Student Work

Please Note: No Witches Were Burnt Alive During the Making of This Story by Addison McGurn, 8th Grade

Once upon a time, in a dark forest, in a cozy little cottage, there lived an old witch. Of course, her name wasn’t actually “The Witch.” That’s just what everybody called her. We’ll get to that in a minute.

The Witch (yes, I’m going to call her that, but only because I don’t know what her real name is) was collecting herbs and flowers to garnish her baked goods with. You see, The Witch owned the best bakery for miles and miles around, and despite her hag-like appearance, people came from everywhere just to taste one of her specialty blueberry muffins. I can see why they did. Every morning, The Witch creates the batter (making sure to add a little extra sugar and butter), spoons it into three different-sized muffin tins (small, medium, and large), and pops them in the oven to bake. As they rise, the whole area around her cottage starts to smell like heaven, letting her customers know that she’s just about open for the day.

And it’s not just the muffins themselves that are amazing. The Witch makes her own fruit preserves from what she picks off the trees in her orchard in the fall, and drizzles them on top of her muffins right after they come out of the oven.

Then, she puts them on the windowsill to cool while she cleans up the kitchen. So you see, she’s not the green, children-eating monster that she’s characterized as (and she definitely doesn’t have any warts).

CRASH!!

Oh. Oh my goodness. Something very bad just happened in—ah, yes. That’s right. I haven’t told you about how this whole thing works yet. Well, I better explain before we get into anything too crazy. You see, The Witch lives in a book in my library, along with every other fairytale character that was ever created. They are kept in this book so that their stories can just keep repeating themselves, over and over again. I suppose they’d get tired of the same incident refreshing itself if they knew it was happening. Now, don’t ask me why the book is in my library. It just showed up there one day, and I felt as though it was my responsibility to look after it. Sometimes I like to narrate the stories while they’re unraveling because they play out like a movie right on the page. It makes me feel more connected to the characters.

Well anyway, let’s get back to the story. I think I’ll just let The Witch take it from here if that’s okay.

CRASH!!

I dash to the window, only to see my beloved, right out of the oven, blueberry muffins splattered all over the floor. To be frank, I was more confused than angry. Does a perfectly content pan of delicious muffins that were sitting on a windowsill, just suddenly decide to jump off? No. Because that doesn’t just happen! So let me tell you, I was a little…ahem…concerned about how my muffins got off the windowsill in the first place. So I did what any normal person would do; I stuck my head out of the window to see what was going on. And what did I see huddled on the ground under my magnolia bushes? Two small children, who looked to be about the ages of five and seven. The older one was a boy with messy red hair. He was wearing what looked to be a canvas sack that had been repurposed into a shirt, and baggy pants with patches of all different sizes and colors on them. The younger one was a girl. She had long, hazelnut colored hair that hung in two loose braids down her back. She also had on a brown long sleeve shirt, and on top of it, a canvas material dress that was ripped at every possible hem. Both of the kids looked dirty and unwashed, and another thing: neither of them had shoes on! My goodness, you just couldn’t help but feel bad for them.

“Well, hello down there,” I said as sweetly as I could while still sticking my head out of the window. The children looked back at me with innocent, frightened looks on their faces.

“My dears, whatever happened to you two?” Neither of them responded. So after a moment of awkward eye contact, I said, “You stay right there. I’ll be right around the front.” As you would imagine, I was quite surprised by the idea of some small children sitting in my garden, tipping over my muffins, and who knows what else. But, as you can also imagine, I was concerned for them. So on my way to the front door, dozens of questions were going through my mind. For example, why were they in the woods at this time of day? Where were their parents and were they looking for them? When was the last time they had a bath?

When I got into the front yard, the kids were no longer sitting underneath my window sill, but standing in front of me. Something I noticed right away; both of them had terrible posture. Their shoulders were hunched, and their heads hung just slightly too close to their chests. “Well…” I said, not quite knowing how to talk to children. After all, I have none of my own. “I guess we should—”

Before I could finish, the boy’s eyes got wide, and he screeched, “It wasn’t us! We didn’t do anything! Please don’t hurt us, or eat us, or do whatever witches in the forest do to kids!” So, after taking a step back, I was a bit offended by this comment, considering that no one had ever called me a witch before, and frankly, I didn’t think of myself as one.

Before I could say anything, the little girl leaped around to face the boy, and said, “Hansel, don’t you dare even try to lie! You tipped over this lady’s muffin pan, and you know it!”

Let me tell you, I was quite surprised by how powerful this child’s voice was, coming from such a small girl. Then she turned to me, and said, “I’m so sorry, Ma’am, we’re just very hungry. You see, we ran away, and came across your cottage this morning. My brother,” she gestured to the boy behind her, “thought your muffins smelled so good, and he tried to convince me to steal one! Of course, I said no. Because, you see, I’m not one to take or beg for anything. Although my stomach has been grumbling for the past…” She trailed off, and appeared to be counting on her fingers. I took this as my chance to step in.

“Why, it’s alright dear. I was just about to pull them out of the pan anyway. Would you care to join me in making another batch?” I said this in the least creepy way possible, although I still think that I must have scared the living daylights out of the poor boy. How do I know this, you ask?

Well, he suddenly turned and sprinted off into the forest, yelling, “I’m going home, Gretel! Have fun getting roasted and eaten by that witch!” Again, offensive.

The girl and I turned to each other, and smiled, “Ah, Gretel, is it?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Well,” I sighed lightly, “We better get to making those muffins, or they won’t be ready in time for my shop to open!” The smile on Gretel’s face was as large as a crescent moon, and she giggled slightly before saying,

“You own a bakery?”

“Why yes, I do. And in fact, I think you would be the perfect employee.”

“Really?! You mean it?”

“Of course! How would you like to be… taste tester?” Gretel smiled that beautiful moon smile again as we walked, hand in hand, into my cottage.

Over the years, I have gotten to know Gretel as not only my friend, but my family, as she now lives with me. In fact, I affectionately gave her the nickname of Amorino, meaning little love in Italian.

As for Hansel, he has made it his mission to spread all sorts of rumors about me (aka The Witch). Some of them include eating and/or enslaving Gretel, throwing her back out into the woods to fend for herself, and leaving her to get eaten by a pack of wolves. There are lots more variations that are far more gory, but we don’t need to talk about that. Right now, I’m just content watching Gretel grow up and having someone to share my recipes with. Although I do sometimes wonder, where did Hansel get the idea for a house made of sweets, because that sounds fabulous!

So over time, as you can imagine, the witch’s story has been twisted and turned in every witch way (Ha ha. I’m hilarious, I know). But as for her cozy cabin, and delicious blueberry muffins, well, they remain the same. So no matter what stories you hear about the witch, you know the real one. And one last thing, if you ever find out what her actual name is, do tell me! I’d love to know.