Brigid Lucy and the Princess Tower (3 page)

They always wear shoes with high heels. And they always have beautiful handbags to carry their evilness in.

(You see, if they just had plain, boring handbags, the evilness would
glow
through and everyone would see it.)

I know you are thinking that lots of women are young and beautiful and have pretty fingernails and clothes and shoes and handbags. That’s why I am going to tell you a secret. You can use it to check if someone is an evil witch. The secret is: all evil witches are terrified of being touched by children.

By the time human children are Biddy’s age, they know when a grown-up person doesn’t like kids. And they just don’t go near that person. So, when Biddy sees the
evil witch
on the train, she climbs onto the seat next to her, like Mum tells her to. But then Biddy puts her backpack between herself and the witch, and starts looking out of the window.

Mum lifts Matilda up onto the seat next to her, to keep Matilda safe.

Then Mum turns away from Matilda to get baby Ellen out of the pram. Just then, Matilda notices the beautiful woman sitting opposite her with a handbag all covered in bright red sequins and jewels. And Matilda is too little to know about witches, so she makes a big mistake.

She jumps off her seat, reaches out to touch the bag, and says, ‘Huddo, I’m Tilly. Dat’s
piddy
.’

The witch snatches her handbag away from Matilda’s grasp, and glares at Mum. Her lip is curled up. ‘Kindly keep your grubby child away from me,’ she says.

Mum pulls Matilda back up onto the seat beside her.

Matilda kicks and screams, ‘Want the piddy. Want to sit with Bibby.’

(Which is a big fat
fib
because, really, she only wants to sit next to Biddy so she can touch the witch’s handbag.)

‘
Shhh!
’ Mum says. She gives Matilda Ellen’s rattle to play with.

Matilda stops crying and hits the window with the rattle.
Bang! Bang!

‘No, Matilda, darling. Just shake it nicely,’ Mum says.

The witch snorts and tuts and rolls her eyes. Then she reaches into her handbag and pulls out her mobile phone, which has just started to ring.

‘Hello,’ she yells into the phone. ‘Yes! Sorry, I can’t hear you. There’s a child here making an
awful racket
. I’ll have to ring you back.’

While all this is going on, I’m sitting up on top of Biddy’s head cracking up laughing because I know what Biddy’s thinking. Me and Biddy totally dislike people who are rude and
nasty
. We always work out ways to get them back.

So I smile and wait.

And wait.

And wait. But Biddy doesn’t do anything.

I crawl down her fringe and look into her eyes. She’s just staring out the window, ‘being-good’.

‘Biddy!’ I yell, pointing to the witch. ‘This witch is being mean!’

Biddy’s eyes slide up to look at the witch from under her eyelashes. I can see she is thinking of ideas. Yes! But then she just shakes her head, puts her thumb in her mouth and looks out the window again.

I
hate
it when Biddy does that! Mum does, too, because she thinks Biddy is ‘too-old-to-suck-her-thumb’. But I hate it because Biddy goes into her own little thumb-sucking world. And then she
never
does imagining, and never ever has any exciting ideas.

‘Biddy!’ I yell. ‘I know you promised to be good, but this is ridiculous!’

But she can’t hear me, so she just ignores me.

‘Well, fine, then,’ I say. ‘If you are going to be good, I’ll just have to get back at the witch all by myself.’

Chapter four

taking revenge

But what can I do to get back at the witch?
Mmmm!
I’ll have to have a closer look.

I slip off Biddy’s shoulder, and tiptoe down her arm to the edge of her sleeve. The witch’s sparkly red handbag is on the seat next to Biddy’s backpack. And what’s that? There is a piece of thread dangling down from under one of the red sequins. I bet that string ties all the jewels onto the bag.

I wonder what would happen if someone pulled on that string? Would it unravel, so all the jewels and sequins
fell
off? Then, the witch’s handbag would be plain and boring.

Everyone would be able to see the evilness inside it. And then they would know that lady is an evil witch.
Yes!
That would definitely get her back for being mean to children.

All I have to do is tie the string from the witch’s bag to one of the straps on Biddy’s backpack. Okay. I creep further down Biddy’s arm, past her elbow, onto her wrist. Now all I have to do is jump onto Biddy’s backpack …

I lift my arms and bend my knees.

I say, ‘Ready? Get settie.
Go!
’

But I can’t jump.

It’s not that I’m a sooky scaredy-cat chicken-heart or anything. I just don’t like leaving Biddy when we are away from her house. Because, what if we get separated? What if she gets lost and I can’t find her?

I don’t want to be an all-alone, no-best-friend person. What if I never saw Biddy again in my whole entire life? That would be a disastrous catastrophe.

So, instead of jumping, I yell, ‘Biddy, you have got to help me.’

But Biddy
ignores
me and keeps sucking her thumb.

Now the train is slowing down. The witch is looking around, ready to get off at the next stop.

‘Biddy, look!’ I yell again. ‘If you don’t help me, that witch is going to get away with being mean to your little sister and every other kid in the whole wide world!’

At that moment, Mum notices that Biddy is sucking her thumb.

‘Brigid,’ Mum says in her soft-but-angry voice. She motions for Biddy to take her thumb out of her mouth.

Biddy doesn’t want to stop sucking her thumb. She takes it out of her mouth for just a moment. Then she turns around and
cuddles up
against the back of the seat, so Mum can’t see her face any more. Then she puts her thumb back into her mouth.

But, as she looks down at the seat, she notices the loose thread on the witch’s handbag.

And she reaches down, picks it up and starts playing with it.

‘Yes!
Thank you
, Biddy,’ I yell, running across her wrist and onto her hand. I grab one end of the loose thread and hold onto it, waiting, ready.

Then, the minute Biddy stops playing with it and drops the thread, I run to tie it to a strap on her backpack.

Then, quick as a sunbeam, I run up Biddy’s arm, and burrow safely into her hair, to watch what happens next.

The witch stands up, pursing her lips. Her eyes narrow as they glide over Biddy and Matilda and baby Ellen. Then she picks up her handbag and swings it over her shoulder. The string stretches between the backpack strap and the witch’s handbag.

Zippp!
The string unravels.

The witch walks away.

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle!
The red jewels and sequins rattle to the floor.

The train stops. The carriage doors open.

The witch steps out.

I scramble up to the top of Biddy’s head to look out of the train window. I can see the witch! All the jewels on her bag are gone. The evilness is showing through.

I’m jumping up and down. ‘Look, Biddy! Look!’ I yell, pulling Biddy’s fringe to make her turn her head around and look out the window. ‘We did it!’

But Biddy doesn’t turn around, and now the train is moving again.

‘No!’ I yell. ‘Please
wait
a bit longer, train!’

But it doesn’t, and I don’t see any more.

Now the witch is gone, Mum lets Matilda climb down from her seat.

‘Piddy,’ Matilda squeals, seeing the jewels sparkling on the carriage floor.

‘Look, Mummy. Piddy,’ she says, and flops down on the floor to pick them up.

Mum smiles and looks down, but when she sees the jewels, her eyes go all big and guilty. ‘Oh, Tilly, don’t touch,’ she says, jumping up quickly to stop Matilda playing with the jewels.

I can tell Mum knows straightaway that the jewels came from the witch’s bag. She looks around in case the witch is still there, ready to
pounce
on Matilda. But the witch is gone.

Then Mum sees the fine string stretched between the jewels to Biddy’s backpack. ‘Brigid Lucy?’ she says.