t,’ said Fluffanora. ‘Unless I can think of something very quickly.’

  Tiga prodded her arm. ‘THINK OF SOMETHING QUICKLY!’

  Fluffanora stared as they floated closer and closer. ‘Ah! If we huddle down in the bottom of the cauldron, we might make it.’

  ‘MIGHT?!’ Tiga howled.

  Fluffanora shrugged.

  ‘SIIIIIIIIIID!’ Tiga squealed. ‘SIIIIIIIIIID! Sid the warning spider will let Mrs Brew know we’re in danger and then she can help!’

  There was a loud bang and a cloud of smoke appeared in front of Tiga, with something written in spindly, spider-like letters:

  SID IS CURRENTLY ON HOLIDAY AND WILL RESPOND TO THIS EMERGENCY WHEN HE GETS BACK – IN TWO WEEKS’ TIME.

  Tiga gawped at the message.

  Fluffanora stepped forward and tapped Tiga’s jaw closed. ‘Not even Sid can help you now. Not that Sid can normally help anyway …’

  Milly and Molly waved sinister little waves. They were only moments away.

  Fluffanora held her breath. Tiga squeezed her eyes shut. A massive horn honked.

  HOOOONK. HOOOONK. HONK. HONK.

  A huge shadow descended. Slowly, they both looked up. So did Milly and Molly and their Cauldron Eater 5000.

  Just above them hovered a familiar witch with two tiny feather dusters strapped to her feet.

  ‘LIZZIE BEAST!’ Tiga and Fluffanora shouted, as Lizzie Beast made another honking noise.

  ‘HONK!’

  She reached down and grabbed them by their collars, yanking them up high into the air.

  Milly and Molly growled as the three of them sped off into the distance. The Cauldron Eater 5000’s eyes swivelled around and stared up intently at Milly and Molly, who weren’t cauldrons but might be just as tasty.

  ‘Eeep!’ Molly said. She nodded her head and just like that, she and her sister vanished.

  Witches of Sinkville, HOLD ON TO YOUR INFERIOR WARDROBES! It’s me, Aggie Hoof, your new Toad editor.

  Darcy Dream has decided she doesn’t want to be the editor of Toad magazine any more and is playing hide-and-seek on her own instead.

  And you shouldn’t look for her becau
se it would be really nice for her if she won the game of hide-and-seek that she’s playing on her own.

  In honour of this being the first ever issue of Toad magazine edited by me, I have made the whole thing about ME. You are going to be totally inspired …

  THE STORY OF MY FIRST PAIR OF SHOES

  These days I have so many pairs of shoes, but a long time ago I only had one pair of shoes. I wasn’t even one year old and MY feet were finally big enough for small shoes. My mum took me to Crow Toes in Pearl Peak to get my first pair. My bestest friend Felicity Bat came too, but she cried the whole time because she was scared of the crow on the sign. It’s not a scary crow at all, see:

  Then I got some shoes – stripy with lots of bows on them – and had a nap.

  THE END.

  7

  A Lift from Lizzie

  Meanwhile, high up above Sinkville on the shoulders of Lizzie Beast …

  ‘I bet Felicity Bat ordered Milly and Molly to police the seas on that cauldron eater thing. That’s totally something she would do …’ Tiga mumbled to herself, hanging awkwardly from Lizzie Beast’s neck. Fluffanora was higher up, on Tiga’s shoulders. The whole thing would have been dangerous on land, but when zooming through the air on some feather dusters it was positively DEADLY.

  ‘Don’t slip,’ Lizzie Beast said as Tiga flopped forward and nearly somersaulted right off her.

  ‘Did you hear about Peggy?’ Tiga asked.

  Lizzie Beast nodded furiously as Tiga tried to hold on to her head. ‘Terrible. And it’s obviously Felicity Bat’s fault. Peggy’s mum was on Brollywood News just about an hour ago, right before I picked you up, and she said, “Peggy has gone away with the fairies. Peggy has gone away with the fairies.” Everyone believed it, but her eyes were funny. They were big and black and I think someone had put a spell on her.’

  Tiga shook her head. ‘It must have been Felicity Bat and Aggie Hoof. Those PAINS.’

  ‘What have you been up to, Lizzie Beast?’ Fluffanora asked. ‘What were you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve been helping my mum in Brollywood. She’s working on the new fairy film TOE PINCHERS. She sent me to the Cauldron Islands to see if we could find another fairy – they need one more because Bow the fairy keeps not showing up.’

  ‘No-show Bow,’ Tiga said.

  ‘Who?’ Fluffanora asked.

  ‘She was Peggy’s fairy in Witch Wars, but she didn’t show up,’ Tiga said.

  ‘Ah!’ said Fluffanora. ‘No-show Bow!’

  Lizzie Beast took a sharp left and wobbled about dangerously on the feather dusters.

  ‘Is the film any good?’ Fluffanora asked. ‘Balance, Tiga!’

  Lizzie Beast shrugged and almost sent them both flying. ‘It’s very funny, you know, watching the fairies scuttling about trying to be scary. Crispy has to say, “He he he, I’m going to slightly puncture the tip of your toe with my tiny little fang!” It’s meant to be a horror film, but, well, it’s not.’

  Tiga laughed as they soared lower. She could make out the tall buildings of Ritzy City poking through the clouds up ahead.

  ‘Where do you want me to drop you off?’ Lizzie Beast asked, as they tore through the sky and the bustling city and all its weird witches came into focus.

  ‘Take us to my house, 99 Ritzy City Avenue,’ Fluffanora shouted down to her. ‘But take the back route, we don’t want to soar up the avenue right past Linden House!’

  ‘That would be SILLY!’ Lizzie Beast said with a chuckle.

  Unfortunately, when Lizzie Beast chuckles, her shoulders tend to shake dramatically and so before Tiga knew what was happening, she felt herself flying off Lizzie Beast and tumbling fast towards the ground.

  ‘Oh frogmuppets,’ she heard Fluffanora grumble, as she too somersaulted down and down.

  Lizzie Beast shot after them, but didn’t see the roof to her left, banged into it and went swirling off in the other direction.

  ‘Sooooorrrrrryyyyyyyyyy,’ she said before crashing through the roof of Cakes, Pies and That’s About It, Really.

  Tiga was headed for a different roof entirely.

  BANG!

  She peeled her face off the soft canvas roofing of the stall she’d just fallen on. It was the exact same stall she’d fallen on when she first landed in Ritzy City.

  ‘Hello, I’m Mavis, would you like some ja– Oh it’s just you, Tiga,’ said Mavis, putting the jar of jam back on the shelf.

  ‘Sorry about the damage,’ Tiga said with a guilty grin as she looked around for Fluffanora. She was usually easy to spot in a crowd – she was always the one in an elaborate hat, or a ridiculous skirt. Sometimes both.

  Tiga looked up and down the street.

  ‘Fluffanora?’ she whispered. ‘Um … Fluffanora?’

  ‘Is that her?’ Mavis asked, pointing at what seemed to be a witch being attacked by at least seventy cats. ‘The witch who normally looks after that stall – Norris is her name – is missing. Very strange. She is always there every morning, standing right there. But she wasn’t there yesterday, or today. No one can find her …’

  ‘I fell on the jam and cats stall, Tiga!’ Fluffanora cried, as a cat attached itself to her face.

  ‘That’s unlucky,’ said Mavis. ‘All the other stalls just sell jam.’

  Tiga glanced around nervously at all the witches staring at them. So much for sneaking into Ritzy City without being noticed.

  Every witch and her cat knew they were back in town.

  And so did two complete pains.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Felicity Bat, gliding down the street. ‘You survived the wild seas of Sinkville.’

  Tiga stood taller. ‘I knew it was you who sent Milly and Molly after us!’

  ‘Is that Fluffanora?’ Aggie Hoof asked. ‘Wait, are we wearing cats now? Is that a thing? WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME?!’

  8

  The Sort-of Great Escape

  ‘What have you done with Peggy?’ Tiga said, grabbing Felicity Bat’s arm.

  Felicity Bat just cackled.

  Tiga asked again.

  ‘Nothing,’ Felicity Bat said with a smirk. ‘She left completely by herself.’

  ‘And we’re meant to believe she put you in charge?’ Fluffanora said as she pulled huge clumps of cat hair off her hat.

  ‘That is what we want you to believe, yes,’ said Aggie Hoof.

  Felicity Bat elbowed her.

  ‘Because it’s definitely not a lie,’ Aggie Hoof added.

  Felicity Bat rolled her eyes.

  ‘Where is the evidence that she put you in charge?’ Tiga demanded.

  Aggie Hoof flung a piece of paper in her face.

  Fluffanora peered over Tiga’s shoulder.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Fluffanora. ‘You’ve signed it with your name and then scored it out.’

  I am going away with the fairies. Please ensure Felicity Bat takes care of everything until I return.

  Sincerely,

  Aggie Hoof Peggy

  ‘She obviously got confused,’ Aggie Hoof mumbled with a sideways glance at Felicity Bat.

  ‘Look,’ said Felicity Bat, getting impatient. ‘I am in charge here, and you are both coming with me. RIGHT. NOW.’

  ‘Right now,’ Aggie Hoof added unnecessarily.

  ‘No, we’re not,’ Tiga said.

  ‘Yes, we are,’ Fluffanora said with a wink.

  ‘… Are we?’ Tiga asked.

  Fluffanora nodded insistently.

  ‘OK …’ Tiga said. She had no idea what was going on.

  ‘This way,’ Aggie Hoof said, pointing down Ritzy Avenue.

  Felicity Bat flew faster. ‘Hurry up,’ she snapped.

  Fluffanora smiled. ‘Oh, look over there! Mum’s new collection of dresses. People say this season’s collection is her best yet. They say the dresses are the best Sinkville has EVER SEEN.’

  Of course that sent Aggie Hoof pelting towards the Brews’ shop window. She smooshed her face up against it and said, ‘Ooooh.’

 
Felicity Bat had soared on ahead.

  ‘Quick,’ Tiga hissed at Fluffanora. ‘Let’s escape!’

  ‘I’d already thought of that,’ said Fluffanora, as she grabbed Tiga’s arm and ducked down a side alley. They reached a familiar little door. Fluffanora knocked on it seven times, drummed her fingers once, and knocked once more.

  9

  Clutterbucks!

  Clutterbucks was packed to bursting with witches floating about on chairs and drinking bubbly drinks.

  ‘Well, of course you can hide out in here, dears,’ said Mrs Clutterbuck, plonking a huge cake down in front of them. ‘That’s the last cake, though. Our cake chef has vanished. I can’t find her anywhere. Weird things have been happening in Ritzy City lately. Witches, just vanishing! Some people, sensible people, think it’s that Felicity Bat doing it, but who knows how! Others keep saying, “Well, if Peggy put her in charge she must be good, because Peggy wouldn’t do something to put any of us in danger.” They don’t see what’s happening!’

  ‘We’re going to find Peggy, Mrs Clutterbuck,’ Tiga said confidently. ‘We’re going to fix everything, aren’t we, Fluffanora?’

  Fluffanora was face deep in cake and unavailable to answer.

  ‘They’ll find us eventually if we stay here, though,’ Tiga said, staring at Fluffanora. ‘If only we hadn’t fallen off Lizzie Beast …’

  ‘Well, it’s done now, and we have a bit of time at least,’ Fluffanora said as she came up for air.

  There was a loud knock at the door.

  Not the seven secret knocks that you’re meant to do. Just two loud knocks.

  Mrs Clutterbuck scuttled over and opened the little hatch in the door.

  ‘It’s them!’ she hissed, slamming the hatch shut again. ‘I’ll have to let them in. Felicity Bat is technically the new ruler of Sinkville …’

  Bang, bang, bang. ‘Let us in,’ Felicity Bat said.