A Cautionary Taleby Susan Fogarty

with illustrations by Jeremy O’Rourke

A Cautionary Taleby

Susan Fogartywith illustrations by Jeremy O’Rourke

Publishd by Honki Hori - BooksPO Box 11-852

Wellington

Publication Date: 4/2011ISBN 978-0-473-18537-4

There is no other way to tell this terrible tale other than to just begin.But let me warn you right now on page one, that this is not a sto-ry for children who are easily scared…Or don’t like to be frightened…Or don’t like the dead of night when it’s darker than the darkest thing you can think of…Or are afraid of forests at midnight…This is a story for brave children.So if you are not a brave child, slowly close this book and never open its pages again

For those of you with enough courage to keep going please make sure you are comfortable, because once this story begins we must read from this page to the very last terrible, horrible, awful page at the far, far, far end of the book....

...and there is noStopping,Pausing,Or otherwise delaying.

This is the story of three ordinary children.Nice children.Children with good manners.Children whose parents had taught them to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.Children who often said, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.

It is the story of three children who always looked very neat and tidy and always let adults through doorways first and never complained when they had to go to bed early or weren’t al-lowed to watch the television.

All in all they were what adults sometimes call ‘little angels’.

But that was only when adults were around.When there were no adults around the three children were not so angelic.

They never said ‘please’ or ‘thank you’.They never looked neat and tidy.

And they pushed and squabbled when they tried to go through doors. Some-times they got trapped in the doorways because they were trying to all go through at the same time.

And if anyone tried to stop them watching telly, or made them go to bed early, they screamed and screamed until the windows in the lounge almost shattered into a million pieces.

(But this is not uncommon with children, because of course children can’t be well behaved every minute of every day.)

But once the door was shut and they thought their mother couldn’t hear, they screamed and shouted and threw their toys around and squealed about not being able to watch the television until everything in the room was upside down and back to front and inside out and all around.

And upstairs their mother smiled again, because she under-stood that children could not be good all the time, but she also knew that the most important thing is that they were good at the right time.

After dinner one evening, they asked their mother if they could watch television because their favourite programme was on, but their mother said ‘no’ they must go to bed.

Now as we already know, they were angels in front of adults, so they did not complain, simply went downstairs into their bedroom and quietly shut the door, so that it did not even make the slightest noise. And their mother smiled at her darling angels being so good and well behaved.

When the three little children had made everything I their bedroom as messy as they could, they sat down to think. And one by one the three children slowly looked at each other and the oldest one smiled a cheeky smile he would never smile in front of an adult.

‘I have an idea,’ he said. ‘Let’s climb out the window and go into the forest and play.’

Now the children lived on the edge of town and right by their lovely white wooden house, with an upstairs and a downstairs and a beautiful white wooden fence that went around the entire house, was the start of the forest.

At the very beginning of the forest were just a few trees and lovely green grass and in spring daffodils popped up their yellow heads. But beyond the lovely green grass and yellow daffodi

Despite all this the three little children climbed out their bedroom window and ran to the edge of the forest to plays. Because that is what children will do from time to time, they will do what they have been told not to do.Their mother went downstairs to the bedroom door and listened. She didn’t hear a peep, or a sound, or a single noise and so she smiled to herself that her three little darlings were fast asleep.And the three little children played by the white painted fence in the grass that was green. They playedChasing games…And jumping games…But after a while they didn’t want to play nice games any more, nice games were fine when there were adults around to see how good you could be, but there were no adults around now, so they did not need to be good.

ls the forest changed and the grass turned brown and died and nothing but large trees with branches that looked like long, long, witches fingers grew.

And no children dared to go into the forest because adults told all the children not to dare to go into the forest.

So, instead they played games, and let me be honest with you right here and now, some of their games were not nice at all.Throwing stones at cars driving past games…Scaring old ladies who were walking home in the dusk games…And pulling up the daffodil bulbs so that no yellow heads would pop up in spring games…All in all at the end of the day, they were not three little angels; they were three naughtylittle children.

Then the middle child said, ‘let’s go into the forest.’And the little one said, ‘but no one goes into the forest.’And the oldest one smiled and said ‘why does no one go into the forest?’And the little one said ‘because…’And the middle one said ‘because what?’And the little one, looking just a tinny tiny bit scared, said ‘just because…’And the big one, who was starting to smile the sort of smile that only a very naughty boy, who is an experienced older brother can smile said, ‘just because what?’And the little one said ‘just because you know…’And the middle one, who was also able to smile the smile of a very naughty sec-ond brother said, ‘just because you know what?’And the littlest boy feeling even more scared said, ‘just because you know what they say...’‘And what do they say?’ Said the biggest boy smiling from ear to ear as he watched his little brother shiver in his shoes, because he already knew what they said.And the little boy took all his courage, (because it was beginning to get very dark and very cold and he was beginning to get very scared and he knew once he said what he was about to say that his two brothers would want to do what they should not do), and said…

‘They say,’ he began very slowly...

‘They say, that little children should never, ever go into the forest where the grass is brown and the daffodils do not grow, because a long, long time ago, in a time that can hardly be remembered the whole forest was green. And on one very sunny day a little boy and a little girl skipped into the forest and never came back and no one knows how and no one knows why, but since that day the grass has been brown and the daffodils have not put their heads up and all the adults have told all the children since that day to never go into the forest.’Just as the little boy finished speaking the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the white house with the upstairs and the downstairs and the lovely white painted fence and the world went almost dark apart from the moon. The wind started blowing and the branches on the trees that looked like long, long, witches fingers began to sway back and forth.

And then the wind came up again and the branches that looked like long, long, witches fingers began to move slowly like hands beckoning to the children and on the wind like whispering the children could hear the witches voices saying, ‘children oh children come into the forest, there is so much fun in the forest, come and play.’

But for the first time, the little children were not sure and they did not move. But the wind grew stronger and the trees swayed more and in the swaying they heard the witches voices call-ing again like the kindest most gentle mother in all the world, ‘children, oh children, come and have lollies and fizzy drink and sugar candy in the forest.’

And the three little children (thinking only of the taste of lollies and fizzy drink), slowly took one step forward toward the forest and then another step and one more step and inch by inch they moved toward the forest and their feet went off the lovely green grass and onto the dead brown grass.

The three little boys looked at each and even though they knew they should not –And even though they knew they didn’t want to –And even though they didn’t know what would happen –They knew they were going to go into the for-est where the grass was brown and the yellow daffodils did not put their heads up, because the adults had told them not to.

And the green grass cried evening dew be-cause it knew what would happen.The littlest boy looked back behind him and thought he saw something move in the win-dow of the house that he lived in with the upstairs and the downstairs and the lovely white wooden fence and began to wonder if he should go into the forest, but he was only little.

The branches that looked like long, long witches fingers kept moving gently in the breeze and the children thought, as they got closer, that the tree trunks looked like witches bodies and the leaves like witches hair with snakes in them; but they did not stop because lollies and fizzy and sugar candy was so tempting to them. They walked on and on into the forest until it was as black as can be and the light from the moon was gone and they were so far from home they could never find their way back.

…and the trees that looked like witches and the branches that looked like witches fingers were suddenly bright like it was the mid-dle of the day and the children were so scared they still could not move and they could not speak and they could not run and they could not hide and then they heard a voice and the voice screamed like a witch…‘GOT YOU!!’

And then they heard a slow rumbling noise, that sounded like it was coming from the middle of the earth and it rumbled and grumbled and grew louder and louder and louder until it screeched like hyena’s laughing all around them and the little children were as scared as little children can be and they froze and could not move their feet or their hands or their arms or any part of their bodies and the noise grew still louder and louder…

And from all over the forest the witches flew down and grabbed at the children and tugged at the children and laughed and shrieked at the children and pulled at their skin. The big child and the middle child did not move, could not move they were frozen with fear. But the littlest one who had been tricked in to going into the forest would move. And why could he move? Because he had been tricked and his heart was pure and every time the witches grabbed him, he slipped from their grasp. But his brothers were not so lucky, the witches pulled at their skin until very slowly…(Now this is the part of the tale that is almost too scary and the part where the three little chil-dren wish they had listened to what they had been told and had not gone into the forest, just be-cause sugar candy sounded so tempting, but remember what was written at the beginning, once we start we cannot stop.)… it started to come off and float up into the air like sheets of rice paper and just their bones were left standing.

The littlest child ran and ran and he never stopped running and all the while the witches chased him and shrieked and pulled at his skin, and grabbed at him and sometimes they got hold of him and it seemed like they tore pieces off, but his heart was good and he kept on running until he saw the moon and the grass that was green and the place where the daffodils pop up their yellow heads in spring and the lovely white house, with the lovely wooden fence and he fell onto the grass and fell asleep.

And when he woke up all the adults and children in the town and were looking at the little boy and everyone wanted to know what had happened to him and where his brothers were.And he tried to tell them, but no words came out he could not speak, his voice was gone.The littlest boy could not warn them, he could not let anyone know that they must not go into the forest.

MORALThe moral of this tale is not that little children shouldn’t go into dark, dark, dark forests at

night; although that is probably quiet a good rule. The moral is that little children should lis-ten when they are told not to do something, even when there is great temptation; because if

you are told not to do something and notice that no one else is doing it either, this may be for a very, very good reason.

For when the witches had got hold of him in the forest as he had run, they had taken his voice (which at times had been very naughty) and it had floated up with his brothers. And his voice that was now floating over the forest kept saying over and over, ‘don’t come into the forest, please don’t come into the forest.’ But no one heard, because it was too dark and too far away.

And his mother, with tears streaming down her face, because like all the mothers in the town, she loved her children no matter how good or bad they had been, gathered up her precious little baby in her arms and started to walk back home and as she did the littlest boy looked back at the forest and the trees that looked like witches swayed in the breeze and smiled to themselves and in the air that blew the little boy heard them whisper ‘GOT YOU!’