It was in the BookGoSocial Children’s Book FB Group that I First found out about Ronald Craig. He had published a book ‘The Little Witch And The Lost Boy’. As a witch or a witch lover myself, I had to buy that book and I have not regretted. I loved the storyline and the characters, […]
via Ronald Craig at Meet Your Next Favorite Author — FotoBoek Lieve Snellings
Breeze was dreaming of butterfly – cakes. All of his dreams lately were filled with cakes of one type or another.
His dream about Hasty fairy Cakes was so frightening he hadn’t told asked anyone about it, yet. He decided to forget about it and perhaps some day ask for advice.
His nap time was interrupted by a very high bossy voice saying. “I told you to pack cucumber sandwiches.”
Breeze pulled a yucky face. He hated cucumber and the idea of sandwishes with just cucumber in them was not nice.
The woman who spoke looked very un-happy. He wondered if Tulip could wave her wand and make the lady look a little happier.
Then he heard another voice say, “But last week you scolded me because I brought cucumber sandwiches.” The second lady looked much nicer, she looked like a lady who smiled a lot. She was taking out a cup and saucer and laying them on the ground.
“Why is she doing that?” Breeze whispered. But there was no one to answer him. “And what are they doing? ”
Breeze scratched his head and decided this was one question too many. He slid down the tree and went to ask Tulip for advice.
“Maybe they are having a picnic.” Tulip said.
“What is a picknicky?” Breeze asked.
“Not picknicky a picnic. It is when you have tea and sandwishes outside.” Tulip told him.
“Maybe we should have one.” Breeze suggested.
“We do that every day. Show me where they are.”
Breeze brought Tulip to the field. He spent a long time looking under briars, giant strawberry leaves but he didn’t find them.
Tulip smiled and said, “You were dreaming there was no strange women.”
“If I could draw I would draw them for you.”
Tulip flicked her wand and handed him a giant piece of paper and a pencil.
She decided to have a nap.
When Breeze woke her he showed her his drawings.
“They look real. But why can I see two of them on one sheet of paper?” Tulip asked.
Breeze’s face went very red.
“I made a mess of the first sheet and drew one on each side.”
“They are very strange women. I think they are ghosts.” Tulip said. She turned around to see Breeze running to his cave.
She shouted to him. “Where are you going?”
“Home. I have enough trouble with witches. I don’t need two ghosts to mess up my nap time as well.”
Tulip watched him run and thought, for an ogre he is very fast on his feet. Then she decided she might as well go home as well. “Perhaps I will give them to someone to color in.”
“I will never tell you another truthful story about me.” Breeze said.
Tulip frowned. She didn’t understand why and asked him to explain.
“Because since I told you about the tree all you do is ask me questions.” He folded his arms infront of his chest. “Stop doing it.”
Tulip smiled. “Okay but perhaps you will answer me this one last question. Why did you stop gardening?”
Breeze scowled at her.
Mrs Groundsel was walking past them. She was delivering a batch of blackberry jam to her friend Robyn and heard Tulips question. She stopped and said, “why would you think he has?”
“Because he is always asleep or sitting in a tree?” Tulip said.
“Not always only when you are around.” Mrs Groundsel walked away.
Breeze climbed his tree and Tulip was tired of asking questions so she went home.
Tulip didn’t forget Mrs. Groundsel’s answer. She decided to become a Fairy detective. She began to get up earlier in the morning and go to bed late at night. But it didn’t matter, whenever she went looking for him Breeze was always asleep. Izzy asked Tulip, “do you need a sleeping potion? You look very tired and your wings are droopy looking.”
Tulip told her the reason why she was feeling so tired.
Izzy was quiet for a while as she sipped her tea. Suddenly she said, “I know why you can’t find him working or moving about during the day because he is working at night.”
Tulip shook her head. “No Breeze is not a bat he is that jolly green ogre we keep tripping over on the porch when we have finished baking. He can smell vanilla icing a mile away.”
Izzy said, “tonight you and I will keep watch. I will go to his cave and watch from high above it. You can stay at the edge of the forest. You can follow him.”
***************
The moon was bright, the sky a dark curtain behind it.
Izzy was sitting a short distance from the entrance to Breeze’s cave. She was knitting a jumper for a baby rabbit. Tulip was writing out new recipes at the edge of the wood as she waited for Izzy’s signal.
Suddenly Izzy heard Breeze stomping out of his cave. Spike was sitting on his shoulder. They walked straight past Izzy without seeing her. She waited until they were a little distance away then she send a ribbon of light shooting into the sky.
Tulip spotted the signal. She sent her recipe book back to her kitchen and hid.
It didn’t take long for Breeze to appear on the path from the mountains. Tulip was surprised when he didn’t enter the wood but turned sharp left and walked towards the flat fields behind the trees.
She stayed well behind him. Tulip didn’t want him to see her. He walked for a long time, through three giant fields.
Then suddenly he came to a small field. Breeze bent low. Spike jumped from his shoulder.
Tulip forgot to watch Breeze she was too busy trying to recognize all of the vegetables she saw growing in the field.
“He is a secret gardener. ” She sat in the hedge for a while and watched him work. He was very good. There were no weeds in his garden just healthy, carrots, potatoes, sweetcorn, peas and beans. Suddenly she had answers to a lot of her questions. It was Breeze who supplied everyone with the vegetables they loved when they couldn’t find them close to Mudpile Wood.
Tulip wanted to rush out and give him a hug. But, she knew she couldn’t. It was his secret to keep or reveal and not hers.
She decided to go home.
Next day at lunch time Tulip was asleep when there was a loud knock at her front door. It was Izzy, ” So you didn’t find out where he went or what he did?”
Tulip said “Yes, I mean no I didn’t.”
Izzy smiled “And I suppose you didn’t bake the giant gingerbread man Breeze is sharing with everyone in the middle of the clearing?”
Tulip looked very innocent and tired. “No, I can only bake small gingerbread men in my small oven.”
Izzy decided not to ask any more questions. “You look tired. I will bring you back some of the amazing gingerbread. Pity we don’t have the recipe, isn’t it?”
Tulip was too tired to worry about her friends twinkling eyes. She went back to bed.
(Inspired by a dream from Breeze)
Tiny cloud was small and thin.
At first he didn’t notice how small he was. He dived and soared. When he tired of this he stopped and looked around him.
High above him large clouds rolled in an elegant and smooth fashion. They flowed through the sky.
He wished he could dance like they could.
A cloud ducked low over the earth and sat on a mountain. He must be tired, Tiny cloud thought.
Then as tiny cloud watched the giant cloud hugged the mountain.
He felt sad.
“I want to learn to hug.” He sang as he whizzed past his bigger friends.
“Slow down, enjoy” they whispered. “It will happen when it happens.”
But he was gone. “I want to be big and great” he sang.
Birds didn’t notice him or hear him. He was moving too fast.
He dived around the earth, wishing and hoping.
“I want to be big and great,” he shouted in his tiny voice. No one heard him.
He moved around the sky looking for clues.
He wanted to be bigger. He was busy watching everyone else.
One day he realised he no longer soared and dived. He didn’t feel like playing.
“I like rolling,” he grumbled. “But I feel heavy.”
The cloud began to sink, slowly at first towards the earth. He stopped over a mountain. He saw the stones and earth getting closer.
He wondered if he might swallow the mountain. He stopped grumbling and rolling.
He smiled. “I’m hugging a mountain.” He cried as the rain spilled from him.
Then he was light once more and flew high into the sky to tell the other clouds.
All the time he was singing, “I like hugging.”
They were waiting for Izzy to return. Tulip and Elegant were in Elegant’s house because she had made some breakfast muffins and bars.
Breeze was sitting at the side of the house chatting to Lovisma when they heard a loud screech.
Breeze saw a flash of pink fairy wings, “Izzy.” They followed her indoors.
“Why are you as red as a tomato?” Lovisma asked Izzy who darted behind the sofa in the sitting room. She refused to come out.
Izzy whispered, “You should have told me how horrible they can be.”
“Who?” Elegant asked.
“Children.”
Breeze frowned. “They are not horrible.”
“Well the ones I met were. The first little girl broke my wand. The second demanded more money. The little boy cried and screamed so much his mum came hurtling through the door with a big white face and waving a frying pan at me.”
Ellen went to sit by her. She put an arm about Izzy’s shoulder. “you weren’t supposed to wake them up.”
“I didn’t on purpose. I had never seen so many things I pressed a few buttons and the rooms were bright, things moved, noises were made, they woke up.” Izzy shuddered. “It was horrible, really really horrible.”
“Sweet dandelion tea is good for shock.” Tulip said and handed a cup to her.
“Thanks Tulip. Something smells nice.” Izzy said. “I am really tired and hungry. I had to fly out of the houses really fast.”
“The breakfast buns were excellent.” Breeze confessed. “So excellent I ate them all. Sorry.”
Everyone swung around to look at him. “Well they were.”
Elegant waved her hand in a graceful manner. A huge plate of breakfast muffins appeared beside her. She glared at Breeze and said, “have one of these Izzy. Breeze has had enough muffins.”
There was silence for a long time until Ellen and Izzy had recovered.
When they were finished breakfast, Izzy said. “I don’t want your job I prefer mine.”
Ellen smiled. “I want mine as well.”
Breeze scratched his head. “But I thought you were both fed up with your jobs.”
Izzy said, “I was but it is easy and easy is good.”
Ellen smiled and then said. “You are correct there is nothing wrong with sticking to what you know.”
Breeze felt a little puzzled by this but decided a room full of magic was a little too much for him and he went off to do what he loved to do best, sit in a tree and dream.
They practiced.
Ellen insisted Breeze watch. She told him he had to pretend to be a sleeping child. He thought she was bossy but he didn’t mind being the sleeping child until Izzy tumbled him out of his sleep on the wide branch. He hit the ground with a bang.
Ellen made Izzy do it over and over again until she got it right. Breeze grumbled loudly each time he hit the ground.
Next it was Ellen’s turn to wake the trees up. “This will be easy peasy,” she said.
He hoped it would be for the tree’s sake.
It wasn’t.
The first time she tried it the trees bloomed bright red.
Breeze said, “They look hot.”
The second time she woke them they flipped upside down and their roots were waving at the clouds. A lot of angry squirrels and birds left in a hurry. But the third time she did it perfectly.
Now we are ready to start work,” Izzy rubbed her hands together. “This will be fun.”
They agreed to meet back at Tulips house at dawn.
Breeze sat and waited for the sun to rise. He liked watching it climb out of its bed. He said good night to the moon. It smiled at him.
Minutes later he heard a loud noise. He climbed the tallest tree to spy on Hungry Wood which was a few miles from Mudpile Wood.
It was called Hungry Wood because the Ogres who lived there were always hungry.
This morning the wood was shimmering and hopping.
“Oh dear it shouldn’t be doing that. Or should it?” He called for Tulip. She took a look and called Elegant to come and help.
The three friends decided to visit Hungry wood.
“This is not good at all.” Elegant said when they were close to the wood.
Every tree and bush was trembling. Animals scurried and raced from it. They huddled in a group behind Breeze. He wondered what was going on.
There was a loud belching noise and a giant oak shot from the ground to fall back into place shuddering and groaning. Then a hawthorn tree did the same little dance. Ellen came out of the wood shaking her head. Her hair stood on end and she looked frightened. “I don’t understand it, I did everything I had done in practice but it is n’t working.”
Elegant sighed. “Every wood is different, they have to be treated differently.” She flew into the wood and a moment later there was a great shimmering rainbow of green that flowed over the wood followed by silence.
When Elegant came back to them, Ellen hugged her. “Thank you.” She squinted and looked beyond the wood. “I hope everything went well with Izzy.”
“We will have to wait and see.” Elegant told her.
Writing Advice From A YA Author Powered By Chocolate And Green Tea
Helping writers become bestselling authors
An awesome dog who left his mark
MAKING A DIFFERENCE, ONE STEP AT A TIME
"Life is better than we expected."
Thirty Years of Wonder
An intersection of libraries, books, and pop culture.
Writer & Author
Storytimes, Programs and Library Thoughts
If the kids are reading it, chances are I have, too.
You are a miracle - Let it happen
Adventures in raising a fabulous gender creative son.
welcome to the virtual library
Mudpile Wood 