My name is Beth. I’m ten years old. I don’t believe in ghosts. I do believe in witches. Once I saw the scariest ugliest witch of all time!
I never told anyone except my baby brother Ronald who is five. He keeps begging me to tell him a story at bedtime. One night I told him about the witch I saw to help him go to sleep:
She had long sharp teeth. When she opened her mouth wide the color of her tongue was purple! She gave off a horrible smell because she liked to eat old mushrooms, lizards, and little kids who didn’t do their home-work.
She wore a long black dress and a tall black hat with a red band around it. Her hair was yellow and looked like the strands of a dirty old mop. She never wore shoes, her eyes were blue, and her feet were dirty brown and yellow.
The left foot had five toes and the right foot had six. Her toenails were long and jagged and had never been trimmed. Her fingernails were as sharp as knives. With just one fingernail this Ugly Old Witch could rip open the belly of a fish.
((“Ronald, are you still awake?” “Yes Beth, go on!”)
She doesn’t have a broom to ride because she owns her own airplane. At night, when the sky is dark and the moon is out and all good children are at home sleeping in their beds, she gets in her airplane and flies low over the houses.
She put a spell on the plane so it makes no noise: no noise that you can hear, Ronald, that’s for sure! She takes her cat Brutus and her dog Dead-Eye with her wherever she goes.
Brutus is a tiger cub and Dead-Eye (who has only one good eye) is a Bulldog. The Witch and Dead-Eye had a fight over a piece of meat one time and the Witch bit the eye of the Bulldog!
Up in her plane the Witch looks for children who are still awake after the Midnight Hour. Then she swoops down low and drops Brutus right on top of the child. Once on the ground, Brutus changes into a Black Cat, leaps into the air and scratches the faces of the children in a most horrible way! The next day the children die.
Sometimes the Witch puts a parachute on Dead-Eye and drops him out of the plane instead of Brutus. Dead-Eye catches animals like cats and dogs and when he does, do you know what he does next? Yes! He chews off their hind legs and leaves them crippled for life. But in the morning, new legs grow again.
The Witch can sneak into any house she wants. She likes houses where children are sleeping. She sneaks into the kitchen and steals their food. She turns on the television. With a wave of her magic wand she watches shows about witches and demons and ghosts.
No one in the house hears the TV, only the witch. She steals into the bedroom where the children are sleeping and she leans over the bed. She opens her mouth wide. Her teeth are long and sharp. Her tongue is purple and hangs out of her mouth like the tongue of a dog on a very hot day.
Her fingernails are as sharp as razors. Her eleven toes are long and ugly. Her breath smells like old mushrooms, dead lizards, and the little children she loves to eat. And then, do you know what she does? She cackles and laughs and dances and giggles and jumps up and down for joy. She’s going to have a Midnight Snack! Suddenly she remembers: she left the Children’s Barbecue Sauce outside in her plane.
She rushes out of the house, flinging open windows and doors as she goes. The noise and the cold wind rushing into the house wakes up the whole family!
(“Are you getting tired yet, Ronald?” “Yes, a little—keep talking!”)
Outside, Brutus and Dead-Eye are waiting for her. All of a sudden Brutus the Tiger Cub jumps four feet off the ground and scratches her eyes. Dead-Eye the Bulldog grabs her by her back leg and starts biting and chewing it.
The Witch screams in pain and gets in her airplane and flies away, back to her lonely home in a cave in the big mountains to the East.
Now the people can hear the plane and they look up. They see somebody–or something—that looks like a witch sitting behind the controls of the airplane.
The last thing the children hear is the high-pitched scream of the witch yelling “Just wait until next year! I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget!” and then she flies the plane higher and higher into the night sky until nobody on the ground can see her any longer. She was gone!
Brutus and Dead-Eye stayed behind and became pets. They were tired of doing the Witch’s dirty work for her. All the children like Brutus and Dead-Eye. The only thing is sometimes they act a little weird, like they’re almost human!
A kid said “Maybe they are human—little boys or little girls the Witch put a spell on!” Nobody knows how to change them back—if there is a spell, that is! Nobody knows for sure . . . except the Witch.
Maybe we should ask her when she comes back—next year! And all the people went back in their houses, closed the windows and doors and turned off the TV and the lights. They all walked sleepily to their bedrooms, got into bed and way under the covers, and went to sleep.
The moon rose high in the heavens; the stars shone brightly down. Everybody slept soundly until morning, which was Saturday, and a good day for all the children in the neighborhood to go outside and play.
“G’night, Beth.”
“Goodnight, Ronald. Go to sleep!”
“Thanks, it was a good story.”
“Pleasant dreams!”
“Zzzzzzz”
“Zzzzzzz”
