CAUTION:
The following story contains scenes
that might be distressing to younger readers
(particularly Sylvanian children) and the faint of heart.
that might be distressing to younger readers
(particularly Sylvanian children) and the faint of heart.
Please read at own discretion!
Ralfie Hazelnut is a cheeky little boy.
Sometimes, at night, he climbs out of his bedroom window and takes long walks through Riverside. I do not know why... Do infant squirrels suffer from insomnia??
It was one of those nights and Ralfie had just arrived at the clearing where Hester Hogwart had taught her workshop on Halloween night.
Ralfie was admiring the bright red and orange leaves, illuminated by the moonlight.
He thought they were perfect for playing hide-and-seek.
There were so many leaves, he was able to swim in them.
He saw an interesting looking branch.
Maybe he could use it to build a burrow.
Suddenly he heard the strangest sound. It actually made him fall on his furry little belly.
As quick as he could, he scurried to find a place to hide.
He had just hid behind a pale green shrub when something very eerie happened. One of the trees he had just walked past on his way to the clearing shook off a bunch of autumn leaves and STARTED TO CREEP AROUND.
If you are thinking things couldn't possibly become any spookier... You are very WRONG. This "tree" didn't only have squiggly tentacle-like legs to walk on. As it turned around, Ralfie could see that the thing also had bright green eyes!!!
Quietly he ducked down deeper into the brush. That thing mustn't find out he was there...
Through a teeny tiny hole Ralfie watched as the thing started to creep around SIDEWAYS LIKE A CRAB.
It walked in a half-circle to the place where Ralfie had been playing and started to dig through the leaves with one of its short squiddy arms.
Then it stopped. It seemed like it had found something.
Ralfie couldn't believe it when the thing retrieved a golden bat cookie from the leaves and held it to its face with its snaky arm like a spanish fan.
Was Ralfie unlucky or what! HE should have found that delicious cookie!
Again, Ralfie was surprised when things got even STRANGER and the thing placed the cookie on the ground and bent over...
...to stick the biscuit between the leaves on its head.
What kind of a tree was this?? It sat there for a while, in complete silence, as if thinking about something, or waiting...
Then it scuttled to the right, walking sideways in the same crab-like manner as before.
It seemed to be interested in the undergrowth opposite of Ralfie's hiding place.
It dug itself into the scrub until the only part that remained visible was the three leaves on its head holding the cookie.
After the rustling of the leaves subsided, there was absolute silence.
A horrible suspicion entered Ralfie's mind. He couldn't help it, but it seemed to him like the thing was using the cookie as bait. What if it was HIDING in the brush, WAITING for somebody to come along and reach for the cookie, so that it could then POUNCE on them and EAT them??!!
Crazy with fear, little Ralfie darted out of his hiding place.
He decided to take one last look at the thing as he ran homeward.
Luckily, it remained covered with leaves and silent.
Ralfie ran and ran and ran.
When he got home he climbed through the window into his room and fell asleep on the chair underneath. Never again would he leave the house alone at night. Not if there were creepy tentacle-monster-tree-things lurking around Riverside!
THE END
NOTE:
What little Ralfie Hazelnut didn't know (and I don't know whether we should tell him) is that this creepy "tentacle-monster-tree-thing" was Matilda, a squiddy mandrake that had escaped that week from a shop called "Prissy's Peculiar Plants".
Matilda is actually a rather benign creature and (if you ask Hester) squiddy mandrakes are known to love ornaments and decoration of all sorts, so I believe the cookie wasn't meant as bait at all, but rather as a kind of tiara.
