The Witch With the Glitch Read online

  “Possibly completely your fault?” asked Ivy in confusion. “What does that even mean?”

  “Weeeeeeeeell...” said the green-skinned lady, then she sighed an enormous sigh and sank deeper into her chair.

  “Let me take a wild guess here,” said Ivy. She was about to stamp her foot but was afraid it might go through the floor. “You’re a witch?”

  The witch nodded.

  “And this...” Ivy waved at herself. “This is an accident?”

  The witch nodded again.

  “Well,” said Ivy. “I’ll pop out and get my friends then you can turn us back to normal.”

  Before the witch could say anything, Ivy walked silently through the table, through the chair and finally through the wall to the outside. It was more than a little strange moving around without being able to hear even the slightest tip tap of your own footsteps, but Ivy was so angry that she was prepared to accept it, at least for a few minutes.

  She walked up to Nina and tried to tap her on the shoulder. Except her hand went straight through her best friend’s shoulder and Nina didn’t even realise.

  “Poo sandwiches!” Ivy shouted in frustration.

  Nina screamed in fright, and Ivy wasn’t sure but she could have sworn that she heard a dog whimper somewhere nearby.

  “Who the—” Nina said, spinning around to face Ivy. “It’s you!”

  Nina gave her friend a big smile and Ivy noticed that the sharp vampire teeth had disappeared. At least for now.

  “Where’s Oswald?” asked Ivy.

  “Why did you shout ‘poo sandwiches’ at me?” asked Nina.

  “No time for that,” said Ivy impatiently. “There’s a witch in that house. She did this to us and she’s going to turn us back.”

  There was a scampering sound nearby, and out of the undergrowth bounded a wolf with small, round glasses, holding a stick in its mouth. Ivy cried out in shock as the wolf jumped up at her, but she needn’t have worried. Just as Ivy had passed through the wall, the wolf passed through Ivy. But the wolf wasn’t a ghost and so it hit the wall with a crunch and slid down to the ground, where it transformed back into someone a little more familiar.

  “Oswald?” said Ivy in surprise.

  Oswald jumped to his feet, the stick still held between his teeth, his clothes a little ragged but somehow shrinking back to his normal size.

  “What were you doing?” Ivy asked her two friends.

  “Erm,” said Nina sheepishly. “Playing fetch.”

  “Playing fetch?” Ivy’s voice was getting higher and higher. “This is no time to play fetch! Come with me!”

  Ivy stomped off up the gingerbread house’s path and straight through the chocolate door.

  “You’ll have to let yourselves in,” she shouted from inside.

  Nina opened the door and Oswald walked in, still holding the stick awkwardly in his hand. The witch stood up from her chair and walked towards the children. Nina tried to walk through the doorway but something stopped her.

  She took a step backwards and tried again but, once again, it was as if there was a glass wall in her way. She pressed her face against the invisible barrier, smooshing her lips into it and sticking her tongue out.

  Oswald giggled.

  “Mwhy cnt I cm in?” said Nina.

  “What have you done now?” Ivy asked the witch in a very bossy tone of voice.

  “I haven’t done anything!” said the witch. “Oh, hang on...”

  The witch pointed at each of them in turn.

  “Ghost. Werewolf. Vampire,” she said. “That’ll be it. Your friend out there is the vampire?”

  Ivy nodded.

  “Vampires can’t come in to houses unless you invite them,” said the witch with a knowing nod.

  “Come on in,” said Ivy.

  Nina walked forward but whacked into the invisible barrier once more.

  “Ow!” she said.

  “You have to be the one who owns the house to invite a vampire in,” the witch continued.

  “Well, if you’re going to magic us all back to normal you had better invite her in,” said Ivy firmly.

  The witch nodded. Then she shook her head.

  “Back to normal?” she asked eventually. “No, I’m afraid I can’t turn you back to normal. You’re stuck like this.”

  chapter four - what does a gingerbread house taste like?

  “Noooooooo!” Oswald howled, the words starting out human but sounding more like a dog the longer he shouted.

  Ivy glared at him. He gave a little whimper and, even though at that moment he was back to being a boy, scampered over to stand in the corner.

  “Oh, don’t stand out there looking like a tomato squashed against a window,” the witch chuckled as she pointed to Nina. “If your friends are in you might as well come in too. I invite you.”

  Nina pushed her hand forward. The invisible barrier was no longer there, so she edged her way inside and shut the door behind her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now what do you mean by saying we’re stuck this way?”

  “Just that, I’m afraid, my lovelies.” The witch gave a smile and a sigh and wandered back to her chair by the fire. “It would seem I’m not a very good witch anymore.”

  Nina glanced over at Ivy, who was floating half in and half out of a dining chair. She could see that her friend was getting mad. If she was honest she was pretty mad herself, but shouting wouldn’t do them any good. She took a deep breath and walked over by the fire next to the witch.

  “I’m Nina,” said Nina. “This is Ivy and Oswald.”

  The witch nodded. “I’m Belinda,” she said.

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” said Nina. “But did you cast the spell that turned us all this way?”

  The witch nodded.

  “And you can’t turn us back?”

  The witch shook her head.

  “But why ever not?” Ivy snapped.

  The witch stared at the three of them, a confused look passing over her face like a cloud raining frowns.

  “You've got no idea who I am, do you?” she asked eventually.

  “Nope,” said Oswald.

  “Nuh-uh,” said Ivy.

  “Sorry, we’re not from around here,” said Nina.

  “Have you tasted the house?” Belinda the witch asked.

  The children shook their heads.

  The witch told them to have a try, so both Nina and Oswald snapped off a couple of delicious-looking treats that decorated the mantelpiece. Ivy simply stood in the middle of the chair she was haunting and glared at them. At least until Nina and Oswald bit into the sweeties.

  “Bleurgh!” the pair shouted.

  Ivy giggled as she watched her two friends trying to scrape the vile taste from their tongues.

  “Eew,” said Nina. “That is absolutely disgusting.”

  The witch nodded.

  “It wasn’t even supposed to be a candy house,” she added. “All I wanted was a lemon meringue pie. I waved my wand, said my spell and whoosh… a candy covered house which gets sticky when it rains and tastes like a pile of dog’s poo.”

  Ivy laughed again. Nina looked like she might be sick.

  “So how did this happen?” Ivy managed, after taking a breath to push her giggles down inside herself. “And how did you manage to turn us into...into...monsters?”

  “All I thought was I might try a little spell for Halloween, you know, decorate the place with some spooky dolls?” she replied. “And I waved my wand, said my spell and...”

  “And?”

  “And the people in the village call me the witch with the glitch.”

  “Seems like a fair description,” Oswald whispered to Ivy.

  The witch glared at him and flicked her wand in his direction. Red sparks danced from the end and Oswald went back to whimpering in the corner.

  “All I wanted to do was to make the place all spooky,” Belinda the witch said. “I thought if I did, the villagers might stop believing I was going
to do something horrid to them and maybe let me join in the trick or treating and the Halloween spirit.”

  “Spirit. Hahaha,” Oswald chuckled, prodding his finger through the middle of Ivy’s ghostly head.

  “Oi!” said Ivy, moving her head out of the way.

  “Eew,” said Oswald, looking at the strange ectoplasm-goo that was now on his finger.

  “Everything’s gone wrong,” Belinda continued. “Ever since I got here it’s been one thing after another. First the house, then Izzy, then… then…” The witch held up her bright green hand and stared intently at it for a second. “All I wanted was a nice bubble bath.” She let out a long, sad, sigh.

  “You mean…” said Nina cautiously. “That you…I mean to say…your skin isn’t supposed to be…green?”

  The witch closed her eyes and leaned toward Oswald. “Has your friend had a bump on the head recently?” she asked.

  “Ummmm,” said Oswald.

  The witch opened her eyes. “WHAT A STUPID QUESTION!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “OF COURSE MY SKIN ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE GREEN!!”

  “Sorry,” Nina whispered.

  The witch took a deep breath and stared at the three of them.

  “Excuse me, Miss Belinda,” Ivy decided that being polite might be the best course of action after all. “Is there anything we can do to stop you… erm… glitching?”

  The witch picked up her wand once more, turning it over absent-mindedly in her hands.

  Ivy thought for a moment about disappearing through the nearest wall, but the witch finally looked up at her. As she did, the corners of her mouth turned up ever-so slightly into the beginnings of a smile.

  “Izzy,” she said.

  “Izzy?” Ivy asked.

  “If you find Izzy and bring her to me…” the witch trailed off.

  “Then you’ll turn yourself… erm… not green?” asked Nina.

  Belinda nodded.

  “And you’ll turn the house not poo-flavoured?” asked Oswald.

  Belinda nodded.

  “And you’ll turn us back to children again?” ask Ivy.

  The witch sighed, then she nodded. “There’s one more thing. The spell will need to be reversed before midnight. If it isn’t, then there really will be nothing we can do and you’ll be stuck that way forever. Now, be off with you, get out of my house before I change my mind,” she said.

  So they did.

  chapter five - follow the pebble people-path

  Nina and Oswald walked out of the front door of the witch’s house. Ivy tried her best to do the same, but the wind caught the door, slamming it shut and passing right though her like a knife through butter. She looked down at her body. She could still see it and feel it but the world around her felt more like clouds. She saw everything perfectly but she couldn’t touch it. Every time she reached out to try, her hand passed straight through.

  “I don’t like this,” said Ivy, floating closer to Nina. “It’s scary.”

  Nina stopped and looked at her friend. Ivy was there alright, but if Nina looked closely she could see the witch’s gingerbread house through her friend.

  “I would give you a hug…” Nina trailed off, but seeing that her best friend might burst into tears she knew she had to try something different. “Hey, watch this!”

  Nina crept over to Oswald, who was on his hands and knees sniffing at a nearby tree. She tiptoed closer and closer and then…

  “Boo!” she shouted.

  Oswald didn’t get a fright. He didn’t even turn around. Instead, he kept sniffing at the tree.

  “You can’t scare me,” he said, touching the bark of the tree. “I think I must have special werewolf powers because…”

  Oswald turned around and screamed like a little baby girl.

  Ivy burst out laughing. “How did you scare him?” she asked.

  Nina turned around to reveal two long fang-like teeth which had grown, seemingly from nowhere, in her mouth.

  “Oh, don’t be a baby, Oswald,” she said. She ran her tongue over her new gnashers and gave a big, white grin. “I wouldn’t bite you.”

  Oswald stared at Nina suspiciously. “You wouldn’t?” he asked, unconvinced.

  “Hmmm. Probably not. Unless I was really hungry!” Nina lunged forward, pretending to grab him. Oswald ducked but lost his footing and fell into the trees that surrounded the clearing.

  Nina and Ivy burst into a fit of giggles.

  “Nina,” said Ivy between laughs. “How are we going to find this ‘Izzy’ person the witch was talking about?”

  “That’s the least of our worries,” said Nina, managing to stop laughing but still showing off a huge too-toothy grin. “We’re going to need to find that Oswald person before we do anything else. Unless he’s turned back into a doggy and he’s having a wee against a tree.”

  “Hey!” said Oswald, poking his human-face through the undergrowth. “I’m not… doing my business in the woods.”

  “Do werewolves wee in the woods?” asked Ivy with another giggle.

  “I’ve found a path,” said Oswald, suddenly sounding very serious.

  Nina gave her head a slow left-right shake and her vampire fangs vanished. “Now I remember why we keep you around, Oswald,” she said. “You’re very useful a lot of the time. Where’s this path then?”

  Oswald’s head vanished back into the bushes, then there was a rustling sound before he popped out again a few metres further away.

  “Here,” he said. “Look!”

  The girls ran and floated over to where Oswald’s head was visible. Nina pushed through the bushes and held them back for Ivy to try to make her feel like a real person again. Ivy thanked her as she passed from the light of the clearing into the gloom of the woods.

  It took the girls a moment for their eyes to become accustomed to the half-light. Once their sight had adjusted they could see Oswald standing next to a single, white, stone around the size of a gobstopper.

  “Don’t say it,” said Oswald, his eyebrows crunching together into a frown.

  “It’s just…” said Ivy.

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Well… erm…” Nina smirked.

  “Don’t say it,” Oswald said again. “I know what you’re going to—”

  “That’s not a path, it’s a pebble!” blurted Nina.

  Oswald shook his head and wandered away from the girls. “I told you not to say it,” he muttered to himself. “But you couldn’t resist, could you?”

  “It’s not so much a people-path as a pixie-path,” said Ivy, floating up to join Oswald. “Oh… hang on a minute…”

  Ivy pointed and as Nina caught up with her she saw a trail of white pebbles. She was about to make another joke when she saw that a few metres away the path doubled in width, then doubled again and again and again until, at the point it faded into the darkness of the forest, it was wide enough for the children to walk side by side.

  “Sorry Oswald,” said Nina.

  “I told you not to say anything,” he replied.

  “Sorry Oswald,” said Ivy.

  “Right then,” said Nina, clapping her hands. “Are we going to see where it leads?”

  And with that she ran as fast as she possibly could, following the bright white path onward to wherever it led.

  “Oi!” Ivy and Oswald chorused, then they both burst into action, sprinting after their friend.

  It didn’t take long for Oswald to catch up. His new werewolf legs, although not wolfed-out, felt different. Stronger, perhaps. He powered forward, catching up with Ivy and racing past towards Nina.

  They laughed and joked and shouted as they ran, sending woodland creatures fluttering and scampering in fright as they bounded onward. Soon, the path started to get narrower and narrower. The three of them stopped when they noticed it was shrinking down to a single stone wide once more.

  “Do you think that’s the edge of the woods?” asked Ivy nervously.

  Oswald nodded. “Reckon so, yeah,” he re
plied.

  The three children stood, Nina and Oswald panting lightly and Ivy hovering, accidentally a few centimetres above the ground.

  “What do you think we’ll find out there?” Oswald went on.

  “Not sure,” said Nina, taking a deep breath. “Only one way to find out, though.”

  Nina darted forward beyond the end of the path and popped her head out of the woods. A couple of seconds ticked by and then she dipped back into the woods.

  “What did you see?” asked Ivy.

  “People,” said Nina.

  “Oh good,” said Oswald.

  Nina shook her head, then poked it out of the woods once more. This time there was a roaring noise from the other side.

  “Not good,” said Nina, turning back to Ivy and Oswald. “Very, very, very not good.”

  She was about to say something else when an enormous hand reached through the undergrowth and, grabbing her by the scruff of the neck, dragged her out of sight and off who-knew-where?

  chapter six - nina goes batty

  Ivy screamed. Oswald threw his hand up to cover her mouth, but his hand passed straight through her ghostly head, leaving him to topple forward onto the soil and grass of the forest floor. She stared at him goggle-eyed as he wiped the ghost-gloop from his hand onto a small patch of moss next to where he’d fallen.

  “Shhh,” he whispered.

  Ivy mouthed the word, “Sorry.”

  Oswald beckoned Ivy over and she floated to his side.

  “Did you see what grabbed Nina?” he whispered.

  Ivy shook her head.

  “After three we run out to save her?”

  Ivy looked over to the spot where Nina had vanished. When she looked back Oswald was no longer Oswald; he was a big, grey, snarling, werewolf. With a small, round pair of glasses perched on the end of his nose and some increasingly raggedy clothes barely covering his wolfy body. She would have reached out and taken them, put them in her pocket, but she was getting the hang of the fact that it wouldn’t work.

  “One…” Ivy began.

  Oswald-wolf nodded his wolfy-nose.

  “Two…” Ivy continued slowly.

  “Woof!” Oswald barked, and then bounded towards the edge of the woods.

  I guess that means three, Ivy thought before zipping after him.