The Newt Cackle
The following entry won our short story competition, which invited you to wrote a story based around one of our bookplates. Sanam Shah, our winner, chose a bookplate by Kate Aldous, which accompanies her story, below.
There was once a girl named Lucy. She lived in a cottage with her parents. It was right next to the woods which Lucy and her friends loved playing in. Nobody lived in the woods (at least that’s what Lucy thought).
One day she and her friends were playing Hide and Seek. When she went to hide, she got carried away and went deeper into the woods. She got worried when nobody came to find her.
"Sarah! Jane! Where are you? Come and find me!" she called out. Nobody answered. "Is anyone there? Stop playing a trick on me" she shouted. She waited a little while. She decided to go and look for them.
She walked further into the woods. The path did not look familiar at all. What if she had been going in the wrong direction? A shiver ran up her spine. She decided to carry on for a little while before turning back.
She heard some noise in the distance so she walked towards it. It sounded like laughing . . . no, not laughing but more like cackling. She thought it was her friends. She went nearer. UNTIL . . .
She came to an odd looking cottage. The chimney was all crooked, and the door was a funny triangle shape with a point on the top. The cackling was coming from inside. She knocked on the door. Nobody answered. So she tried the handle. It opened with a squeak. She went in. There were lots of old ladies, in black clothes and pointy hats, sitting around a huge table. (Lucy did not know they were witches) They were startled to see Lucy standing there and were scared that she had overheard their meeting. "Now, tell us little girl, what did you hear us talking about?" they questioned Lucy. "Nothing, why? Was it something private?" asked Lucy. The witches believed her.
Lucy saw plenty of food and a jug full of green drink. "Are you having a party?" she asked innocently. "No cake for your party?"
"Cake, what is cake?" asked Hoggley Sog. When Lucy described a scrumptious cake, they all wanted to taste some!!
"Why don’t I make it for you?" Lucy had been taught well by her mum. She took out what she thought was a cookery book (it was really a spell book). Lucy could not read very well. She thought "cackles" was cake. She found all the ingredients including a jar labeled"newts" which she thought were nuts! She added them in!
When the cake was ready she presented it to Hoggley Sog. They were very pleased and gobbled it all up. In a puff of smoke all the witches vanished!! Lucy looked on the floor and saw lots of little TOADS!
Lucy was very scared of toads. She ran out as fast as her legs would carry her. Funny enough she knew the way home. When she got home she told her parents. THEY DID NOT BELIEVE A THING!