There's only a little tickling in this as this was submitted for more of a DiD competition ( http://torqual3d.deviantart.com/art/Summer-Sleuths-Story-Competition-468497949?offset=100#comments ), but I think there's enough that you'll like this especially nylon foot fans.
edit: added more tickling and a better ending.
The Mystery of the Stolen Shoelaces - An Amanda Jones Adventure
“Mein schuh!” the girl shouted as she chased after the masked witches who had stolen her shoe. They were busy tearing the laces out of them before handing the shoe back to her.
“Laces are very valuable to them it seems,” Amanda laughed as the girl tried to put the laceless sneaker back on her foot. She was nearly trampled by the marching band as the parade continued behind her. It was an unusually warm afternoon on November 11th and the fasnet parade had just begun on the streets of Cologne Germany. Amanda Jones and Hannah Duffy were in attendance, having never seen the cultural display. Only Katrin Weber, the German native was familiar with the playful antics of the day. She had invited the summer sleuths to visit during their fall semester holiday.
“Yez at zee Fasnet parade you have to vatch out for thoze vitches,” Katrin said withdrawing into the crowd nervously, “Uh oh, here zey come! Vee should get to zee back zo they don’t zee uz!”
“Relax Kat! Wha’ are the odds they’ll pick us oot?” Hannah said, “ther’s hun’reds of people ’ere!”
“Look out!” Amanda shouted as Hannah was grabbed from behind by one of the broom dragging witches.
“You zee? Zey alwayz go for zee pretty young girlz!” Kat said as three of the witches wrestled Hannah to the ground and began untying her sneakers.
Amanda tried to rescue Hannah, but soon found herself being lifted by a huge man in a scary demon mask. She felt one of her sneakers slide off her heel as a witch carrying a large pestle grabbed it exposing the sheer black stockings covering her toes. “Noo! give me back my shoe!” Amanda shouted as they dropped her. The witch with her shoe ran off tearing the laces out as Amanda hopped after her angrily trying to keep her delicate stocking foot off the ground. One pesky witch tried to tickle her foot, but she kicked her away annoyed.
The witches surrounding Hannah eventually cleared off leaving Hannah on the ground stunned. She was lucky enough to still have both shoes on her feet, but her shoe laces were gone.
“Just let her take zee lacez, Amanda!” Katrin said from the sidelines, “Zat’s all zey vant. Zey usually give ze schuh back after zey have zee lacez.”
“They better! I’m not hopping around in one shoe for the rest of the day!”
But the witch didn’t give it back after she took out the laces. It seemed she kept the sneaker as a trophy and tied it to the top of her pestle with the shoelace. Amanda was enraged as she continued hopping after the witch. She passed more pretty victims of shoelace theft and soon found it difficult to keep up on one foot. If she was going to catch this thief, she was going to have to soil her pretty sheer stocking foot.
Katrin, seeing that Amanda was getting further away, helped Hannah off the ground and followed Amanda. They seemed to be part of the parade now, as often was the case in the fasnet. Audience members were encouraged to participate. But they were unwilling participants. Hannah, in particular, found it difficult to walk in her unlaced sneakers, which popped off her feet with each step, exposing the pinkness of the thin black nylon stretched over her heels.
“I’m going to step oot of ma shoes if I’m nawt careful,” she said to Katrin as they tried to keep up with Amanda. She looked at Katrin’s feet, she was wearing ballet flats with a dark snakeskin pattern. “Wha didna’ they go for your shoes?”
“Becauz I’m not vearing lacez."
"Why do they steal young lass's laces?"
"It iz a mystery. No one Knowz vhy zey steal zem. Perhapz vee can inveztigate."
"Not ano'er mystery," Hannah sighed, "Ah bet Amanda's up for it tho. Still I'd like to get tighter shoes before we go aboot sleuthin."
"Vear flats like me or zey'll just steal your lacez again. I'm zafe because—“ But before she could finish her sentence, Katrin was grabbed from behind by a man with a demon mask. Before she knew it, they were surrounded by masked men and lifted off the ground. Hannah screamed as her unlaced sneakers were easily slipped off her feet exposing her toes clad in sheer black stockings. "But They got me laces a'ready!" she protested, "at least let me keep me converses!"
Katrin’s shoes were also removed revealing her sheer nylons. "No! Not my flats. I have no lacez! No don't tickle uz! Dahahahaha!" The girls laughed as they were tickled through their sheer nylons.
"Yah bastards! Hahahahahahahahaha!" Hannah screamed "Ya said nothing aboot thes, Kat! Hahahahahahahah!" The helpless giggling girls were carried to a float with a spinning rack as they screamed and laughed for help.
Amanda looked back at her friends and saw that they were in peril, but suddenly felt a hard knock at the back of her head. “Ow!” she shouted and looked back. The witch who had stolen her shoe had struck the back of her head with her pestle. She suddenly felt dizzy and sleepy. She fell to her knees. The last thing she saw was the image of Hannah and Katrin tied the spinning rack being tickle tortured. Their screams and laughs echoed in her head. Then everything went dark.
Amanda hated the headache that followed a knockout. After opening her eyes she saw that everything was still black as pitch. She tried to move but noticed she was tied to a very uncomfortable wooden chair. She wiggled her toes and noticed that her shoes were gone, but she was still wearing her pantyhose and the rest of her clothes. “At least they didn’t completely strip me,” she thought to herself, although she was still a bit angry about the loss of her shoes. It felt like she was tied down with … shoelaces? The wood felt like tree branches, very rough, in fact, if she moved her wrist against one of the sharper knobs it would probably wear the shoelace down eventually and cut it. It would take awhile, but she would be free.
As she worked her way free she could hear creepy noises. There were sounds of footsteps from above on a creaky floor and she could hear the muffled sounds of a woman talking but she couldn’t make out any words. “Am I in a basement of some sort?” she thought. The house seemed to wobble a bit, and sometimes she felt as if it moved up and down. “Weird place.” Her eyes started to adjust and she saw a light source beneath her between a small crack in the wood. “If this is a basement why would there be light below?”
With a satisfying snap, the lace was cut! She was free! She quickly untied the rest of the laces tying her down and freed herself. She rubbed away the soreness from her wrists and stood up, quickly checking herself for her belongings. Unfortunately, her cell phone and purse were gone and she had no flashlight so she was going to have to blindly try to find her way out of this dungeon.
She could see a little better now, but it was still very dark and she could barely make out the dark shapes on the floor. The wood was cold and rough on her delicate stocking feet. “If only they didn’t steal my shoes! I’m going to get a splinter!” she thought to herself. She walked very carefully feeling her way along the wall. Her hand brushed up against something soft. At first she couldn’t tell what it was, but after feeling the plastic tips it was undeniable. Hanging from the ceiling along the walls were thousands of shoelaces! Whoever lived here had an enormous collection of them all weaved together in some sort of strange pattern! “What’s with this obsession with shoelaces?”
Moving the shoelaces aside, Amanda could see a torchlight that lit the way up a very creaky spiral wooden staircase. Whatever this place was it looked old as dirt and very unstable, and the staircase looked anything but safe. She was tempted to take the torch and look for a way out down here before exploring above, but then she heard a familiar moan from upstairs. “Oh my god, Hannah!” she almost shouted. But the woman's voice could also be heard. She still couldn't understand what she was saying. She decided to sneak upstairs and take a look. The stairs were indeed creaky, but fortunately, shoeless Amanda was light on her feet enough to not make too much noise. The upstairs room was much more brightly lit than downstairs, but what she saw shocked her.
Hannah and Katrin were both tied together, barely conscious, and held over a giant cauldron of a green bubbling stew. A young pretty woman stood in front of a large window in front of several onlookers; masked witches and demons who had participated in the parade, only now they were wearing the strange shoelace weavings she had seen earlier as robes. Whereas the onlookers were obviously wearing costumes, the young woman looked genuinely out of a Brother's Grimm fairy tale. She was wearing a very pretty traditional black and red lace dress. The lace weaving of her dress was of a much better quality to the robes of her acolytes, but Amanda suspected that it too was made of shoelaces. She wore expensive looking silk striped stockings on her legs and traditional wooden clogs on her feet. If not for the skull necklace and bracelets she wore, Amanda would have thought she looked rather innocent. In her hands was the same rope that held her friends captive. She was using a pulley mechanism to lower them into the disgusting smelling stew, but was holding them steady for now. She seemed to be speaking in some strange language as if casting a druidic spell of some sort.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked herself. But it didn’t seem like she had much time. The green bubbling stew looked as if it was boiling, and she didn’t want to give the witch enough time to lower Hannah and Katrin into it. She got a good look at her surroundings and found one of the witch’s masks on the wall. Before they saw her she grabbed it and snuck downstairs to grab some of the shoelace weavings from the wall. She very quickly made a makeshift shoelace robe to cover her clothes. Now she could blend in with the rest of the onlookers.
Fortunately, when Amanda joined them, the woman holding the rope was still droning on and on. Amanda guessed that they were trying to recreate a druidic ritual of some sort that probably dated back to the times when Germany and France were still populated by tribal folk such as the celts, francs, angles, saxons, goths, vandals and gauls. “Or barbarians as the Romans called them,” Amanda thought to herself. Amanda wondered why the woman talking was the only one not wearing an ugly witch or demon mask. Amanda began to wonder if this was all just for show though. Should she call their bluff? She had to think of something!
Suddenly Hannah began to stir. “MMmmm, Whhhere am I?” she asked, “Katrin? Katrin! Wake up!”
“Vhat?” Katrin started to mumble. “Vhat ze hell?!”
“Zey have avoken. It iz time,” The woman said as she began to lower the rope.
“What?! No!” Hannah shouted as soon as she realized what was happening.
“Help!” Katrin screamed.
Amanda shot into high gear and charged the woman without even thinking. No one had expected this and before anyone knew it, Amanda had pushed the woman out of the window. Unfortunately, she had pushed her so hard that she had followed her right out! The woman still clung onto the rope as the two girls shattered through the window wrestling each other on the way out. The hut seemed to lurch to the side as if giving way under the strain of the sudden shift in weight. Outside Amanda was amazed to see that the hut was not anchored to the ground at all, but stood on enormous fowl’s legs and was a lot further off the ground than she thought ... at least 40 feet high. The two young woman fought each other to hang onto the rope tearing at each others' clothing.
Inside the hut the crowd angrily rushed after their leader’s attacker. The weight shifted even further to the side with the broken window. The chicken legs that the hut rested upon had difficulty staying up straight. They wobbled precariously. The cauldron spilled over engulfing the crowd in its boiling contents. Katrin and Hannah watched appalled as the masked witches and demons screamed cries of pain as they were helplessly caught in the rushing boiling water that flowed out towards the western wall. The door, which was also on the western side, gave way under the strain and flung open. The helpless boiling crowd were forced out through the doorway with the rushing torrent. They soon fell mercifully to their deaths.
Back outside Amanda had been stripped of her mask and robe, but the young witch had lost much of her dress during the fight and both of her wooden clogs had fallen off during the struggle. With her shoes gone, Amanda decided to tickle the witch’s feet through her sheer striped stockings. “No don’t tickle meheheheee!” she screamed. It seemed the witch’s feet were very ticklish through her very thin stockings. She lost her grip and soon followed her followers down. Amanda sighed a sigh of relief and began climbing the rope back into the hut.
She was just about inside when something grabbed her ankle. Amanda looked back and saw the witch was back. She was floating in some sort of giant mortar. “Tickle tickle!” she said as she tickled Amanda’s toes. Amanda's stocking feet were ticklish as well seemed!
“Dahahahah! No!” Amanda laughed loosening her grip.
“I should have sacrificed you first! Your youthful spirit vould have kept me young a lot longer! Do you know how long it took me to steal all thoze shoe lacez from young girlz to perform that ritual? Now I have to start all over!”
“Stohahahahop Tickling mehehehehheee!” Amanda screamed, she couldn’t hold on much longer, she was going to let go!
But then, the tickling stopped. Amanda looked back, the witch had been struck in the head by the same pestle that had struck Amanda. And there was her sneaker, still tied to it. The witch tumbled to the ground in her mortar. Amanda looked up and saw Katrin and Hannah holding the pestle. They had saved her!
After pulling Amanda inside the hut, Amanda sighed in relief. "Thank god, I thought I was dead!" Amanda said. The girls took a moment to catch their breath and allowed the hut to straighten itself out again before peering outside the broken window. There was no trace of the witch, and the bodies of the masked followers seemed to have dissolved completely in the boiling goo.
"How do we get oot?" Hannah finally asked.
"Get out? We should search for clues!" Amanda said. Both Hannah and Kat sighed reluctantly as they searched through what appeared to be skulls, a crystal ball, chunks of wood bits, mandrake root powder, other ingredients for all sorts of disgusting potions, and laces ... lots and lots of shoelaces. They finally found their shoes and belongings, but there was nothing really of interest that could shed light on the mystery. "The witch has to be Baba Yaga," Amanda said, "the hut, the mortar and pestle, it matches all the descriptions of folklore. I'm still not sure what the laces all mean though. We should keep looking for clues.”
Hannah and Kat looked at each other and sighed. “Amanda Vee need to get out before the Vitch comes back,” Kat said at last.
"But how? We can't jump out," Amanda said reluctantly agreeing, she knew in her gut the witch wasn't dead.
"We can use the rope that was used to tie us up," Hannah said re-lacing her sneakers back onto her feet.
After recovering their possessions and replacing their lost shoes and laces, the three girls tied the rope around a wooden stud near the doorway. Fortunately it was long enough to bring them to the ground.
Relieved to be on the ground again, the girls took stock of their surroundings. They were in a small clearing in the middle of a dark forest. There didn't appear to be anyone else around.
"Hey look!" Hannah shouted pointing at a pair of clogs.
"They belonged to the witch," Amanda said picking them up.
"Eeeheheheeeheheee!" a screech could be heard from above. It was definitely the same witch only she looked older and uglier, a bit more like the pictures of Baba Yaga they were used to seeing. She swooped down and brought the mortar to the ground all the while sprinkling some strange smelling powder on the earth.
Amanda tried to run but couldn’t move her feet, they were stuck to the ground!
"My feet are stuck!" Hannah said echoing her thoughts.
"Mine too!" Katrin said stepping out of one of her flats, "No, just my shoes are stuck! But I don't vant to run in just my thin stockings and leave you two!"
It seemed that abandoning their shoes was the only way to escape the witch, but for some reason, Amanda found herself unwilling, or perhaps unable to do that. The witch cackled through brown teeth as she took a drink from a greenish phial of liquid that looked very much like the stew that had spilled from her cauldron. Her teeth whitened, her skin cleared, her hair went from white to black and she seemed to regain much of her youth and beauty the more she drank. After having her fill, the witch climbed out of her mortar and approached them.
“You may have thvarted my plans, but you von’t steal my lacez!” the witch said as she approached Hannah who stood petrified. She slowly untied and pulled the laces out of Hannah's sneakers with bony fingers that seemed to grow more youthful with each passing moment. Once she was through, Hannah still stood helpless and petrified in her unlaced sneakers that were stuck to the ground. Now she could more easily than ever slip her stocking feet out of them and run away, but she still found herself unable, or unwilling to move from the spot.
The witch moved from Hannah to Amanda. As Amanda's sneakers were slowly unlaced she shuddered. She felt her sneakers opening up and the cool air caress her stocking feet as the witch's now nimble and youthful fingers danced across the top of her shoes. With the laces completely out of her shoes, the witch couldn't resist tickling Amanda's arch as side of her sneaker opened up slightly. Amanda nearly fainted from sensation. She would have hopped right out of her sneakers had she not been under some sort of spell keeping her in that very spot.
"I think these belong to me," the witch said taking the wooden clogs out of Amanda's hands. Amanda had completely forgotten she was still holding them. The once again youthful and beautiful witch laughed as she slipped them back on. With her shoes back on her feet and the shoelaces in her hands, the girls watched petrified as Baba Yaga performed a grotesque sort of dance while hammering her pestle against ground three times. Youthful and beautiful she may have been after drinking the potion, her dark magic was no less appalling to watch in action. They wanted to run. They wanted to scream. But they could do nothing but be entranced, as if enchanted by some sort of dark spell. Then, as quickly as she came, Baba Yaga jumped back into her mortar and cackled as she flew back into her hut.
The girls watched in amazement as the hut on fowl’s legs ran off into the forest. More amazing still, the trees surrounding them seemed to shrink into thousands of feathers. “Did all of that really just happen?!” Amanda asked after the shock wore off.
“I…I donna know!” Hannah said eyes wide open.
“I can’t believe vhat I just zaw!” Kat said stunned.
After a time, they regained their free will and could move about freely again. But their shoes were still stuck. It was impossible to take them out no matter how hard they tried. They had no choice but to step out of them and walk through the forest of feathers in their very ticklish stocking feet. The 10 mile journey through the forest of feathers was tickle torture of the worst kind to say the least.
"Oh god, why did we have to wear such thin slippery nylons today!" Amanda said in between hysterical laughter as the feathers brushed passed her legs and toes.
"That evil vitch is probably vatching us through her crystal ball and laughing," Kat said.
"Well a'least we won' get a run our stockings," Hannah laughed as the girls tried to run through the soft forest of feathers in their shoeless sheer nylon clad feet.
When they finally made it back to town, no one believed their story. They had no proof. This mystery would have to remain just that.
edit: added more tickling and a better ending.
The Mystery of the Stolen Shoelaces - An Amanda Jones Adventure
“Mein schuh!” the girl shouted as she chased after the masked witches who had stolen her shoe. They were busy tearing the laces out of them before handing the shoe back to her.
“Laces are very valuable to them it seems,” Amanda laughed as the girl tried to put the laceless sneaker back on her foot. She was nearly trampled by the marching band as the parade continued behind her. It was an unusually warm afternoon on November 11th and the fasnet parade had just begun on the streets of Cologne Germany. Amanda Jones and Hannah Duffy were in attendance, having never seen the cultural display. Only Katrin Weber, the German native was familiar with the playful antics of the day. She had invited the summer sleuths to visit during their fall semester holiday.
“Yez at zee Fasnet parade you have to vatch out for thoze vitches,” Katrin said withdrawing into the crowd nervously, “Uh oh, here zey come! Vee should get to zee back zo they don’t zee uz!”
“Relax Kat! Wha’ are the odds they’ll pick us oot?” Hannah said, “ther’s hun’reds of people ’ere!”
“Look out!” Amanda shouted as Hannah was grabbed from behind by one of the broom dragging witches.
“You zee? Zey alwayz go for zee pretty young girlz!” Kat said as three of the witches wrestled Hannah to the ground and began untying her sneakers.
Amanda tried to rescue Hannah, but soon found herself being lifted by a huge man in a scary demon mask. She felt one of her sneakers slide off her heel as a witch carrying a large pestle grabbed it exposing the sheer black stockings covering her toes. “Noo! give me back my shoe!” Amanda shouted as they dropped her. The witch with her shoe ran off tearing the laces out as Amanda hopped after her angrily trying to keep her delicate stocking foot off the ground. One pesky witch tried to tickle her foot, but she kicked her away annoyed.
The witches surrounding Hannah eventually cleared off leaving Hannah on the ground stunned. She was lucky enough to still have both shoes on her feet, but her shoe laces were gone.
“Just let her take zee lacez, Amanda!” Katrin said from the sidelines, “Zat’s all zey vant. Zey usually give ze schuh back after zey have zee lacez.”
“They better! I’m not hopping around in one shoe for the rest of the day!”
But the witch didn’t give it back after she took out the laces. It seemed she kept the sneaker as a trophy and tied it to the top of her pestle with the shoelace. Amanda was enraged as she continued hopping after the witch. She passed more pretty victims of shoelace theft and soon found it difficult to keep up on one foot. If she was going to catch this thief, she was going to have to soil her pretty sheer stocking foot.
Katrin, seeing that Amanda was getting further away, helped Hannah off the ground and followed Amanda. They seemed to be part of the parade now, as often was the case in the fasnet. Audience members were encouraged to participate. But they were unwilling participants. Hannah, in particular, found it difficult to walk in her unlaced sneakers, which popped off her feet with each step, exposing the pinkness of the thin black nylon stretched over her heels.
“I’m going to step oot of ma shoes if I’m nawt careful,” she said to Katrin as they tried to keep up with Amanda. She looked at Katrin’s feet, she was wearing ballet flats with a dark snakeskin pattern. “Wha didna’ they go for your shoes?”
“Becauz I’m not vearing lacez."
"Why do they steal young lass's laces?"
"It iz a mystery. No one Knowz vhy zey steal zem. Perhapz vee can inveztigate."
"Not ano'er mystery," Hannah sighed, "Ah bet Amanda's up for it tho. Still I'd like to get tighter shoes before we go aboot sleuthin."
"Vear flats like me or zey'll just steal your lacez again. I'm zafe because—“ But before she could finish her sentence, Katrin was grabbed from behind by a man with a demon mask. Before she knew it, they were surrounded by masked men and lifted off the ground. Hannah screamed as her unlaced sneakers were easily slipped off her feet exposing her toes clad in sheer black stockings. "But They got me laces a'ready!" she protested, "at least let me keep me converses!"
Katrin’s shoes were also removed revealing her sheer nylons. "No! Not my flats. I have no lacez! No don't tickle uz! Dahahahaha!" The girls laughed as they were tickled through their sheer nylons.
"Yah bastards! Hahahahahahahahaha!" Hannah screamed "Ya said nothing aboot thes, Kat! Hahahahahahahah!" The helpless giggling girls were carried to a float with a spinning rack as they screamed and laughed for help.
Amanda looked back at her friends and saw that they were in peril, but suddenly felt a hard knock at the back of her head. “Ow!” she shouted and looked back. The witch who had stolen her shoe had struck the back of her head with her pestle. She suddenly felt dizzy and sleepy. She fell to her knees. The last thing she saw was the image of Hannah and Katrin tied the spinning rack being tickle tortured. Their screams and laughs echoed in her head. Then everything went dark.
Amanda hated the headache that followed a knockout. After opening her eyes she saw that everything was still black as pitch. She tried to move but noticed she was tied to a very uncomfortable wooden chair. She wiggled her toes and noticed that her shoes were gone, but she was still wearing her pantyhose and the rest of her clothes. “At least they didn’t completely strip me,” she thought to herself, although she was still a bit angry about the loss of her shoes. It felt like she was tied down with … shoelaces? The wood felt like tree branches, very rough, in fact, if she moved her wrist against one of the sharper knobs it would probably wear the shoelace down eventually and cut it. It would take awhile, but she would be free.
As she worked her way free she could hear creepy noises. There were sounds of footsteps from above on a creaky floor and she could hear the muffled sounds of a woman talking but she couldn’t make out any words. “Am I in a basement of some sort?” she thought. The house seemed to wobble a bit, and sometimes she felt as if it moved up and down. “Weird place.” Her eyes started to adjust and she saw a light source beneath her between a small crack in the wood. “If this is a basement why would there be light below?”
With a satisfying snap, the lace was cut! She was free! She quickly untied the rest of the laces tying her down and freed herself. She rubbed away the soreness from her wrists and stood up, quickly checking herself for her belongings. Unfortunately, her cell phone and purse were gone and she had no flashlight so she was going to have to blindly try to find her way out of this dungeon.
She could see a little better now, but it was still very dark and she could barely make out the dark shapes on the floor. The wood was cold and rough on her delicate stocking feet. “If only they didn’t steal my shoes! I’m going to get a splinter!” she thought to herself. She walked very carefully feeling her way along the wall. Her hand brushed up against something soft. At first she couldn’t tell what it was, but after feeling the plastic tips it was undeniable. Hanging from the ceiling along the walls were thousands of shoelaces! Whoever lived here had an enormous collection of them all weaved together in some sort of strange pattern! “What’s with this obsession with shoelaces?”
Moving the shoelaces aside, Amanda could see a torchlight that lit the way up a very creaky spiral wooden staircase. Whatever this place was it looked old as dirt and very unstable, and the staircase looked anything but safe. She was tempted to take the torch and look for a way out down here before exploring above, but then she heard a familiar moan from upstairs. “Oh my god, Hannah!” she almost shouted. But the woman's voice could also be heard. She still couldn't understand what she was saying. She decided to sneak upstairs and take a look. The stairs were indeed creaky, but fortunately, shoeless Amanda was light on her feet enough to not make too much noise. The upstairs room was much more brightly lit than downstairs, but what she saw shocked her.
Hannah and Katrin were both tied together, barely conscious, and held over a giant cauldron of a green bubbling stew. A young pretty woman stood in front of a large window in front of several onlookers; masked witches and demons who had participated in the parade, only now they were wearing the strange shoelace weavings she had seen earlier as robes. Whereas the onlookers were obviously wearing costumes, the young woman looked genuinely out of a Brother's Grimm fairy tale. She was wearing a very pretty traditional black and red lace dress. The lace weaving of her dress was of a much better quality to the robes of her acolytes, but Amanda suspected that it too was made of shoelaces. She wore expensive looking silk striped stockings on her legs and traditional wooden clogs on her feet. If not for the skull necklace and bracelets she wore, Amanda would have thought she looked rather innocent. In her hands was the same rope that held her friends captive. She was using a pulley mechanism to lower them into the disgusting smelling stew, but was holding them steady for now. She seemed to be speaking in some strange language as if casting a druidic spell of some sort.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked herself. But it didn’t seem like she had much time. The green bubbling stew looked as if it was boiling, and she didn’t want to give the witch enough time to lower Hannah and Katrin into it. She got a good look at her surroundings and found one of the witch’s masks on the wall. Before they saw her she grabbed it and snuck downstairs to grab some of the shoelace weavings from the wall. She very quickly made a makeshift shoelace robe to cover her clothes. Now she could blend in with the rest of the onlookers.
Fortunately, when Amanda joined them, the woman holding the rope was still droning on and on. Amanda guessed that they were trying to recreate a druidic ritual of some sort that probably dated back to the times when Germany and France were still populated by tribal folk such as the celts, francs, angles, saxons, goths, vandals and gauls. “Or barbarians as the Romans called them,” Amanda thought to herself. Amanda wondered why the woman talking was the only one not wearing an ugly witch or demon mask. Amanda began to wonder if this was all just for show though. Should she call their bluff? She had to think of something!
Suddenly Hannah began to stir. “MMmmm, Whhhere am I?” she asked, “Katrin? Katrin! Wake up!”
“Vhat?” Katrin started to mumble. “Vhat ze hell?!”
“Zey have avoken. It iz time,” The woman said as she began to lower the rope.
“What?! No!” Hannah shouted as soon as she realized what was happening.
“Help!” Katrin screamed.
Amanda shot into high gear and charged the woman without even thinking. No one had expected this and before anyone knew it, Amanda had pushed the woman out of the window. Unfortunately, she had pushed her so hard that she had followed her right out! The woman still clung onto the rope as the two girls shattered through the window wrestling each other on the way out. The hut seemed to lurch to the side as if giving way under the strain of the sudden shift in weight. Outside Amanda was amazed to see that the hut was not anchored to the ground at all, but stood on enormous fowl’s legs and was a lot further off the ground than she thought ... at least 40 feet high. The two young woman fought each other to hang onto the rope tearing at each others' clothing.
Inside the hut the crowd angrily rushed after their leader’s attacker. The weight shifted even further to the side with the broken window. The chicken legs that the hut rested upon had difficulty staying up straight. They wobbled precariously. The cauldron spilled over engulfing the crowd in its boiling contents. Katrin and Hannah watched appalled as the masked witches and demons screamed cries of pain as they were helplessly caught in the rushing boiling water that flowed out towards the western wall. The door, which was also on the western side, gave way under the strain and flung open. The helpless boiling crowd were forced out through the doorway with the rushing torrent. They soon fell mercifully to their deaths.
Back outside Amanda had been stripped of her mask and robe, but the young witch had lost much of her dress during the fight and both of her wooden clogs had fallen off during the struggle. With her shoes gone, Amanda decided to tickle the witch’s feet through her sheer striped stockings. “No don’t tickle meheheheee!” she screamed. It seemed the witch’s feet were very ticklish through her very thin stockings. She lost her grip and soon followed her followers down. Amanda sighed a sigh of relief and began climbing the rope back into the hut.
She was just about inside when something grabbed her ankle. Amanda looked back and saw the witch was back. She was floating in some sort of giant mortar. “Tickle tickle!” she said as she tickled Amanda’s toes. Amanda's stocking feet were ticklish as well seemed!
“Dahahahah! No!” Amanda laughed loosening her grip.
“I should have sacrificed you first! Your youthful spirit vould have kept me young a lot longer! Do you know how long it took me to steal all thoze shoe lacez from young girlz to perform that ritual? Now I have to start all over!”
“Stohahahahop Tickling mehehehehheee!” Amanda screamed, she couldn’t hold on much longer, she was going to let go!
But then, the tickling stopped. Amanda looked back, the witch had been struck in the head by the same pestle that had struck Amanda. And there was her sneaker, still tied to it. The witch tumbled to the ground in her mortar. Amanda looked up and saw Katrin and Hannah holding the pestle. They had saved her!
After pulling Amanda inside the hut, Amanda sighed in relief. "Thank god, I thought I was dead!" Amanda said. The girls took a moment to catch their breath and allowed the hut to straighten itself out again before peering outside the broken window. There was no trace of the witch, and the bodies of the masked followers seemed to have dissolved completely in the boiling goo.
"How do we get oot?" Hannah finally asked.
"Get out? We should search for clues!" Amanda said. Both Hannah and Kat sighed reluctantly as they searched through what appeared to be skulls, a crystal ball, chunks of wood bits, mandrake root powder, other ingredients for all sorts of disgusting potions, and laces ... lots and lots of shoelaces. They finally found their shoes and belongings, but there was nothing really of interest that could shed light on the mystery. "The witch has to be Baba Yaga," Amanda said, "the hut, the mortar and pestle, it matches all the descriptions of folklore. I'm still not sure what the laces all mean though. We should keep looking for clues.”
Hannah and Kat looked at each other and sighed. “Amanda Vee need to get out before the Vitch comes back,” Kat said at last.
"But how? We can't jump out," Amanda said reluctantly agreeing, she knew in her gut the witch wasn't dead.
"We can use the rope that was used to tie us up," Hannah said re-lacing her sneakers back onto her feet.
After recovering their possessions and replacing their lost shoes and laces, the three girls tied the rope around a wooden stud near the doorway. Fortunately it was long enough to bring them to the ground.
Relieved to be on the ground again, the girls took stock of their surroundings. They were in a small clearing in the middle of a dark forest. There didn't appear to be anyone else around.
"Hey look!" Hannah shouted pointing at a pair of clogs.
"They belonged to the witch," Amanda said picking them up.
"Eeeheheheeeheheee!" a screech could be heard from above. It was definitely the same witch only she looked older and uglier, a bit more like the pictures of Baba Yaga they were used to seeing. She swooped down and brought the mortar to the ground all the while sprinkling some strange smelling powder on the earth.
Amanda tried to run but couldn’t move her feet, they were stuck to the ground!
"My feet are stuck!" Hannah said echoing her thoughts.
"Mine too!" Katrin said stepping out of one of her flats, "No, just my shoes are stuck! But I don't vant to run in just my thin stockings and leave you two!"
It seemed that abandoning their shoes was the only way to escape the witch, but for some reason, Amanda found herself unwilling, or perhaps unable to do that. The witch cackled through brown teeth as she took a drink from a greenish phial of liquid that looked very much like the stew that had spilled from her cauldron. Her teeth whitened, her skin cleared, her hair went from white to black and she seemed to regain much of her youth and beauty the more she drank. After having her fill, the witch climbed out of her mortar and approached them.
“You may have thvarted my plans, but you von’t steal my lacez!” the witch said as she approached Hannah who stood petrified. She slowly untied and pulled the laces out of Hannah's sneakers with bony fingers that seemed to grow more youthful with each passing moment. Once she was through, Hannah still stood helpless and petrified in her unlaced sneakers that were stuck to the ground. Now she could more easily than ever slip her stocking feet out of them and run away, but she still found herself unable, or unwilling to move from the spot.
The witch moved from Hannah to Amanda. As Amanda's sneakers were slowly unlaced she shuddered. She felt her sneakers opening up and the cool air caress her stocking feet as the witch's now nimble and youthful fingers danced across the top of her shoes. With the laces completely out of her shoes, the witch couldn't resist tickling Amanda's arch as side of her sneaker opened up slightly. Amanda nearly fainted from sensation. She would have hopped right out of her sneakers had she not been under some sort of spell keeping her in that very spot.
"I think these belong to me," the witch said taking the wooden clogs out of Amanda's hands. Amanda had completely forgotten she was still holding them. The once again youthful and beautiful witch laughed as she slipped them back on. With her shoes back on her feet and the shoelaces in her hands, the girls watched petrified as Baba Yaga performed a grotesque sort of dance while hammering her pestle against ground three times. Youthful and beautiful she may have been after drinking the potion, her dark magic was no less appalling to watch in action. They wanted to run. They wanted to scream. But they could do nothing but be entranced, as if enchanted by some sort of dark spell. Then, as quickly as she came, Baba Yaga jumped back into her mortar and cackled as she flew back into her hut.
The girls watched in amazement as the hut on fowl’s legs ran off into the forest. More amazing still, the trees surrounding them seemed to shrink into thousands of feathers. “Did all of that really just happen?!” Amanda asked after the shock wore off.
“I…I donna know!” Hannah said eyes wide open.
“I can’t believe vhat I just zaw!” Kat said stunned.
After a time, they regained their free will and could move about freely again. But their shoes were still stuck. It was impossible to take them out no matter how hard they tried. They had no choice but to step out of them and walk through the forest of feathers in their very ticklish stocking feet. The 10 mile journey through the forest of feathers was tickle torture of the worst kind to say the least.
"Oh god, why did we have to wear such thin slippery nylons today!" Amanda said in between hysterical laughter as the feathers brushed passed her legs and toes.
"That evil vitch is probably vatching us through her crystal ball and laughing," Kat said.
"Well a'least we won' get a run our stockings," Hannah laughed as the girls tried to run through the soft forest of feathers in their shoeless sheer nylon clad feet.
When they finally made it back to town, no one believed their story. They had no proof. This mystery would have to remain just that.
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