The West-Wind Witch
Is a bit of a b*tch
With her makeup and bottles of scent.
Her red eyes are drastic
(Though her boobs are plastic)
Her beauty is her one obsession.
The West-Wind Witch
Is extremely rich
She lives in a castle with the King.
She's vain and cruel
Loves gold and jewels
Her witchcraft and strength lies in poison.
Beware, beware!
Take care when you cross her path.
For she can easily manipulate you
And force you to suffer her wrath.
*****************************************
Snow White was scared.
She was really, really scared.
She despised her step-mother, the West witch, and for all the right reasons. Snow White knew that her step-mother went out of her way to murder her. She would've realised now that Snow was still alive. Snow White shuddered. What would the West witch do to her? And what would the witch do to Hunter, the brave young man who begged Snow White to run for her life?
"We are now officially in the West-Wind Witch's district!" Aurora gave a yelp, snapping Snow White out of her break-down.
The West-Wind Witch's district was quite different to the East. The houses here were all made of planks of wood and sturdy red bricks. The road was concrete, and telephone poles stretched into the sky. Cars roamed the roads, pumping out grey fumes and blaring their horns. It was a bleary and unwelcoming place.
"Well, first things first," Rapunzel snapped her fingers. "We've gotta find a place for shelter. And we need some money." she scowled. "Damn the North witch. She still haven't sent us our gold."
"I suppose the most sensible deed to do would be to answer to a few errands from the town-folk." Aurora suggested.
"They don't look too friendly." Rapunzel snorted. It was true. The people of this town were snapping at each other, impatiently shoving each other, rudely ignoring each other and hardly speaking a word to each other. An unapproachable vibe surrounded each person.
"Whatever," Snow White shrugged it off. "Look, how about there." she pointed to a fast-food restaurant just across the road. A peeling notice on the window yelled, "LOOKING FOR EXPERIENCED BABYSITTERS! SEE IN STORE FOR DETAILS"."The only problem is that we're not experienced in any way, but...."
"But stuff it, right?" Rapunzel shook her head, her hair cascading around her. She marched across the road, ignoring the horns blasted at her and the screeches of tyres. She pulled the notice from the window, crushed it in her hands, threw it over her shoulder and pushed open the grimy glass door.
The smell of oil and fried, fatty food hit her nostrils. Rapunzel coughed. The restaurant was small and dirty, the customers demanding orders obnoxiously, waiters and waitresses slipping on the slick red tiles.
"HEY!!" Rapunzel yelled above the noise. "WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?"
A plump woman with thin, irritated eyes stomped over to her. "Customers?"
"No, but---"
"Get the HELL outta here. You either customer, or you get out!"
"Whoa, woman, chill." Rapunzel scowled. "We're pro babysitters. We kinda need jobs."
The woman peered at the three girls. "You experienced?"
"I've been a babysitter twenty years of my life." claimed Rapunzel. Her friends twitched.
"How old are you?"
"Fourteen."
"Hmm. Seems legit." the woman was thoughtful. "Girls, listen here: I have a rather difficult young boy who needs someone to look after him while I work. God, he's as stubborn as a donkey and just as stupid." She tightened her apron. "Alright, alright. That notice has been up there for months. I don't have any better options. You're hired." The woman thrust a ring of keys and an address scribbled on a piece of jotter-pad paper under Rapunzel's nose. "Take my car. You crash it, you die. In more ways than one. Get to know my son, become BFFLs, whatever. Oh, and tell him to milk the cow."
"Urh, thanks, miss..."
"Candai."
"Thanks."
"Oh, one last thing, girls." Candai gave them a serious glare. "If you steal ANYTHING, if I find ONE vase missing or ONE spoon out of place...I'll sue you like hell. Understand?"
"...Yes. Y-yeah, miss. Thanks." Snow White grimaced.
Wow. Intimidating, much? Rapunzel scowled, turned away and jingled the keys in front of her friends with a huge Cheshire cat grin. "So, who dibs shotgun?"
"But Rapunzel...you're fourteen. You lack even the most basic knowledge of handling a...a...a big shiny monster on four wheels." Aurora's eyes flashed with panic. "You will kill us, you realise."
"Or maybe we'll live and live happily ever after." Rapunzel shrugged. "Could go either way, really."
*****************************************
The old, beat-up Toyota screeched around the corner, a shrill scream of protest, leaving fresh black tyre tracks deep in the road.
"OHMYGAWD OHMYGAWD OHMYGAAAAAAAAAAAWD!!!!" Snow White's voice shuddered each time the car swerved and bumped along the uneven road. Her voice ripped out of her, her clothes whipping ferociously with the roaring wind. She clutched to the wound down windows for dear life. Aurora had long since fainted, and there she lay, in the backseat, her head lolling about as she blacked out in peaceful oblivion. Over the wind and the blasts of the car's engine was Rapunzel's maddening laugh.
"SNOW!!! ISN'T THIS FREAKING BRILLIANT??" she yelled to her friend, who was gripping her head in fear of it falling off. "OOPS!" Rapunzel cackled, as she narrowly avoided a tree.
They were out of the grey and depressing town, and each time Rapunzel turned a corner she would press her foot harder and harder against the accelerator, much to the horrified complaints of her companions. They were racing across green, leafy trees and fields of yellow corn and patient, wise old cows grazing in meadows. The roads here were narrower and twistier, the sun brighter and the sky a watery blue. The countryside was quite beautiful.
"HERE WE ARE!" Rapunzel slammed to a stop, the car yanked to a halt so suddenly that Aurora jolted awake. "Sunnyside Up Farm, number 45." Rapunzel checked the crooked numbers painted upon the letterbox they were parked before, and nodded.
Snow White climbed out of the car and vomited.
"EW, Snow, how disgusting!" Rapunzel scowled in disapproval. She glanced up the gravel driveway to a small, white wooden house with a silver shed next to it. It was a farm, rather small, with gold grass and an old wooden fence, paint flaking off. A few evergreens grew nearby. "Well, home sweet home."
Suddenly, the front door of the house swung open and a pretty, short little red head speed-walked down the driveway.
"Hey, Kaithy, you'll come back tomorrow, right??" a gangly boy appeared on the porch.
"Uh, yeah. Sure. Totally. Uh-huh." the girl twitched, and increased her speed.
"Great first date, right?" the boy called after her. "We had fun, right? I-I mean, you had fun, right?"
Kaithy didn't answer. Rapunzel noted, now that she was closer, that she looked stressed, her eyeliner smudged under her brown eyes.
"It was pretty cool when I showed you my sock collection, right? You liked that, right? A-and I let you win at chess? That was pretty cool, right? We're cool, right?"
Kaithy sprinted as fast as she could to a sleek silver bike leaning on the wooden fence and peddled down the road like the wind.
.......
......
......
"Oh dear." Snow White sighed deeply. "SOMEbody needs Cupid, badly."
"Or just a few dating lessons with Aunt Gertrude." Rapunzel rolled her eyes.
"What a pathetic method of whooing." Aurora shook her head, a tight smile on her lips.
Rapunzel lead her friends up to the house quickly, taking measured steps, until they were practically right under the boy's nose.
The boy looked youngish. He had a cluster of freckles splattered on his nose, small brown eyes magnified by giant, Harry Potter spectacles, and messy bed-hair that resembled a bird-nest. He was looking at his feet, as if in shame.
Rapunzel coughed hintingly.
The boy glanced up in surprise. "Huh?"
"Huh yourself." Rapunzel gave him her signature scowl. "Listen here, Bob---can I call you Bob?---Listen here, Bob. Have you got any little siblings, a little howling baby maybe? Uh, Candai sent us here to babysit a kid.“
The boy's eyebrows drew together. "I'm an only child."
"Huh? Oh, sorry, uh, is your...your...is Candai's kid here?"
"No, no, I'm her son." the boy scratched his head.
"Huh? She said...she had a troublesome young boy...?" Aurora frowned with difficulty.
"Yes...I'm that." the boy sighed. "Mummy gets a lot of babysitters for me. They've always quit within a week."
"Ah." Aurora paused. "Oh."
"Well, okay," Snow White said briskly, clapped her hands together once and cleared her throat. "I'm...Roanna. That's Roe, and that's Roxy. And your name is, please?"
"I'm Jack." Jack pushed up his glasses. "Jack Anthony Albert Eggbert Harold Gregory Gourdy."
"That...does have a ring to it." Snow White winced. She paused. "I suppose...I suppose this is our cue to come inside?"
"Oh, um, yeah, okay, um, sure." Jack stood aside and the girls piled in.
The house was small. A fireplace stood empty in the corner of the living room. A lone lightbulb flickered above a little table paired with little chairs. A rug lay on the wooden floor. Two doors lead off the living room. Snow White guessed that those doors lead to Candai and Jack's bedrooms.
"So, Jack," Snow White began awkwardly, cutting into the silence. "You...how...how did that date go?"
"Date??" Jack turned a stunning shade of crimson. "Um, it was, cool, cool, yeah, just cool."
"Really?"
"Well, Kaithy, she kinda left in a hurry, but I'm sure she had something urgent going on, right?"
Snow White, who had always been the expert on boys and clothes and popularity at her private school, shifted into instinct. "What did you guys do?"
Jack seemed shocked at all the questions, as if he was a guilty suspect being interrogated by the prosecutor. "I-I-I showed her my sock collection. We p-played chess. I, um, I, we, we watched an episode of Plums From Pluto...."
"ENOUGH!!" Snow White shouted in horror. "Alright, let's play a game. Worst pick-up lines ever, GO!!"
"How much do you weigh? Enough to break the ice." Rapunzel offered.
"Excuse me, I have lost the direction to my home. May I follow you?" Aurora said.
"Did you sleep on your stomach? Can I? Did you just fart? Cos you blow me away. Are we related? Do you want to be?"
"What?" Jack frowned. "That's weird...I mean, I use that sort of thing all the time." He scratched his flimsy mousy hair.
"Oh, my gawd." Snow White raised a hand to her forehead. "I feel faint."
"Look here, Jack, that's suicide." Rapunzel scoffed. "Even I know that, and boys never even come NEAR me."
"Why's that?" Jack challenged, his face already turning red.
"I'm too intimidating."
I bet. Snow White winced to herself. She could see that Jack wasn't a bad kid. No, he had good intentions and a good enough heart. But he was kind of...what's the word...awkward? Geeky? Pathetic?
"Um," Snow White coughed, the silence between them too thick to bear. "Your mum...Candai? Um, oh, yeah, she, uh...she told us to remind you to milk the cow?"
Jack's face flushed. "Daisy? Well, uh, um, well, w-well, I, urgh...." he wringed his hands. "I...can't?"
Rapunzel scoffed, threw her hands up in the air and rolled her eyes. "Why the hell not? You just squeeze and squeeze and BAM, you've got yourself a bucket of milk. Must I spell EVERYTHING out for you??"
Jack jumped back. "N-no! Not at all, Miss...miss! It's just...I don't have her anymore."
"Kaithy?"
"What? No! I mean Daisy."
"You don't have the cow?"
"Yeah. I mean, no. I-I mean...."
"Where's the cow, then?" Rapunzel was beginning to scowl.
"I...I...I...I sold her. Exchanged her, for something better."
"Oh, but WHAT can possibly be better than a COW??" Rapunzel deadpanned, her patience so thin you could thread it through a needle. She felt like this was a great waste of time. What were they doing here? Why were they babysitting this weirdo? What happened to, say, saving the world?
"Well," Jack's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "I exchanged Daisy for three..." Jack trailed off, pausing, as if suddenly hesitant.
Three...what? Three dollars? Three hundred dollars? Three pigs, three buckets of milk, three bags of carrots?
"Three jelly beans."