01 - Pongwiffy a Witch of Dirty Habits (7 page)

“All right! All right! May the whales whip yer whiskers out, what be it ye
want
?”

“Shay shorry,” said Hugo through a mouthful of stringy tail.

“Shan’t. Meaaaaaaaaah! All right, all right! I’m
sorry,
may ye be
brained by a ship’s biscuit!”

“Vat’s my name?”

“Hugo, may ye be cuddled by an octopus!”

“Vat am I?”

“A Hamster! Leggo, may the stingrays kiss yer mother!”

“Vat else?”

“Pongwiffy’s Familiar, may ye be splatted by a rusty anchor!”

“Vat am I not?”

“A pet. A pet, a pet, a PET. Now, GET OFF MY TAIL!”

And Hugo let go. There was silence on the hill. Nobody could quite believe
what they had just witnessed. Dead Eye Dudley, ex-pirate and leader of the
Familiars, had been defeated by a Hamster. Dudley, aware of the shocked eyes,
muttered something about having a bad back, and slunk off to lick his wounds.
Sharkadder scuttled off after him, crying, “I’ll never speak to you again,
Pongwiffy!”

Pongwiffy scooped Hugo up and held him triumphantly aloft. The Witches and
their Familiars gave a great cheer and crowded in, full of admiration and
congratulations, wanting to be the first to shake the new champion by the paw.

“He’s small, I know,” babbled Pongwiffy. “And sort of cute, I’m afraid. But
he’s got guts, and he does his best. That’s what counts.”

Hugo sat on her shoulder, shaking hands and trying to look casual. But
inside, he was glowing. He’d made the grade. He’d struck a blow for Hamsters
everywhere. His future was mapped out, and he had a real career before him.

“Vat about anuzzer sandvich?” he said.

“Not a chance,” said Grandwitch Sourmuddle, crawling out from beneath an empty
trestle table. “I just finished the last one. And now I think it’s time to cut
my cake.”

“These Sabbats are really boring,” complained Pongwiffy to Grandwitch
Sourmuddle a few weeks later. “Nothing exciting’s happened since Hugo put Dudley
in his place. That was ages ago.”

Sourmuddle unclamped her toothless gums from a stale spiderspread sandwich and
said, “I’m sure this bread is left over from last month. I recognise the green
speckly bits.”

“That’s what I mean. Even the food’s awful. All we ever do is eat old
sandwiches and swap old news. Dull. Dull-dull-dull. Dull as ditchwater.”

“Ditchwater can be quite tasty at times. Depends what’s swimming in it.”
Sourmuddle dug out a green speckle of mould with a dirty fingernail and tasted
it experimentally. “Hmm. Definitely last month’s, that.”

“We should do something different. For a change,” mused Pongwiffy. “We ought
to rack our brains and think of ideas. Write them down on little pieces of paper
and put them in a hat. I’m sure something would come out of it.”

“I know what’d come out of it,” said Grandwitch Sourmuddle wisely.

“What?”

“Little pieces of paper. Tee hee hee.”

“Oh, there’s no point in talking to you,” snapped Pongwiffy crossly. “If
you’re happy to be mistress of the most boring Coven in the whole world, that’s
up to you. I suppose you can’t help it if you’re so old you don’t like a bit of
fun now and then.”

“Me not like fun? Certainly I like fun, how dare you. I am a Fun-loving
Person, and if you don’t apologise I shall make your nose drop off. That’d be
really funny.”

“Sorry,” said Pongwiffy sulkily. She was fond of her nose.

“What for?” said Sourmuddle, who had already forgotten. “What were we talking
about?”

“How boring our Sabbats are,” explained Pongwiffy patiently. “I was saying we
should all put our heads together, and…”

“What, in a big pile, you mean? Then when the music stops we all rush in and
grab one, and the one who doesn’t…”

“No, no! I didn’t mean that at all. It’s just a figure of speech.”

“Oh. Pity. It sounded fun,” said Sourmuddle, disappointed. “Though I’m not
sure I know a head removing spell. Not off-hand. You’d need your head screwed on
to think of a spell like that. Tee hee hee.”

Pongwiffy sighed. “Look, forget about the heads, Sourmuddle. I only meant
that we ought to come up with some suggestions for interesting things to do.”

“Oh, I
see.
To make the Sabbats less boring, you mean. Wait a minute!
We could think of some things to do which would be fun, and have a really good
time!”

“Exactly!”

“What a good idea. I might be getting on a bit, but I do come up with these
good ideas from time to time.”

“But it was my idea!” protested Pongwiffy.

“What was? Look, never mind about your idea now, Pongwiffy, let’s concentrate
on mine, before I forget it. Everyone must come up with some suggestions. We’ll
put them in a hat and have a vote. Well? What are you waiting for? Organise it!”

So Pongwiffy organised it. A moment later, all the Witches on Crag Hill were
surprised to find little pieces of paper and sharp red pencils suddenly appear
in their hands. They muttered uneasily, hoping it wasn’t a spelling test.

Pongwiffy whisked Hugo away from an admiring group of Familiars, popped him
on her shoulder and marched up to the bonfire.

“Quiet, everyone! I have something important to say. Grandwitch Sourmuddle
and I have just been having a chat. These Sabbats are really boring, and my idea
is this…”

“My idea!” interrupted Sourmuddle, stamping her foot. “Mine! Mine!”

“All right, then. Sourmuddle’s-idea-which-she-pinched-from-me is this.
Everyone has to come up with a suggestion and write it down and put it in my hat.
Then we’ll go through them, and decide on the best one.”

“What sort of suggestions?” asked several voices at once.

“That’s up to you. Anything you think might be fun.”

“I know! I know!” screeched Witch Gaga. “We can all hang upside-down from
trees pretending to be bats. Or if it’s a chestnut tree we can be nuts, or if
it’s a Christmas tree we can be crackers…”

“Yes, well, write it down, Gaga, write it down. Now, no more talking. You
have exactly five minutes from NOW.”

There was a great deal of panicky shuffling. Witches went into huddles with
their Familiars, crying things like, “Stop looking! Macabre’s trying to copy!”
and “My pencil’s broken!” and “How d’you spell bats?”

Five minutes later, Pongwiffy called time.

“Write your names on, then get in an orderly line. No pushing. Right, let’s
have your papers.”

In a disorderly mob and with a great deal of pushing, the Witches dropped
their papers into Pongwiffy’s upturned hat then sat down again, looking
expectant.

“Now then. Hugo will pass them to me one by one, and I shall read them out.
Clap if you like any of the ideas. First please, Hugo.”

Hugo dipped into the hat and passed the first paper to Pongwiffy. She
smoothed it out and frowned.

“This is blank. Who handed in a blank piece of paper?”

“Me,” confessed Bonidle with a bored yawn.

“But everyone’s supposed to have an idea! You’ve written nothing.”

“That’s my idea. I like doing nothing. So there.” And Bonidle promptly went
to sleep.

“Well, I don’t think much of that. Any claps for that one?”

There were no claps for that one, so Pongwiffy moved on to the next. “This
one’s Macabre’s idea. It says, SING SCOTTISH BATTLE SONGS OR MUD WRESTLING.”

“Aye. Ah thought o’ two,” bragged Witch Macabre, and her Haggis gave her an
admiring lick with his long purple tongue.

“But we don’t know any Scottish battle songs, Macabre. And this mud wrestling
business, I don’t think any of us here fancy it much.”

“Aye, but ah do.”

“Yes, Macabre, but you can’t mud wrestle on your own, can you? Who’d win? The
mud? Well, let’s put it to the vote. Who wants to sing battle songs or mud
wrestle with Macabre?” Nobody did, so she moved on.

“EVERYONE BRINGS A BALLOON AND POPS IT. That’s the twins.”
Agglebag and Bagaggle hugged each other and giggled.

“Well, it’s not
bad
I suppose,” said Pongwiffy doubtfully. “Balloons
are partyish sort of things…”

“No! No balloons! My granny got eaten by polar bears because of one of them
balloons!” That was Sourmuddle.

“Dear, dear. Why was that?” enquired Pongwiffy politely.

“She collided with one of them hot air balloons she did, over the North Pole
it was, punctured it with her broomstick she did, you could hear the explosion
for miles around, you could. Or was that my great granny. Or was it someone
else’s granny? Fetch me another sandwich, Snoop. What was I saying?”

“Never mind,” said Pongwiffy heavily. “No balloons. Next please, Hugo.”

“Mine next,” said Grandwitch Sourmuddle, suddenly remembering what was
happening.

“It’s not your turn…”

“Who’s Mistress of this Coven? Mine next.”

Muttering, Pongwiffy signalled to Hugo, who scrabbled around in the hat until
he found Sourmuddle’s paper.

“HAVE A BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR SOURMUDDLE,” read out Pongwiffy, and a vast sigh
went up.

“Well, why not?” whined Sourmuddle.

“Because your birthday’s still two months away. You’ve been told a hundred
times.”

Sourmuddle went into a deep sulk, and Pongwiffy moved on.

The next idea was, BRING-AND-BUY SALE. That was from Bendyshanks. Everyone
wanted to know what a Bring-and-Buy Sale was. Bendyshanks said they all had to
bring a load of Old Rubbish and buy it. The Witches wanted to know what sort of
Old Rubbish. Bendyshanks said rags, old shoes, home-made cakes and jigsaws with
half the pieces missing. Ratsnappy growled that it seemed daft, coming up with a
load of Old Rubbish then buying it straight back. Bendyshanks explained that the
idea was to buy other people’s Old Rubbish.

This provoked an outcry. Witches declared that they wouldn’t be seen dead in
one of Pongwiffy’s stinky old cardigans or a pair of Sludgegooey’s shoes. And as
for Gaga’s home-made sponge with the cement filling—talk about instant death,
one slice of that and it’d be a Bring-and-Die Sale. And so on and so on.

The Bring-and-Buy Sale was obviously doomed to failure, so Pongwiffy moved on
to the next idea, which was, START A BROWNIE PACK, suggested by Ratsnappy. This
was roundly jeered, and quite right too.

Greymatter’s INTELYJENT SOCIETY FOR BRAINY WITCHES didn’t get a
single clap because no one could spell Intelligent.

Scrofula’s RAFFLE proved equally unpopular when it was discovered that the
prize would be a rare collection of Scrofula’s old hairbrushes. Scrofula’s
dandruff was shocking. She had the most Christmassy shoulders in the world.

Gaga’s idea of HANGING FROM TREES never got written down, because she was off
somewhere hanging from one. That meant there was now only one remaining paper in
the hat. It belonged to Sharkadder.

Now, it must be remembered that Sharkadder was still sore about Hugo making
her Dudley look foolish. Also, she had recently had another row with Pongwiffy.
Something about missing hair rollers. In fact, she and Pongwiffy were currently
worst enemies.

Sharkadder’s paper said, MAKE-UP DEMONSTRATION.

“Huh,” said Pongwiffy, reading it out with a sneer. “Well, I think we all
agree that’s a terrible idea, so I’m afraid…”

“Hold it!” howled Sharkadder, outraged. “You haven’t given anyone a chance to
clap! You saw that, everyone, she didn’t even…”

“Oh, all right. Hands up anyone who in their right mind would volunteer to be
made up by Sharkadder. Bearing in mind she uses brillo pads for cleansing, which
is why her own ugly mug looks like the surface of the moon. There, see, no one.
Told you.”

Sharkadder flexed her long nails dangerously and said, “Not so fast, ferret
face. There’s another suggestion on the other side.”

There was too. It said:

TIE PONGWIFFY TO A THORN BUSH

AND THROW OLD TEA BAGS AT HER!

“Suggest you do not read zis one out,” advised Hugo in a whisper. “’E might be
popular.” Pongwiffy took his advice and accidentally on purpose dropped the
paper in the fire. Sharkadder jumped up and down, snarling.

“Well, that’s that,” said Pongwiffy, ignoring her. “What a load of useless
suggestions. I don’t know why I bothered.”

“What about you, bug brain?” heckled Sharkadder. “What’s your idea?”

“I don’t have to think of one. I organised it.”

“Boo!” howled the Witches, led by Sharkadder. “Can’t think of one!”

“Can,” snapped Pongwiffy, who couldn’t. Her brains always seemed to be out
whenever she called on them. Luckily, Hugo came to her rescue.

“I vish to speak.” There was immediate silence. For a new boy, Hugo commanded
a great deal of respect. In fact, he was already well on his way to becoming
leader of the Familiars, particularly since Dudley was still on the sick list.

“My Mistress ’ave an idea. A great idea.”

“I do? Oh—er—quite right,” agreed Pongwiffy. “You tell them, Hugo. I’m shy.”
And she listened with interest to what her idea was.

“TALENT CONTEST,” announced Hugo. “Ze Great Talent Contest. Ze vinner vill
vin a vunderful avard vich I vill carve viz mine own paws. I shall call it ze
’Ugo Avard.”

“Eh? What’s he talking about?” muttered the Witches, having trouble with all
this talk of vinners and avards.

“He means the best act gets a prize,” translated Pongwiffy. “I think.”

“Not only zat,” continued Hugo, warming to his subject and ignoring
Pongwiffy, who was trying to shut him up. “As well as prize, ze contest vill be
judged by A Famous Person from ze vorld of show business. Ve vill send out
invitations far and vide. Zis contest vill go down in ’istory!”

There was an awed silence.

“Idiot!” hissed Pongwiffy.

Suddenly, to Pongwiffy’s astonishment, the silence erupted into a storm
of applause. A talent contest! Of course. With an award, and a Famous Person judging
it! What a good idea!