01 - Pongwiffy a Witch of Dirty Habits by Kaye Umansky - (ebook by Undead) Page A

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.