‘Beardunzel, Beardunzel, let down your beard!’
With a weary sigh, Beardunzel would unroll his beard and lower it to the ground. And the mean old witch would climb up.
The witch was never a very exciting visitor. She didn’t bring Lego or good books or a puppy. She just climbed up to the tower and she always said the same thing: ‘Ooooohhhh, haven’t you grown.’
(Please don’t think she was talking to Beardunzel when she said this. She was actually talking to his beard. That’s the thing about adults – because they’ve stopped growing themselves, they become obsessed with watching other things grow.)
Then she would turn her suspicious eyes on Beardunzel and say, ‘So, what have you been up to since I last saw you, young man?’ And she would poke about in corners looking for trouble.
Beardunzel wanted to say, ‘Oh, you know, I’ve been waterskiing down Sugar Loaf Mountain and winning a camel race on the motorway and I’ve just got back from a trampoline ride to the moon.’
But he never said anything like that.
He always said, ‘Nothing much.’
So the old witch would put the kettle on, make herself a Pot Noodle and sit on Beardunzel’s rolled-up beard to read the newspaper. All she wanted was to check up on him – he was her favourite possession after all – but the witch was old (as I’ve already said) and the witch was tired. First one eye and then the other would blink and close and she would doze off.
Once she was fast asleep, Beardunzel – ever so slowly and ever so carefully, without so much as a rustle – would take a single sheet from the newspaper and tuck it away.
After an hour had passed, the old witch would begin to rouse from her snooze. A snuffle, a snort, a short sharp fart and her eyes would fly open.
Then, once the witch had gone, Beardunzel would take the sheet and bend it like this and fold it like that and tear a little bit off the back and …
… he had a paper aeroplane.
The first time he makes one of these, he writes a message on one wing with a biro.
ARE YOU MY MUM?
Then he waits at the tower window until he sees his mum in the garden next door. He holds his breath and shuts his eyes and aims the paper plane right at her. One! Two! Three! GO! And with a whhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee the little paper plane takes the message to his mum.
Beardunzel’s mum is overjoyed to receive messages from her son. She uses pebbles to make a word in big letters on the back lawn.
YES! I AM YOUR MUMMY XX
Or sometimes:
HAVE YOU BRUSHED YOUR TEETH?
Or:
DON’T PICK YOUR NOSE!
So over the years, Beardunzel manages to keep in touch with his mum. He longs to escape from his prison and get back to her but there is one big problem: he is scared of heights. He needs help and he knows it.
One fine spring afternoon, as usual, he hears the witch shout from the bottom of the tower.
‘Beardunzel, Beardunzel, let down your beard!’
Beardunzel unrolls his beard and lowers it to the ground, and the mean old witch climbs up.
This time, as she sits on her comfortable beardy beanbag, Beardunzel notices something on the back page of the newspaper. It’s an advert:
ABLE MABEL
RESCUE & RECOVERY SERVICES LTD
Email: [email protected]
Beardunzel feels a buzz of excitement. This is just what he needs. But how to contact Mabel? He can’t send her a paper aeroplane … but he can send one to his mum.
He can hardly wait for the witch to finish her Pot Noodle and settle into her snooze so he chews on his fingernails to stop himself from fidgeting.
Finally her warty eyelids tremble and, with a snort and a grunt, she falls asleep.
Quick as a twick (what do you mean, you don’t know what a twick is?) Beardunzel slips the back page of the newspaper from her fingers and tucks it under the rug.
Once the witch has gone, he takes the paper and folds it just right so that the Able Mabel advert shows on the wing and with assssswwwwiiiisshhhhhh he sends it out of the window to his mum.
Now, this witch is getting old. She was sixty when she took the baby from the lettuce-munching couple next door so now she is … well, you work it out.
The next afternoon, when the witch is eating her Pot Noodle, Beardunzel asks, ‘Aren’t you getting tired, keeping up with your spells and your big house and garden and climbing up to see me every day?’
The witch stops eating, the spoon hovering halfway to her mouth.
‘What’s this? What’s this?’ she asks, her black eyes on him as if she can beam an X-ray into his brain. ‘If you think you can trick me into letting you out of this tower to help, you can think again. I’m not that stupid.’
‘Oh no, I don’t mean me,’ says Beardunzel in an innocent voice. ‘I just thought there might be someone who could lend you a hand.’
‘Well,’ says the witch thoughtfully, ‘I suppose I could do with some help stirring the cauldron, especially when it’s got frogs and treacle in it.’
‘What about catching the frogs?’ asks Beardunzel, who had seen the old witch hobbling and cursing around the garden holding a net.
‘Hmm. Yes, I could definitely use some help catching frogs,’ she mutters. ‘And then there’s herding spiders, trapping bats, things like that. And you’re right, the garden is getting out of hand.’
The witch narrows her mean eyes into thin black lines.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she says.
The following morning at nine o’clock, the old witch is munching her cornflakes when the doorbell rings.
‘What’s this? What’s this?’ she mutters as she opens the front door.
There stands a young woman with bright pink pigtails sticking out from either side of her head. She’s wearing green dungarees and she has a big work belt with pockets full of tools strung around her waist.
‘Hello, I’m Able Mabel,’ she says, ‘and I can sort any problem.’
The witch’s eyes narrow into mean black lines as she remembers last night’s conversation.
‘Anything?’ she asks in a suspicious voice.
‘Yes,’ says Able Mabel.
‘Right then, Mabel, let’s see what you’re made of,’ says the witch.
As she speaks, she waves her wand over a row of plants and each one grows little red arms and little red legs and wriggles itself out of the ground.
‘Mabel, wrestle those radishes,’ commands the witch and stands back to watch.
Mabel pulls on a pair of thick work gloves. Then she coils and springs, leaps and swipes, grabs and bags until all the rebel radishes are tied up tight in a sack in ten seconds flat. She hands the sack to the witch.
‘Hmmm,’ says the witch and rubs her chin (there was a thick hair growing there and she liked to twizzle it round her fingers).
She can’t deny it. Mabel is bold. Mabel is strong. Mabel is … well … able.
But she wants to make sure so she decides to try something a bit trickier.
‘Right, Mabel! Sort out this list for a Scare The Pants Off Me spell!’ says the old witch, handing Mabel a spell book with a long list of ingredients.
An owlet’s hoot
A stinky old boot
Three deaf mice
Two handfuls of head lice
Seven buttons on a thread
A dead rat, minus its head
‘You’ve got until sundown,’ she adds.
Once the witch has gone back inside to finish her cornflakes, Mabel pulls out her phone and checks the email she received the day before.
Dear Able Mabel
Please help my son Beardunzel. The old witch next door has locked him in a tower in the garden and he can’t get down.
Yours hopefully
Mrs Unzel
So where is this Beardunzel? Pretending to look for rodents, Mabel heads into the back garden. There’s the tower – you can’t miss it. But how to get up there, that’s
the question. She decides to search for the spell ingredients and look for a way to get into the tower at the same time.
Just outside the back door of the house she spots a black bin liner. Able Mabel rummages around inside and, underneath some potato peelings, soggy newspapers, used teabags, a broken umbrella and The Beano Annual 1997, she finds a pair of the witch’s old black boots. Holding her nose with one hand, Mabel takes the left boot and pops it in the sack.
After a little while, she finds three mice under the greenhouse. She plays heavy rock music at them until they put their paws over their ears, then she picks them up and pops them in the sack too. A rat, who is watching these goings-on from the top of a flowerpot, laughs his head off when he sees Mabel catch the mice. Mabel picks him up and he goes in the sack as well.
She finds three baby owls sitting on a piece of old ivy. They’re all hooting but the little one is hooting the most. She catches the hoot in her sock, pops it in the sack, and tells the owlets not to worry as their mummy will be back soon.
‘Where can I find seven buttons?’ she says to herself. Then she counts the ones on her dungarees and the ones on her cardigan, threads them onto a piece of cotton and puts them in the sack. Fortunately she’s got some safety pins in her work belt!
Then, as she’s tucking into her packed lunch, she spies the old witch standing at the bottom of the tower. What’s she up to? Mabel creeps closer to watch.
The witch calls out, ‘Beardunzel, Beardunzel, let down your beard.’
Mabel is astonished. What looks like a rough rope comes tumbling down. The witch clings on, the rope moves up, and they both disappear through a window at the top of the tower.
‘Aha!’ says Able Mabel to herself.
Mabel waits and waits. Finally the witch drops to the ground.
‘What’s this? What’s this? Have you been spying on me?’ mutters the old witch, clutching her wand.
‘Not at all,’ says Mabel in an innocent voice. ‘I’ve been searching for mice. Look.’ And she pulls open the neck of the sack.
The witch peers in. ‘Hmmm,’ she mutters. ‘Are you sure they’re deaf?’
‘Well, I asked them their names and they didn’t answer,’ says Mabel.
The witch nods. ‘What are you standing around here for then?’ she says. ‘You’ve only got until sundown.’ Then, because the witch is getting tired and hungry, she adds, ‘And if you don’t find every item on that list, you’ll be going in that sack as well.’
With that, the witch stomps towards the house and slams the door.
But the witch slams the door from the outside – she is suspicious and lurks behind a tree, watching.
Mabel, thinking the witch is safely indoors, stands at the bottom of the tower and shouts, in her loudest whisper, ‘Beardunzel, Beardunzel, let down your beard.’
After a few minutes the bristly rope comes tumbling down.
Mabel grasps it. As she climbs higher and higher, she feels it pulling her in. She reaches the window and clambers through.
There, in the dark, surrounded by empty Pot Noodle cartons, two eyes peer out from a face covered in … what looks like …
‘Are you a hairy bath mat?’ asks Mabel, feeling a little disappointed.
‘No,’ it says, sneezing into a huge handkerchief. ‘Took your time, didn’t you?’
There’s an awkward silence. Then, through the bath-mat beard, his eyes begin to smile.
He makes her a cup of steaming hot chocolate.
Her heart melts; so does his.
‘Aren’t you a bit hot wrapped up in all that?’ Mabel asks.
‘I’ve got a cold,’ he says.
‘You’ll feel a lot better in the fresh air,’ insists Mabel. ‘Let me help.’
Mabel takes hold of the end of his beard and pulls. Beardunzel spins around and around and around. As he spins, Mabel winds the beard around a stick. Soon she has an enormous brown beardy-floss and there, in front of her eyes, stands a young man wearing dinosaur boxer shorts.
He’s quite ordinary to look at. Mousy hair. A few spots. And, of course, a very thick beard. But Mabel loves him.
‘Aren’t you bored cooped up here all day?’ she asks.
‘Of course I am.’
‘Then why don’t you do something about it? It’s not far down to the ground, you know.’ Mabel takes Beardunzel’s arm and leads him to the window.
He shudders and sinks to the floor.
‘I can’t,’ he mumbles. ‘I’m scared of heights!’
‘Wait,’ says Mabel. ‘I can see another problem …’
Below them, in the garden, the old witch is out from her hiding place. She is turning white with fury. Sparks fly from her wand. Her lips are set in a straight, hard line.
‘Beardunzel, Beardunzel, let down your beard!’ she commands.
Beardunzel flies into a panic and spills his cocoa.
‘Leave this to me,’ says Mabel.
She snips off his beard with an enormous pair of shears that is lying just nearby and snags one end onto a hook. Then she lowers the other end down to the ground.
There’s a panting and a puffing and a scrabbling and a straining and the witch’s mean face appears at the window. She climbs inside.
The witch has just enough time to shriek, ‘What’s this?’ before, quick as anything, Mabel grabs the wand and starts to chant …
‘Scary things from far and wide,
Reach the tower and climb inside,
Make her jump and make her twitch,
Scare the pants off this horrid witch!’
The witch makes a gurgling noise. Then she gives a wail like a whale being strangled. Then wisps of smoke appear where the witch once was and THMUUUUMFPH! Her cloak and hat fall to the floor in a heap.
‘Hmm,’ says Mabel. ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen. Maybe the head lice were important after all.’
Neither of them spots the witch’s hat that now begins to hop across the floor.
‘Wow!’ says Beardunzel. ‘That was a close shave. You’re amazing!’
Mabel gives Beardunzel a big smacky kiss.
‘Now it’s your turn to be amazing,’ she says. ‘How do we get out of here?’
‘Aha,’ says Beardunzel. ‘Wait and see!’
Mabel sits down to finish her cocoa.
Beardunzel takes her tool belt and measures and cuts and hammers and planes and varnishes and … voilà!
Mabel takes a closer look. ‘Is that really a helter-skelter made of flattened Pot Noodle cartons?’
Beardunzel gives her a big grin and takes one last look at his prison.
‘Ready?’
‘Ready.’
With a wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Mabel and Beardunzel helter down the skelter …
‘Again! Again!’ cries Mabel, but Beardunzel shakes his head.
‘I never want to set foot in that tower again,’ he says with a shudder. ‘Anyway, it’s time you met Mum and Dad.’
They go round next door and ring the bell.
There’s a scuffling and a muffling, a bit of shoving and pushing, and the door squeaks open.
‘Who are you?’ ask five little mouths under five pairs of suspicious eyes.
‘Er, I’m your big brother,’ answers Beardunzel with a grin.
Beardunzel’s mum and dad come to the door.
‘Ooohh, haven’t you grown!’ says his mum (and she doesn’t mean his beard) and flings her arms around him.
‘Quints?’ asks Mabel. After all, the girls are exactly the same.
‘Well, they don’t wear their glasses for football training,’ says the carpenter, ‘so that’s why they screw up their faces like that.’
‘No. I mean, there’s five of them.’
‘They’re the Unzel five-a-side football team. And at last I’ve got a goalkeeper!’ says his dad, slapping Beardunzel on the back. ‘Introduce yourselves, girls.’
The girls step forward in turn.
‘Leah!’
‘Mia!’
‘Thea!’
‘Tia!’
‘Messi.’
‘Messi?’
‘Shh,’ whispers the carpenter. ‘Your mum thinks it’s because she never brushes her hair!’
With the old witch out of the picture (or so they thought), Mabel, Beardunzel, the carpenter, his wife and all the girls pull together to make a funfair for the whole family to run. It’s only when Mabel makes polytunnels for the lettuces and finds a big fat toad under a pointed black hat that she realises what’s really happened to the old witch from next door.
‘What’s this? What’s this? GULP! SWALLOW! YUM!’ says the toad.
‘Fantastic!’ squeals Mabel. ‘I’ve even got a volunteer to keep the caterpillars under control.’
And Beardunzel? Well, he runs the whole show and the helter-skelter remains the star attraction. It is considered the finest and fastest helter-skelter for miles around. Mostly due to those marvellous mats Mabel made – cos you know all about friction and you can guess what those marvellous mats were made from, can’t you?
The Perfect Child
Charlotte Goddard
Digby King was the richest man in the world. He had more bank accounts than the Queen of England has had hot dinners – and she has had a lot of hot dinners. In Mr King’s world, anything he wanted he got, and it was always the very best. When Mr King wanted something that didn’t exist, he would have one of the many companies he owned invent it for him, and if there was nobody in those companies who could make what he wanted, he would go out and hire someone who could. That was how the world ended up with sweets that were actually good for you, cats that could fly and a clutch of real, live, fire-breathing dragons. Most of the world’s top scientists and inventors ended up working for one of his companies or another.
After a while Digby grew bored of his flying cats and fire-breathing dragons, although he was still a big fan of the healthy sweets. He and his wife Elisaveta had started to talk about having a baby. They wondered what their future child would be like, and if he or she would take after its parents.
‘I am clever and ambitious and very good at playing the piano,’ mused Digby. ‘Also I am really very healthy.’
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