Last January I wrote of a visit with Steve over the holiday vacation. We talked about his books, Carrie, Salems Lot, The Shin ing, and the soon to be released The Stand. We talked about how Stanley Kubrick wanted to do the film version of his new book. We didn’t talk about the past much though. We talked of the future, his kids, Flint …
He gave me a copy of a story he had written for his children. We almost ran it then, but there was much concern on the staff as to how it would be received by our readers. We didn’t run it. Well, we’ve debated long enough. It’s too cute for you not to read it. We made the final decision after spending in evening watching TV last week. There were at least 57 more offensive things said, not to mention all the murders, rapes, and wars…we decided to let you be the judge. If some of you parents might be offended by the word ‘fart’, you’d better not read it – but don’t stop your kids, they’ll love it!
On the Secret Road in the town of Bridgton, there lived a wicked witch. Her name was Witch Hazel.
How wicked was Witch Hazel? Well, once she had changed a Prince from the Kingdom of New Hampshire into a woodchuck. She turned a little kid’s favorite kitty into whipped cream. And she liked to turn mommies’ baby carriages into big piles of horse-turds while the mommies and their babies were shopping.
She was a mean old witch.
The King family lived by Long Lake in Bridgton, Maine. They were nice people.
There was a Daddy who wrote books. There was a Mommy who wrote poems and cooked food. There was a girl named Naomi who was 104
six years old. She went to school. She was tall and straight and brown.
There was a boy named Joe who was four years old. He went to school too, although he only went two days a week. He was short and blonde with hazel eyes.
And Witch Hazel hated the Kings more than anyone else in Bridgton.
Witch Hazel especially hated the Kings because they were the happiest family in Bridgton. She would peer out at their bright red Cadillac when it passed her dirty, falling down haunted house with mean hateful eyes.
Witch Hazel hated bright colors.
She would see the Mommy reading Joe a story on the bench outside the drug store and her bony fingers would itch to cast a spell. She would see the Daddy talking to Naomi on their way home from school in the red Cadillac or the blue truck, and she would want to reach out her awful arms and catch them and pop into her witches cauldron.
And finally, she cast her spell.
One day Witch Hazel put on a nice dress. She went to the Bridgton Beauty Parlor and had her hair permed. She put on a pair of Rockers from Fayva (an East Coast shoe store chain). She looked almost pretty.
She bought some of Daddy’s books at the Bridgton Pharmacy. Then she drove out to the Kings’ house and pretended she wanted Daddy to sign his books. She drove in a car. She could have ridden her broom, but she didn’t want the Kings to know she was a witch.
And in her handbag were four magic cookies. Four evil magic cookies.
Four cookies! Four cookies full of black magic!
The banana cookie, the milk bottle cookie, and worst of all, two crying cookies. Don’t let her in, Kings! Oh please don’t let her in! But she looked so nice…and she was smiling…and she had Daddy’s books soooo….they let her in. Daddy signed her book, Mommy offered her tea.
Naomi asked if she would like to see her room. Joe asked if she would like to see him write his name. Witch Hazel smiled and smiled. It almost broke her face to smile.
“You have been so nice to me that I would like to be nice to you.” said Witch Hazel. “I have baked four cookies. A cookie for each King.”
“Cookies!” shouted Naomi. “Hooray!”
“Cookies!” shouted Joe. “Cookies!”
“That was awfully nice,” said Mommy. “You shouldn’t have.”
“But we’re glad you did,” said Daddy.
They took the cookies. Witch Hazel smiled. And when she was in her car she shrieked and cackled with laughter. She laughed so hard that her cat Basta hissed and shrank away from her. Witch Hazel was happy when her wicked plan succeeded.
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“I will like this banana cookie,” Daddy said. He ate it and what a terrible thing happened. His nose turned into a banana and when he went down to his office to work on his book much later that terrible day the only word he could write was banana.
It was Witch Hazel’s wicked magic Banana Cookie.
Poor Daddy!
“I will like this milk-bottle cookie,” Mommy said. “What a funny name for a cookie.” She ate it and the evil cookie turned her hands into milk-bottles. What an awful thing. Could she fix the food with Milk-bottles for hands? Could she type? No! She could not even pick her nose.
Poor Mommy!
“We will like these crying cookies,” Naomi and Joe said. What a funny name for a cookie.” They each ate one and they began to cry!
They cried and cried and could not stop! The tears streamed out of their eyes. There were puddles on the rug. Their clothes got all wet. They couldn’t eat good meals because they were crying. They even cried in their sleep.
It was all because of Witch Hazel’s evil crying cookies.
The Kings were not the happiest family in Bridgton anymore. Now they were the saddest family in Bridgton. Mommy didn’t want to go shopping because everybody laughed at her milk-bottle hands. Daddy couldn’t write books because all the words came out banana and it was hard to see the typewriter anyway because his nose was a banana. And Joe and Naomi just cried and cried and cried. Witch Hazel was as happy as a wicked witch ever gets. It was her greatest spell.
One day, about a month after the horrible day of the four cookies Mommy was walking in the woods. It was about the only thing she liked to do with her milk-bottle hands. And in the woods she found a woodchuck caught in a trap.
Poor thing! It was almost dead from fright and pain. There was blood all over the trap.
“Poor old thing,” Mommy said. “I’ll get you out of that nasty trap.”
But could she open the trap with milk bottles for hands? No.
So she ran for Daddy and Naomi and Joe. Fifteen minutes later all four Kings were standing around the poor bloody woodchuck in the trap. The Kings were not bloody, but what a strange, sad sight they were! Daddy had a banana In the middle of his face. Mommy had milk-bottle hands. And the two children could not stop crying.
“I think we can get him out,” Daddy said.
“Yes,” Mummy said. “I think we can get him out if we all work together. And I will start. I will give the poor thing a drink of milk from my hands.” And she gave him a drink. She felt a little better. Naomi and 106
Joe were trying to open the jaws of the cruel trap while the woodchuck looked at them hopefully. But the trap would not open. It was an old trap, and its hinges and mean sharp teeth were clogged with rust.
“It will not open,” Naomi said and cried harder than ever. “No, it will not open at all!”
“I can’t open it,” Joe said and cried his eyes out. The tears streamed out of his eyes and down his cheeks. “I can’t open it either.”
And Daddy said “I know what to do. I think.”
Daddy bent over the hinge of the trap with his funny banana nose. He squeezed the end of it with both hands. Ouch! It hurt! But out came six drops of banana oil. They felt onto the rusty hinge of the trap, one drop at a time.
“Now try,” said Daddy.
This time the trap opened easily.
“Hooray!” shouted Naomi.
“He’s out! He’s out!” shouted Joe.
“We have all worked together,” said Mommy. “I gave the woodchuck milk. Daddy oiled the trap with his banana nose. And Naomi and Joe opened the trap to let him out.”
And then they all felt a little better, for the first time since Witch Hazel cast he wicked spell.
And have you guessed yet? Oh, I bet you have. The woodchuck was really not a woodchuck at all. He was the Prince of the Kingdom of New Hampshire who had also fallen under the spell of Wicked Witch Hazel. When the trap was opened the spell was broken, and instead of a woodchuck, a radiant Prince in a Brooks Brothers suit stood before the King family.