The Little Leftover Witch

by Florence Laughlin

  But Felina just glared. She wouldn’t even answer. She sat there, looking exactly like a horrid little witch.

  Not until Mr. Doon came home from work could they do anything with her. He just said, “Get down out of that mulberry tree, Felina—that’s an order. If I have to climb up and get you, you’ll be sorry.”

  So Felina came down. But she wouldn’t eat any supper. She wouldn’t sing Christmas carols around the piano. And she refused to help decorate the Christmas cookies.

  “She was getting to be such a sweet little girl,” said Mrs. Doon sadly. “I can’t understand it.”

  “Something is worrying her,” said Mr. Doon with a frown.

  But what it was nobody could even guess. And Felina wouldn’t say.

  Every day Felina sat in the closet after school. She would talk to no one but Itchabody and she never took off her little cone-shaped hat.

  Her small face got thinner and thinner and her nose grew sharper and sharper. And she ate almost nothing at all.

  Even Grandfather Doon couldn’t make her laugh.

  “I’m so worried about her,” said Mrs. Doon at last. “I’m sure she’s sick. I’m going to take her to see Dr. Perriwinkle.”

  9

  A Visit to Dr. Perriwinkle

  The next day Mrs. Doon called Dr. Perriwinkle’s office and made an appointment to bring Felina in. The two went to town on the bus to the doctor’s office.

  Dr. Perriwinkle was a fat little man who looked somewhat like a good-natured squirrel. At first when he saw Felina, he was very jolly. But he soon got over it.

  For one thing, every time he bent over to examine Felina’s heart with the stethoscope, the point of her peaked witch’s hat stuck him in the eye. She wouldn’t take it off.

  When the nurse tried to weigh her, she jumped up and down so that they couldn’t read the scale. The nurse had to write on the record: Weight—Between 49 and 100 pounds.

  Dr. Perriwinkle said, “That’s no good.” And they had to tear up the record and start all over again.

  When the doctor asked her to stick out her tongue, she refused. But when he turned his back she stuck it out as far as she could.

  Felina didn’t want to go to a doctor in the first place. She seemed to be trying to prove just how uncooperative she could be.

  “Undernourished,” pronounced the doctor at last. “She just isn’t getting enough to eat.”

  “Her appetite is very poor,” sighed Mrs. Doon. “I simply can’t understand it. She was so well and happy, then all of a sudden she changed.”

  Dr. Perriwinkle puffed out his cheeks. He looked sternly at Felina. “You’ll have to be a good little girl and eat what you’re told,” he warned, “if you want Santa Claus to bring you anything for Christmas. Santa doesn’t like naughty children, you know.”

  “Santa’s a silly old fool,” said Felina crossly. Then she looked a bit frightened. “And I’m not a little girl. I’m a bad witch,” she told him.

  “Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Doon. She began to put Felina’s dress back on.

  “I’ll give you a tonic for her,” said Dr. Perriwinkle.

  He looked pretty exhausted by this time. “What she really needs,” he added as he wrote out the prescription, “is glub, glubble, glubble.”

  It sounded very much like he had said, “A good spanking.” But Mrs. Doon wasn’t sure.

  Felina made another face at him.

  Almost as soon as poor Mrs. Doon got the little witch home again and sent her upstairs to change her dress, the phone rang. It was Dr. Perriwinkle calling.

  He spluttered so much as he talked that it was hard to understand him. But Mrs. Doon thought that he said something about losing his stepladder.

  “Your what?” asked Mrs. Doon.

  “My stethoscope,” he yelled into her ear. “That child of yours—that little witch—it was right here around my neck when she was in the office. When my next patient came in, it was gone.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Felina wouldn’t—” said Mrs. Doon weakly. But of course she wasn’t sure at all, and as soon as she had hung up the phone she went straight upstairs.

  There, in the corner of the closet, was Felina. She was listening to Itchabody’s heart go blub-a, blub-a, blub-a—with Dr. Perriwinkle’s stethoscope.

  Dangling from under Felina’s peaked black hat was more of the good doctor’s equipment. Adhesive tape and gauze, and a thermometer.

  “Oh, Felina,” said Mrs. Doon wearily. “Whatever are we going to do about you.”

  Then, busy as she was, she had to take Felina and the stethoscope back uptown to the doctor’s office. And Felina was made to say, “I’m sorry,” which she did. But not very prettily.

  And the doctor looked as though he didn’t want an apology. All he wanted was his stethoscope back and a little rest. Just before they left the office, he recommended another doctor for Felina.

  “After all,” he said, when the door had closed behind his strange patient, “I’m a people doctor, not a witch doctor!”

  10

  In a Witch‘s Sock

  Mr. Doon had to order Felina to take the tonic that Dr. Perriwinkle had prescribed.

  “Tastes like the old Wizard’s poison brew,” she insisted, making a terrible face every time. “He makes it out of mustard seeds and polliwog tails. It’s sure to kill me.”

  The tonic didn’t seem to do much good. Felina continued to be a very miserable little witch. She took no interest in the Christmas preparations. She refused to play with Lucinda.

  No matter how hard people tried to be nice to her, she tried just as hard to be wicked. Wherever she went people would ask her if she had been good all year. And somebody always said, “Santa knows. He brings toys only to good little boys and girls.”

  And whenever the little witch was in a bad mood, her Small Magic got to working again. One day Mr. Doon found all of his good ties mysteriously tied into knots. And Mrs. Doon discovered that the Christmas candles that she had on the mantel wouldn’t stay lit.

  Worst of all, Lucinda’s favorite princess doll, Lucille, was missing. They looked under the bed and in the closet. They couldn’t find Lucille anywhere.

  “Did you take her, Felina?” demanded Lucinda crossly. “I believe you did.”

  It wasn’t at all like Lucinda to be cross with the little witch, for she loved Felina. But she loved her doll, too.

  Felina simply wouldn’t answer. She spent most of her time in the closet, whispering witch charms into Itchabody’s small pointed ears.

  The Doons were very patient with Felina. They knew that something must be very, very wrong. And Mr. Doon was seldom heard to say that’s an order, unless it was absolutely necessary.

  * * *

  At last, it was the night before Christmas.

  “Come, Felina,” said Lucinda. “Let’s hang our socks by the chimney.”

  “Not me,” said Felina. “I won’t get anything for Christmas. I know I won’t, ’cause I’m a witch. I just want to go back up there.” She pointed toward the sky from which she had fallen when she broke her broom.

  So Lucinda hung up her sock all by herself. She felt very sad. And when Grandfather Doon read The Night Before Christmas to them, Lucinda didn’t smile once.

  Felina stubbornly put her hands over her ears. But not very tightly, for her eyes kept getting bigger and bigger as the story of Santa unfolded. She was very quiet when she crept up to bed in her pajamas.

  In the middle of the night Mr. Doon thought he heard a strange sound on the stairs.

  He opened his bedroom door a crack and looked out. He saw a thin little figure in a black pointed hat creeping down the stairs. She had a sock in her hand, and she found her way through the dark. She hung the sock on the nail that Mr. Doon had put for her by the fireplace.

  When he went later to tuck the children in, Felina was sound asleep. This time, when Mr. Doon bent to kiss his own sleeping daughter, he also kissed Felina, very tenderly, on the cheek.

  “Poor mixed
-up little witch,” he said.

  * * *

  On Christmas morning, bright and early, Lucinda reached over and pulled Felina’s shiny black pigtail.

  “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” she cried. “Wake up, sleepyhead. Let’s go down and see what we have under the tree.”

  Felina pretended to be sound asleep. After Lucinda had put on slippers and robe and gone downstairs, Felina followed. Very slowly. Her green eyes were big and anxious in her little face.

  “Oh, look, look!” cried Lucinda.

  From the middle of the stairs, Felina could see it all.

  In one corner was a big Christmas tree, lighted with a hundred lights and glowing with beautiful colored ornaments. On the very tip-top was a white-clad angel with spreading wings.

  Under the tree—oh, under the tree there were wonderful things to see. Toys and books and packages still to be opened.

  Right in the middle of it all sat two lovely dolls. One was a bride doll, which Lucinda had been asking for. But the other—the other was the strangest dolly you ever saw. She wore a long black robe and a tiny pointed witch’s hat.

  She had a tiny broom under her arm. And it wasn’t broken.

  Felina came slowly down the steps. She didn’t know it, but right behind her came Mr. Doon and Mrs. Doon and Grandfather Doon. All in robes and slippers—all waiting to see what would happen.

  “Look, look, Felina,” cried Lucinda. “I told you you’d get presents for Christmas.” And she ran to Felina with the witch doll and put it in her arms.

  “For me?” said Felina. “Really for me?”

  She held the doll close to her heart and turned her questioning face to Mrs. Doon, who now stood right beside her.

  “I dressed it for you, Felina. Just for you,” said Mrs. Doon. “Now why don’t you look in your sock, to see what Santa brought you?”

  Felina clung tightly to the witch doll and walked hesitantly to the bulging sock near the fireplace. She sat down and dumped the contents into her lap.

  There was a big round orange, nuts and candy, a red-and-white cane—and a big shiny silver dollar in the toe!

  Felina looked up. There was wonder in her small face and her eyes were like a couple of jewels. “But where,” she asked, “where are the whips and stones?”

  “Whips and stones, darling?” Mrs. Doon frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I thought that was what bad girls and witches got from Santa,” said Felina. “That’s what Clarence Brown told me. He said:

  “ ‘A bunch of whips

  To make you moan;

  A bunch of stones

  To break your bones.’ ”

  Mrs. Doon knelt down and hugged the little girl and kissed her cheek.

  “But you aren’t a bad little girl, Felina,” she said. “You’re our dear, dear little witch, and I don’t know what we’d ever do without you.”

  That’s when Mr. Doon was heard to say through his teeth, “I know what I’d like to do. I’d like to give that Clarence Brown a sock full of rocks to knock off his block!”

  “Now, George,” scolded Mrs. Doon gently, “remember, it is Christmas.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Mr. Doon. But he didn’t look too sorry.

  Then Grandfather shouted, “A merry, merry Christmas, everybody!” He began to laugh his wonderful laugh and to pass out presents all around.

  There were shiny skis, a red sled—and a record player for Mother. There was even a new red collar with a tiny bell on it for Itchabody.

  It was a beautiful Christmas. And the surprises weren’t over. Felina and Lucinda flew happily upstairs again to bring down all the presents they had made at school.

  There were flowerpots for Mother, made from old coffee cans, nicely painted. There were pottery ashtrays for Mr. Doon. And a scrapbook full of jolly snapshots for Grandfather Doon to take home to New Haven.

  That night, very mysteriously, Lucinda’s doll, Lucille, materialized once more in her cradle. She had been hiding in the mulberry tree all the time, and it was strange that nobody had thought to look for her there.

  11

  The Snow Witch

  On New Year’s Eve, Mr. Doon awoke the children from a sound sleep, at exactly one minute to midnight. He had promised them that they could help ring in the New Year.

  At first they could hardly hold their eyes open. But the noise soon brought them to their senses.

  Bells were clanging. Firecrackers were banging. Horns were blowing. All down the block on Mockingbird Lane people were shouting “Happy New Year” to one another and singing “Auld Lang Syne.”

  Grandfather went to the kitchen and got tin pans and big spoons.

  “Happy New Year!” he shouted, as everybody in the family banged merrily away on a tin pan. “Happy, happy New Year.”

  It was exciting and fun. And when all the noise died down, Mr. Doon opened the door, and they stood looking outside.

  Snow was falling in great white flakes. Falling. Falling. The ground was all glistening and white where the light lay upon it.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Felina, in wonder. “It sounds like silence.” And it did. For the snow fell so softly—shhh, shhh, shhh.

  “It is beautiful,” said Mrs. Doon seriously. “A new year, and three hundred and sixty-five clean new pages for us to write our lives on. I hope the pages will be full of happiness for this family.”

  And she put her arms about the two little girls and shooed them back up to bed.

  In the morning Felina and Lucinda begged to go out in the wonderful snow to play. So Mrs. Doon bundled them up in red snowsuits.

  Lucinda wore a red hood, but Felina clung to her little witch’s hat. Mrs. Doon tied a warm scarf under it, so her ears wouldn’t get nipped.

  “I do wish she’d let me throw away that awful hat,” said Mrs. Doon, as she and her husband watched the two little figures clown in the snow.

  “I don’t think it will be long now,” said George Doon thoughtfully.

  And he was right.

  When the neighborhood children saw Lucinda and Felina tumbling in the snowbanks and throwing big, soft balls at each other, they all came running to join in the fun.

  “Let’s make a snowman,” cried one of the little boys.

  “Oh, let’s!” shouted Lucinda.

  So they all pitched in to help. Scooping up the feathery white snow in their mittens, they shaped and patted the snow in a mound, making it higher and higher.

  A body, a head, two arms—soon it looked like a big white-clad person. They used two pieces of coal for eyes. Someone patted on a pointed nose. And someone ran home and brought back an old broom to put under the snowman’s arm.

  Then one of the children shouted, “Oh, see—the broom, the pointed nose. It looks like a witch—or a wizard!”

  And so it did. The face had a sharp, wicked look—just like a wizard’s.

  “Now all we need is a hat,” declared another child. “We need a peaked witch’s hat.”

  Everyone looked right at Felina. At the funny little black hat, perched on her woolly scarf.

  She backed away, staring at the children and hanging on to her hat with two mittened hands.

  “Oh, lend us your hat, Felina,” they cried.

  “Yes, do,” pleaded Lucinda. Her blue eyes were sparkling with fun as she looked into Felina’s little face. “Give us your hat. You aren’t a witch anymore—you don’t need it.”

  They weren’t making fun of her. They were laughing and gay, their faces full of friendliness.

  And all at once, Felina grabbed off the hat and held it out to the clamoring children. She wanted to give up the funny hat. She wanted to give it to the snow witch.

  So the tallest boy climbed on a box and put the hat on the snow witch’s head. It added the perfect touch.

  All the children danced around and around the strange white figure, laughing and chanting. And Felina laughed with them.

  She had never been happier in her life.

&n
bsp; And when Mrs. Doon looked out of the window and saw the familiar little hat on the snowman, she laughed softly too.

  “We’ve lost our little witch,” said Grandfather Doon somewhat wistfully.

  It was true. Nobody ever thought of calling Felina a witch again. Not even Clarence Brown, who had probably learned his lesson when Itchabody landed on his head.

  At first Felina seemed a little nervous without her hat. She kept reaching up and touching her head to see if it was there. For three days the snow witch stood in the yard, wearing the hat. Then one morning, when the children went out to play, there was no hat on the snow witch. The hat had disappeared.

  Someone swore it had been seen flying through the sky by itself. But Felina said, “The old Wizard reached down through the wind with his broom and swept it away.”

  She didn’t seem to mind at all. After the holidays were over and Grandfather Doon had flown in the jet plane back to New Haven, Felina went back to school wearing a woolly hood, just like the other little girls.

  With her pretty shining hair and her plump rosy face, she looked so much like an ordinary human child, no one would ever have suspected she had been a witch.

  One day, in the spring, when the snow had melted from the ground, Felina found the bedraggled little hat against the back fence. It had been lost in the snow. She brought it into the house.

  “See what I found,” she said to Mrs. Doon. “It looks like a witch’s hat.”

  “So it does,” said Mrs. Doon. She looked into Felina’s big green eyes. “Do you want me to clean it for you, Felina?” she asked.

  Felina laughed. “Why, it’s an old witch’s hat,” she replied. “What would I want with a witch’s hat?”

  So the hat was finally thrown away. When Mrs. Doon took the girls shopping that spring, to buy material for Easter dresses, Felina said, “Please, may my dolly have a new Easter outfit too? I don’t want a witch doll anymore. I want a princess doll.”

  So the little witch doll was turned into a princess too. And only Itchabody cried when the tiny pointed cap and black dress were packed away high on the shelf.