in which the Weird Sisters encounter Scheherazade, Sherbet Dabs and Civil Wars

Aubrey Beardsley

You may remember we left the Weird Sisters doing their homework, which is never a good thing to watch and unsurprisingly, it wasn't long before Leilitchka - the younger of the sisters by one hundred years or so - started reminiscing about some of her past adventures. One story which she had later recounted to Scheherazade (who used it to great effect in one of her books) involved rescuing Iseult, who was trapped behind Fascist lines during the Spanish Civil War. She had joined some Irish Volunteers thinking she'd be helping old ladies cross roads and - at a push - darn a few socks, but had been somewhat shocked to find what it actually involved, having accidentally arrived in town via a portal from the eleventh Century while working on a few love potions with her mother.


Leilitchka had armed herself with some Sherbet Dabs and a Beretta, the latter being loaded with Chewits. Unfortunately (there always seems to be a hitch when the Weird Sisters get involved in rescue missions), the girls had got distracted by a rapper from Belgium who - in a fit of poetic pique - had stolen all the wrappers from the chewy sweets. Now you all know that one of the first rules of artillery is to 'keep your powder dry', but this is obviously tricky when a rapper's stolen the wrappers. So when the Weird Sisters went into battle, they found - somewhat inevitably - that the damp Chewits got stuck in the mechanism, which consequently jammed, so not a shot could be fired. The Sherbet Dabs proved useless in the situation too, so they had to call for help from their old friend and mentor Janka the One-eyed Wonder, Queen and most beautiful of the Bulgarian witches who was honoured to be asked to aid an Irish princess.

Janka flew in with her trusted cat Salem, who had been a shape-shifting salamander working for a giant rat called Putin (poisoning a speciality), before Janka had rescued him, and had had a spell as a lighthouse keeper, so was accustomed to keeping a beady eye and knew all the ins and outs of Health & Safety, a subject upon witches are notoriously lax. The pair set up a diversion in the form of a few conjuring tricks which produced visions of lusty ladies in luxury lingerie, while the Weird Sisters, sneaked in, grabbed Isuelt and whisked her away hidden inside an empty box labelled 'free porn', whose contents they had previously emptied from a height of about thirty feet (just enough to provide a double diversion).

Obviously owing to issues of National Security, the whole incident was covered up by the authorities, so this is very likely the first time you will have read about it. Now Leilitchka - back to your homework!