Witch Glitch Read online

  ‘Wishers!’ Balloon-Shoulders Karen squealed. ‘Oh, darling, now I can get the Unicorn Yoga Instructor I wanted!’

  Trifle Karen pushed her out of the way. ‘No, darling. Darling, we agreed we would get the Soothing Shark Spa, like I said the other day, darling.’

  Balloon-Shoulders Karen shook her head furiously. ‘NO, you said, darling, the sharks could be dangerous.’

  ‘They do a sort of deep sea massage, the sharks. Darling, it’s meant to be excellent for the skin.’

  Balloon-Shoulders Karen shook her head again, even more furiously this time. ‘Darling, you definitely said you couldn’t guarantee the sharks wouldn’t take a break from massaging and gobble us … darling.’

  Tiga and Lucy turned their heads, back and forth from one Karen to the other, like two little witches watching an incredibly odd, nonsensical tennis match.

  ‘And darling, Cheese Grater Karen will be livid if she doesn’t get her cheese grater.’

  ‘SHE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE ANY CHEESE, DARLING!’ Trifle Karen roared. ‘AND SHE ALREADY HAS ONE!’

  ‘Darling, I think she just likes holding the cheese grater, darling. Wants one for each hand now, darling.’

  Trifle Karen turned towards Tiga and Lucy, a strained smile smacked on her tiny, cherry-like face. ‘Now, my darlings, I believe you want to make a wish …’

  Balloon-Shoulders Karen sighed and walked towards a large door at the back of the room. ‘Follow me.’

  ‘We actually just want to find our friend,’ Tiga said, remaining rooted to the spot. ‘Fran? The fairy? Now witch-sized?’

  Trifle Karen snaked closer. ‘Is that your wish? Did you say wish?’

  ‘No,’ Tiga said quietly. ‘I don’t think I did …’

  Trifle Karen muttered something Tiga couldn’t quite hear, but she sounded croaky and annoyed. ‘She’s just through here, darlings.’

  And so Tiga followed, as Lucy pulled on her dress and muttered, ‘I don’t want to be in this jelly castle any more. I want to be back in shimmering Silver City.’

  They strolled past elaborate paintings and grotesque sculptures and stomped past doors marked with ‘Large Cinema, Darling’, ‘Bowling Alley, Darling’, ‘Largest Collection of Dragon Costumes, Darling’.

  Tiga stopped at that one and blinked.

  Trifle Karen rolled her eyes. ‘That’s Karen’s fault.’

  Tiga looked at Balloon-Shoulders Karen.

  ‘No, not that Karen, darling,’ said Trifle Karen, pointing at Balloon-Shoulders Karen. ‘Another Karen.’

  Onwards they went, into a vast hallway with a sweeping jelly staircase studded with gems. There was a slide running along beside it.

  ‘Is that a real slide?’ Lucy Tatty asked eagerly.

  Trifle Karen rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, that’s what Karen wanted. Waste of a wish, ahem, I mean a waste of time if you ask me.’

  ‘She wished for it?’ Tiga asked.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Trifle Karen said, leading them down a corridor lined with cakes – eight-tiered monsters covered in cream and delicious jam.

  ‘Why is your castle made of jelly?’ Lucy Tatty asked.

  ‘Darling, why not!’

  ‘How many Karens live in this place?’ Tiga asked as Trifle Karen put her hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her further down the corridor.

  ‘Thirteen, darling. Like I said, some better than others.’

  They rounded a corner and bumped into another Karen, whose neck was plastered with chunky, gem-covered chains. She was clutching a pair of kicking tights.

  ‘Dennis!’ Tiga gasped.

  ‘What is that?’ Trifle Karen asked.

  Jewel-Covered Karen tied Dennis in a knot and threw him on the ground.

  ‘Found it trying to steal the jewels on the staircase,’ she called back.

  ‘Crazy, darling,’ Trifle Karen said dismissively, ushering them on.

  Tiga leaned back, quickly scooped Dennis up and put him in her skirt pocket.

  ‘TIGAMAZING,’ Lucy’s voice boomed, making the jelly wobble. ‘WHAT DID YOU JUST PU–’

  ‘Sssh,’ Tiga said, smiling meekly at the Karens.

  26

  At the Mmmf

  Peggy stood in the middle of the mess that was the Mmmf (the Ministry of Mess and Many Files) in Pearl Peak, her nose in a book. ‘There must be a way to stop that Sinkville Express carriage falling off the tracks.’

  Tina Gloop, the rickety old witch in charge of the Mmmf, came sliding down the stairs with more documents. ‘It was always breaking in my day – rarely had a successful journey, if I remember correctly. And even then a carriage always fell off, especially around the Badlands. I don’t know why that engineer Lucinda Bunch insisted on building it so it took that route. No one ever has or ever will go there!’

  ‘At least no one stays in the carriage for that bit of the track,’ Peggy said. ‘They all get off at Silver City. That’s the last stop before the train loops around the Badlands and comes back. What’s worrying me is that the carriage fell off over Ritzy City the other day.’

  Felicity Bat levitated into the room, flicking papers with her fingers. ‘Just got another report of the carriage falling off, this time around the Badlands.’

  ‘At least it was the Badlands, so no one was on the train,’ Peggy said, picking up another stack of papers.

  ‘Well …’ Felicity Bat began.

  ‘But there wasn’t anyone in the carriage, was there?’ Peggy asked, as Felicity Bat held up a familiar-looking red-stained backpack.

  Peggy screamed. ‘Is that BLOOD!?’

  ‘No,’ Felicity Bat said, licking it and making Peggy wince. ‘It’s just jam. Probably still there from when the carriage fell on Mavis’s jam stall.’

  Peggy’s eyes fixed on the backpack. ‘I recognise that – oh FROGSTICKS!’

  ‘No one says frogsticks any more,’ Felicity Bat said. ‘It’s frogacinos now.’

  ‘In my day,’ Tina Gloop said shakily, ‘we just said frogancienttimes.’

  ‘Tiga must have been in that carriage with Lucy,’ Peggy said, running towards the door and smacking into a stack of files. ‘She wouldn’t go to the Badlands without good reason – she must be searching for the jelly castle in that book she found.’

  Felicity Bat cackled. ‘She’s gone properly insa–’ She stopped and cocked her head to the side. ‘What hidden file?’ she asked, floating slowly towards Tina Gloop.

  Tina Gloop gasped and took a step back. ‘Whu? I didn’t say anything!’

  Peggy snapped the book shut and looked at her. ‘Hidden file?’

  ‘How are you doing that? No, no, I didn’t say anything. I was just … thinking …’

  Peggy pointed her finger at Felicity Bat, who hung her head and levitated lower. ‘I told you about that, Felicity! No mind reading!’

  ‘MIND READING?!’ Tina Gloop gasped. ‘I suppose you are the best witch we’ve had for ages, but almost no one can do that.’

  ‘You don’t need to mind read all the time,’ Peggy went on.

  ‘Just a bit of practice,’ Felicity Bat whispered out of the corner of her mouth, eyes firmly fixed on the floor.

  ‘No!’ Peggy said. ‘No mind reading.’

  ‘But she did find out about my hidden file,’ Tina Gloop said.

  ‘True,’ Peggy said. ‘What is that?’

  Tina Gloop trotted over to the wall and kicked it. The peeling wallpaper fell away to reveal a tunnel. She trotted through while Peggy and Felicity Bat stared at each other. ‘A long time ago, Lucinda Bunch asked me to hide this file in the safest place in the Mmmf. Paid me so many sinkels to do it, too. I completely forgot about it until you marched in here and mentioned her. Silly old memory.’

  Peggy coughed as Tina Gloop emerged from the tunnel in a cloud of dust.

  ‘She wanted to make sure this was safe – she said something like “Someone might need it one day …” All eerie she said it, too.’ She handed Felicity Bat the tattered old notebook.

  ‘A
nything interesting?’ Peggy asked, wiping the dust off her glasses with her fingers, as if they were windscreen wipers.

  Felicity Bat’s eyebrows knitted together. She was deep in thought.

  ‘What is it?’ Peggy asked.

  ‘I don’t believe it, Pegs. The book. The weird Karens book Tiga keeps going on about.’

  ‘What about it?’

  Felicity Bat held up the notebook. ‘It seems Lucinda Bunch knew about that book too. And she believed it was extremely dangerous.’

  27

  To the Hall of Swings

  ‘In here, we have the Great Hall of Swings, darlings. SWINGS.’

  Tiga held on to the jiggling jelly wall and peered into the room. Swings, like the kind you would find in parks and people’s back gardens in the world above the pipes, were fixed to the ceiling. Hundreds of them.

  ‘SWIIIIIIINGS!’ Lucy Tatty cried. Tiga grabbed the young witch’s dress before she could dart into the room.

  ‘Why do you have a room filled with swings?’

  Trifle Karen and Balloon-Shoulders Karen looked at each other.

  ‘Karen, darling,’ they said.

  ‘Another Karen?’ Tiga asked.

  They both nodded and rolled their eyes.

  That was when Tiga heard it.

  ‘HAS THERE BEEN ANYONE

  MORE FABULOUS EVER?

  NOPEDY NOPE.

  FRAN, FRAN, FOR EVER.’

  It was slightly deeper and less screechy than she was used to, but it was the same fabulous, slightly annoying, unmistakable tone of …

  ‘FRAN!’ Tiga cried, racing through the swing room, batting the things out of the way as she went. ‘FRAN!’

  ‘WAIT!’ the Karens cried, charging after her. ‘You need to make a wish first, darling. A WISH!’

  Lucy watched them go and then sneakily slid on to a swing.

  Tiga charged up some curling jelly steps, her heart firmly fixed in her mouth. She didn’t know whether she was going to roar with delight or be really sick. ‘FRAN!’ she cried again. ‘I’M COMING!’

  Suddenly the jelly steps stopped and she went ploughing into a small jelly door. She took a step back, the squidgy sound of the Karens’ feet just moments behind her.

  She curled her hand into a fist and stood with it suspended in front of the door. ‘Only, you can’t really knock on jelly,’ she said out loud.

  ‘WHAT?’ came Fran’s voice from inside.

  ‘Fran, let me in!’

  ‘Oh, Tiga, you made it to my turret! How WONDERFUL,’ she said, throwing open the door.

  Tiga couldn’t believe her eyeballs. There she was – Fran! Only now she was the exact same height as Tiga, if you didn’t count the beehive, which made her twice as tall.

  ‘It’s true! You’re witch-sized.’

  Fran nodded. ‘Isn’t it FABULOUS? And I’m a princess, you see.’ She twirled around.

  Tiga sighed. ‘Well, lucky I got here in time. I’m here to rescue you, princess.’

  ‘Oh, just like a fairy tale! ONLY I’M NOT A FAIRY IN THE FAIRY TALE,’ Fran rambled. ‘I’m a witch-sized princess.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tiga groaned.

  ‘Also, it’s not like a fairy tale because I don’t want to leave.’

  ‘WHAT?’ Tiga said, as a clump of Karens she’d never seen before trotted into the turret.

  28

  Suitcases

  Ritzy City’s just-opened Sinkville Express station was a big old bag of bustle – hundreds of witches filed in and out of the magically rotating turnstiles, all stamped with the glittering letters R.C. There was a hatch in the wall dispensing Clutterbucks drinks, with witches in front of it shouting things like, ‘One We Hate Celia Crayfish cocktail, please!’, and a row of carts selling things for the journey, from shiny new books and stacks of crinkled Toad magazines to jam and some very old hats.

  ‘OLD WITCH HATS WOT GOT STUCK IN THE PIPES! GET YOUR OLD WITCH HATS!’

  ‘It’s the cart witch,’ Peggy whispered as Felicity Bat grabbed a couple of tickets floating through the air.

  That’s how the tickets worked – they’d fly around in a formation that was an exact replica of the Sinkville Express route, and witches jumped to grab a ticket. The route looked a lot like the shape of a lollipop with a kink in it – an almost straight line, running from Pearl Peak to Brollywood to the Towers across to the Docks (that was the kink), then to Ritzy City, Driptown and Silver City before doing a loop around the Badlands back to Silver City, where it would do the whole route backwards, all the way back to Pearl Peak.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Peggy said, flipping through the notebook. ‘Lucinda Bunch was trying to stop the Karens because of their dangerous wishes.’

  Felicity Bat nodded. ‘It seems the Karens’ book, the one Tiga showed us, was once used by other witches, including Lucinda Bunch, to make wishes. Only the wishes have twists. Bad twists.’ She pointed at a page in the notebook.

  The Karens can communicate with you and sense your wish by two methods:

  1.If you see the Karens’ book.

  2.If you see their jelly castle in the Badlands.

  ‘And it gets worse,’ Felicity Bat said. ‘No one ever went to the Badlands, so the second one was never really an option for the Karens.’

  ‘We should’ve listened to Tiga,’ Peggy said quietly.

  Felicity Bat stuck her nose in the air. ‘She’s rarely right.’

  ‘Wait a second,’ Peggy asked, her face a mangle of scrunched nose and confusion. ‘Why would Lucinda Bunch build a railway that went over the Badlands if she knew that if a witch saw the jelly castle, the Karens would be able to get to them?’

  Felicity Bat took the notebook and flipped a couple of pages back. ‘Because that was Lucinda Bunch’s wish. She saw the book, wished for the railway.’ She tapped a sketch on the page of a railway track, but this one only went as far as Silver City, not into the Badlands.

  ‘And the Karens’ twist was to extend the track into the Badlands,’ Peggy said.

  ‘And look at this,’ Felicity Bat said, pulling a loose document from the notebook. ‘Remember Tina Gloop told you the railway kept breaking back then, too? That the same carriage always fell off? Lucinda Bunch says here it was a spell the Karens put on it. She tried to figure out how to reverse the spell, but couldn’t.’

  Peggy looked expectantly at Felicity Bat.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said, folding the paper carefully and slipping it in her pocket.

  They stepped out on to the platform and found the Sinkville Express waiting for them. Up ahead, in the driver’s carriage, a thin ribbon of glittery steam twisted in the air.

  ‘ALL ABOARD! ANY BAGS LEFT UNATTENDED WILL BE GIVEN A RIGHT OLD TELLING OFF!’

  A couple of bags wiggled their way from the platform into a carriage.

  ‘I really need to get myself one of those self-walking suitcases,’ Peggy said, watching them go.

  ‘A load of old toad, if you ask me,’ Felicity Bat said. ‘They’ve got minds of their own – and they’re arrogant.’

  They watched a suitcase open itself up and use its handle to pour in a glass of Clutterbucks, as if it was actually drinking it.

  The witch next to it winced. ‘Soaked clothes, again. Thank you, suitcase …’

  ‘A suitcase with a mind of its own, how wonderful!’ Peggy said, as Felicity Bat rolled her eyes.

  ‘I have a bad feeling about today,’ Felicity Bat said, her long, spindly fingers twitching at her sides. ‘And I am an expert in bad.’

  ‘Everything will be just fine,’ Peggy assured herself as she marched towards the carriage. ‘As long as Tiga doesn’t make a wish.’

  29

  All of Them

  The Karens assembled in front of Tiga and witch-sized Fran. They were a hotchpotch of tall and small, all in structured black dresses, smiling sweetly. Tiga looked at each of them, counting as she went.

  Eleven, twelve …

  ‘I thought you said there were thirteen of you,�
�� she said.

  The Karen in the middle, who was clad in a gorgeous sparkling dress and an even more sparkling cloak – the hood up so you could only see her eyes – took a step forward. A cat followed by her spiky shoes.

  ‘Thirteen,’ she croaked, pointing at the cat.

  ‘Miaow,’ it said.

  ‘Oh, right,’ Tiga stuttered, remembering the Karens’ book. ‘And their cat, also called Karen.’

  ‘I’m Senior Karen,’ said the witch, taking off her cloak. She was beautiful, with piercing green eyes that swirled with mystery and a lot of eye juice. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, darling.’

  She clicked her fingers, and Trifle Karen handed her a piece of paper.

  ‘Ah, yes. Wants her friend back. Is that your final wish, darling?’ she asked, moving closer to Tiga.

  ‘I don’t want to go back,’ Fran said, folding her arms. ‘I thought I wanted to be big so I could hold a jar.’

  ‘What?’ Tiga spluttered.

  ‘To trap Zarkle, obviously. Put her in the jar, hide her in a fridge.’

  ‘Fran!’ Tiga cried. ‘That is terrible.’

  ‘I know,’ Fran said. ‘A terrible plan given someone would probably find her in the fridge.’

  ‘No, Fran, it’s terrible because it would be mean.’

  Fran stuck her nose in the air. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter, because now I’m a princess I don’t need to capture and hide Zarkle! I have a jelly castle! WHO’S WINNING NOW, ZARKLE?’

  Tiga threw her hands in the air. ‘What are you going to do in here for ever?’

  ‘Well, um, I’ll probably do princess stuff,’ Fran said. ‘Like sing to birds and … weave things?’

  Tiga stared at her.

  ‘Most importantly. I am now the most FABULOUS witch-sized princess in Sinkville.’

  Senior Karen took a step forward. ‘If we can speed this up, darlings, I’d really appreciate it.’

  ‘You were fabulous just the way you were!’ Tiga said, taking Fran’s hand and completely ignoring Senior Karen. ‘You were my favourite part of Sinkville. You don’t need to be bigger, or a princess, or own a jelly castle to be fabulous. You’re Fran the Fabulous Fairy! You saved me and brought me here. To me, you are more magical and fabulous than all of Sinkville put together.’