TALES FROM WITCHWAY WOOD: Crash 'n' Bang (3 page)

3. All Leprechauns are very security conscious. This is because they have a
secret pot of gold
buried at the bottom of the garden. They are presented with it at a special coming of age ceremony where there is much feasting and dancing and the occasional bit of bother. They get a long lecture about keeping it safe. In Leprechaun circles, it is considered bad form to allow your Pot to be stolen. After the ceremony, they are given a map and a packet of sandwiches and ordered to go off into the world and be cobblers.

4. Leprechauns can move
incredibly fast
when they want to.

5. They frequently get mistaken for Pixies. It really annoys them.

That’s enough about Leprechauns for now. Oh – except that they’re Lucky. All Leprechauns set great store by Luck. Their gardens are awash with shamrock and four-leafed clover. Of course, they know you can’t rely
solely
on Luck. Luck is a tricky thing. Sometimes, other people’s luck can be your misfortune. All the shamrock in the world won’t stop people trying to nick your gold, so you have to be practical and take the proper precautions.

The Zombie moved on and O’Brian breathed again.

Right! Time to get ready! He gave a jolly little skip on the spot, then glanced furtively over his shoulder, hoping nobody had seen. Leprechauns have an unfortunate tendency to caper about in a pointy-toed, uncool way that reminds people of dewy meadows and Fairy rings. It is embarrassing and O’Brian is trying to cut it out, but sometimes his feet just rise up and do their thing.

Back inside, he hurried through the workshop, whipping off his apron as he went. The shop smelled of leather and was full of tiny tools and jars of nails and glue. There were shelves lined with neatly labelled shoeboxes – some huge, some really small. O’Brian catered for everybody from tiny Fairies to thumping great GIANTS, with a lot of other weird types in between.

At the back of the shop was a small living area with a bed, a wardrobe and a small stove, where O’Brian cooked his supper and made up vast vats of shoe glue.

He hurried to his bed, reached under his pillow and drew out a long, thin metal box. He opened the lid. Inside, on a bed of velvet, lay his whistle. The traditional Leprechaun penny whistle, handed down through many generations.

Leprechaun families produce only one good musician per generation – in this case, O’Brian. His brothers all possessed cloth ears, whereas he had been able to pick out recognisable tunes on a hollow twig from the word go. So it was only right that he inherited the whistle. Of course, if truth be known, he would have preferred a saxophone. But you make the best of what you’re given.

He picked up the whistle, gave it a brisk wipe on his sleeve and placed it to his lips.

Toodly-tiddly-weedly-wee, toodly-tiddly wheeee!

Tiddly-toodly-idio, fiddly-foodly-pheeeee!

The merry little tune burst out and scampered around the rafters – and instantly, his Leprechaun side took over. His knees began to piston up and down while his feet performed a lot of intricate footwork with much unnecessary waving.

Darn!
He
must
stop doing that.

He lowered the whistle, anchored his feet to the floor and concentrated.

Must not skip
, thought O’Brian.
Must not skip
.

Finally under control, he marched to the wardrobe, threw open the door and examined his reflection in the long mirror. Green hat. Green jerkin. Red trousers. Beautiful soft boots with curly toes. Sandy eyebrows, matching ginger beard. Penny whistle. Yep, he looked like a Leprechaun.

O’Brian sighed. Looking like a Leprechaun was no good.

He pushed the hat further down over his eyes, undid the top three buttons of his jerkin, sucked in his cheeks and arranged his features into an expression of what he hoped was brooding menace. He hung the whistle round his neck. Originally it had come with a green ribbon, but at Filth’s suggestion O’Brian had replaced it with a black leather thong, which looked much cooler.

There. That was better. Now he looked a bit more like a Leprechaun in a Crash ’n’ Bang band. A Leprechaun with attitude. The sort of Leprechaun that girls might give the eye to, once they’d given up on Filth.

It was then that the spellophone rang.

O’Brian hesitated. He knew who it would be. It would be one of his brothers. Seamus or Kieran or Niall or Dillon or Paddy or – well, any of them. They would want to talk about insoles and the best brand of shoelaces.

Should he answer?

No. Not tonight. He could do without another lecture. His brothers didn’t understand why he wanted to be in a band. They thought it was an un-Leprechaunish hobby that would get him nowhere. They would try and make him feel guilty about closing early and going off to enjoy himself when he should be at home cobbling.

After ringing exactly fourteen times, the spellophone fell silent. O’Brian let out his breath in a little explosion of relief.

He hurried to the door, stepped out, shut it, locked it, checked it, pocketed the key, ran a few steps down the path, ran back, checked it again. Then he scurried down the garden path and stood on the wobbly flagstone, which jiggled a bit. Carefully, O’Brian stamped it flat and fluffed up the surrounding clumps of shamrock which were there for protection and disguise. There. That was better.

Automatically, he glanced up at the Rainbow Deflector on the workshop roof. This was a complicated wire contraption mounted on a pole, with spokes and rods and wheels and a large dish. It was currently at ease. No rainbows after sundown, of course. (Leprechauns have a dread of rainbows, which indicate where gold is buried. Most have Deflectors on their roofs. As a bonus, they get good spellovision reception.)

Happy that all was secure, O’Brian went into overdrive! He stood on the tip of one curly-toed boot, pulled in his elbows, breathed in deeply – and began to skip. Knees pumping, feet flashing, faster, faster, faster, until he was nothing but a confusing blur.

Then he vanished! Disappeared, just like that! The air wobbled, a small wind swept down the path, the gate opened and banged shut. After a moment, there came a brief snatch of a faraway tune played on a penny whistle – then silence.

On a high, lonely mountain to the north of Witchway Wood, a tall shadowy figure stands poised in the entrance to a deep dark cave . . . hairy face raised, sniffing the air, yellow eyes staring up at the darkening sky . . . searching, searching for the moon . . .

TT

‘Gareth,’ said the Thing in the Moonmad T-shirt, addressing its pet, who lived in a bowl on the sideboard. ‘I am in despair.’

Gareth said nothing, because he was a goldfish.

Outside, night was descending. Stars were coming out, and so were the owls – along with Witches, Trolls, Yetis, Ghosts, Goblins, Zombies, Gnomes, Mummies and all the other assorted types that for the sake of simplicity can fall under the heading of Monsters. Witchway Wood is a mixed area. A lot of unusual folk live there and night always brings them Out.

The Thing in the Moonmad T-shirt wasn’t Out, though. It was definitely In. In a chair, in a hole, in the mossy bank where it lived. In, and peering dolefully at the Situations Vacant column in
The Daily Miracle
by the light of a guttering candle.

This was unusual. The Thing wasn’t much of a homebody. It liked to be where the action was, not slumped and sighing in a chair.

Most people call the Thing just that – the Thing. They don’t even give him a gender, usually referring to him as ‘It’. His friends, however, know him as TT, know he is a boy and never give him pink T-shirts on his birthday. Not that they ever give him much anyway. Certainly not anything he could actually
do
with, like money.

TT was small and hairy with two protruding teeth and two big, flapping ears. The T-shirt was a washed-out black colour and the Moonmad lettering was peeling off. It was fraying round the neck. A bit itchy. Shrunken. Not nice. It matched its wearer’s mood.

‘What shall I do, Gareth?’ went on TT. ‘There’s nothing in the paper again. I’m getting desperate.’

Indeed, he was. He’d been out of work for weeks and was feeling the pinch. Right now the larder contained nothing but a packet of fish food, half a banana and the last tin of Stringy Thingy Noodles. Not only was he running low on food, there were a lot of other problems as well. He was behind with the rent. He was out of soap. The spellovision was on the blink. He couldn’t afford any more T-shirts, although he’d seen a purple one he really wanted. Worst of all, he couldn’t raise the money for his weekly trip to the cinema. TT loved the movies. Scott Sinister’s latest blockbuster was showing. Finding employment was imperative.

The trouble was, there were only two jobs on offer in the Situations Vacant column. One was for a Brain Surgeon and the other was for a Lady’s Companion.

‘It’s not that I’m fussy,’ said TT, lowering the paper. ‘I can turn my hand to most things. You know that. I’ve delivered papers, handed out fliers, been a chauffeur, a butler, a tea boy, worked in spellovision, been a cave rescuer. Mind you, they were all dead end.’

Plop!
Gareth blew a sympathetic bubble to show he was listening.

TT picked up the paper again and re-examined the jobs. He would certainly have had a crack at the Brain Surgery. After all, how hard could it be? The trouble was that they wanted you to bring a full set of scalpels and were asking to see some sort of certificate which he didn’t have. He could have a go at forging the certificate, perhaps, but the scalpels were another matter.

Being a Lady’s Companion was out of the question, because he didn’t possess a frock. All he had were Moonmad T-shirts. Besides, he couldn’t see himself sitting in armchairs drinking flowers or eating bonnets or whatever it was Lady’s Companions did.

Hmm. Problems.

His eyes wandered down the page, half of which was taken up with a large advertisement. He brightened up a bit.

‘Hey! See this?’ TT held the paper in front of Gareth, forgetting that being a fish with eyes on two sides, he couldn’t. ‘There’s a big outdoor music festival in Sludgehaven-on-Sea next Saturday. “
The Battle of the Bands
”, they’re calling it.’

TT was a music lover. He liked music almost as much as the pictures.

‘Says it’s being held in a big field just outside the town,’ he went on. ‘The best band gets a hundred pounds and a recording contract with
Genie Sounds
. That’s the new record label that’s being started up by Ali Pali, remember? I read about it in the paper. Imagine! A hundred pounds, Gareth! What we could do with that. It says “
Mystery Celebrities on the judging panel
”. I wonder who they are? I fancy a trip to Sludgehaven. A day in the sun, listening to music. What could be nicer? The tickets are five pounds each. It says “
Book now to avoid disappointment
”.’