Once upon a time, in a smallish town in the
heart of the big forest lived a little old lady, she lived in a funny rickety
house near the forest edge pottering about in her garden and knitting. She was a
very quiet little old lady who wore a big black knitted witch’s hat. She would
always smile at passers by say hello and then continue to potter about in her lovely
quaint garden which was full of strange little knitted cats and dogs and crows
and butterflies and all sorts of things which seemed to move about almost every
day to a new spot in the garden.
But come the evening of Halloween each year
she would put scary life-sized knitted children in her garden that would make
odd little squeaks and whines and jiggle about. They were very very scary
looking knitted children, so scary that none of the children in the town would
go trick or treating at the little old ladies house because they were
frightened of the scary looking knitted children that squeaked and jiggled all
night long. Then in the morning as the sun rose, all the knitted children were
put away again in a large shed with a big padlock at the bottom of her garden
until Halloween the following year.
Then one year a small group of children who
were dressed up particularly scarily thought to themselves . . . . . .We are
very very very scary, even more scary that the knitted scary children in the
garden of the little old lady, so they decided that they would go and see her
and shout trick or treat. They
knew she would be surprised and were hoping that their very very very scary
costumes would frighten the little old lady and they would get a really good
treat.
So as it got dark the
children sneaked into the garden and up the path towards the front door past
the knitted children who squealed and jiggled and made lots of strange little
noises. Then as they were about to run off in fright the front door opened and
the little old lady smiled and said Ooooooooooo
trick or treaters . . . . . Would
you like a treat and the children all shouted Yes. But to get their treat the children had to pull a long
loose thread from the nose of each or the knitted children. As the children
pulled and pulled the threads, the knitted children squealed and jiggled even
more until they were just a huge pile of wool on the ground and the sound of
the squeals vanished into the wind. In
the middle of each pile of wool however was a large box of candy sweets, the
children cheered and ate them, but it made them feel very sleepy and before
they knew it they were all snoring.
The following morning as
the sun rose the people of the town were out franticly hunting for a small
group of children who had all vanished. This had happened in the past a long
long long time ago apparently; once during a previous Halloween all those years
ago a small group of children had all vanished never to be seen again, but it
was so long ago it was now just an old fairy tale that folk would tell on
Halloween.
As the towns people rushed
about they stopped to ask the little old lady if she had seen the children, she
shook her head pointing at the knitted children and said I am just putting my knitted children back in my
shed. The knitted children squealed and squeaked and jiggled at the town’s
people, who thought they looked even more scary than normal and also strangely
familiar, but they turned to continue their frantic hunt for their own
children.
They searched and searched
but no matter how hard they hunted they never found their children ever again.
And as the little old lady put the knitted children into the shed she looked at their
little eyes blinking with fear and smiled and said I DO like a good trick; before going back inside to sit and
knit, and spend all day laughing hysterically with a slightly mad glint in her
eye, while stroking a large knitted black cat that almost seemed to purr . . .
. . . .