Halloween: Part One

Happening somewhere right now…

“A little higher,” says Podge, who has hired a spider to spin her web outside the office to decorate for Halloween.

“Watch out!” cries the spider, as Podge is snatched up by a witch passing by.

“Gloria!” says the witch to another witch. “I’ve caught one!”

The witch puts Podge in her pocket before letting out a screeching cackle.

At the witch’s hut, Podge and a pile of other toads are thrown onto a wooden table top beside a rusty old cauldron.

“Martha, do kids still like candied toads? Don’t they prefer Snickers or Kit Kats these days?” asks Gloria.

“Oh, the children taste disgusting after eating all that sugar. Better to feed them a fresh candied toad,” says Martha.

“So, the plan is we smother these toads in hot caramel, sneak into town, give the children the toads when they’re trick or treating, snatch them, bring them here, boil them into youth potion, drink it, and we become young and beautiful again?”

“Yes, Gloria,” says Martha. “We’ve done the same thing every Halloween for three hundred years. Nothing has changed. It’s the same every time.”

“Alright, just checking,” says Gloria. “You never know.”

While the witches bicker, Podge whispers to a mouse to go find help. Specifically, he asks the mouse to find Midge the Fairy Godmother. He explains that she has a new office in town with gorgeous Halloween decorations on the outside of it. The mouse nods and leaves on his mission.

The cauldron of caramel begins to bubble.

“Gloria!” says Martha. “It’s time to smother!”

Gloria grabs a pastry brush from the drawer and dips it into the boiling hot sugar. She reaches for Podge who tries to hop away.

She pinches his foot and lifts him above the cauldron. Podge thinks about his short life. About his family. About the poetry workshop he recently took and how he might actually have been a good poet if only he had made the time to write.

The sizzling caramel drips from the brush, nearing his skin.

He thinks about Midge the fairy godmother. How nice she’s been, even for a fairy. How much he’s learned from her already and it’s only been a few weeks.

The first drop brushes his toe and it stings. Podge closes his wet eyes and thanks mother earth for giving him this life, however short, before…

“Ew!” squeals Gloria, pointing to Martha’s face. Martha’s two front teeth fall out of her head.

“Ow!” screeches Gloria who clings onto her jaw, now in aching pain. “I think I have a cavity. Have you ever had a cavity, Martha?”

“No you dimwit!” says Martha. “Someone has cursed us… someone close.”

“Katherine?” asks Gloria.

“No, she’s in Portugal,” says Martha. “This seems like the work of a tooth fairy!”

“That’s right!” says Smidge who emerges from the corner of the hut.

“I’m Smidge, the tooth fairy, and this is my sister Midge. She’s a fairy godmother.”

The fairies hover before the faces of the stunned witches.

“And I’m Podge,” says Podge, still swinging from Gloria’s fingers. “Her associate.”

“Free the toads and I will restore your teeth,” says Smidge. “To whatever condition they were already in…”

“I don’t think so,” says Katherine, who has returned early from Portugal, as she pinches the two fairies by their wings.

“Now we don’t need the children!” squeals Martha.

“Fairy youth potion is the best of all!” yells Gloria, before reaching for her jaw that’s in searing pain.

Podge watches as Midge and Smidge are stuffed into a jar and placed on a shelf. He shakes his head and murmurs to himself, “No one said being an associate would be easy.”

To be continued…