A Witch in the Neighborhood

It was one of those rare, hot Saturdays of summer when her chores
were done early and Satiety could escape out of the house to ride her
bike. She'd barely ridden off the corner of the lawn when she spotted
the gang standing at the end of the dead-end road. She HAD to go there
first; if she'd gone on by, she might end up being the brunt of some
cruel joke or trick they'd play on her later. She turned and headed in
the gang's direction.

"You! You do it!" Brenda pointed at Satiety as she chanted, joined by
the rest of the small neighborhood gang. Satiety stopped her bike and
put one foot on the ground.

"What?" Satiety asked. "Do what?" She had a feeling she wasn't going to
like whatever they were talking about.

"Go knock on the Witch's door and give her this newspaper while we
steal some of her grapes out back!" Barbara held the paper up as she
almost yelled; she was so wound up. She was always wound up. Satiety
felt her face go white while they laughed and jeered. "You do it! You
do it!"

"Why would I want to do that?" Satiety asked, trying her best to
express the stupidity of the idea. But then, if they'd chosen Brad or
Ryan, she might enjoy it after all. Nine-year-olds can be so cruel.
"Make Brad do it, he's the one that's always talkin' about her!"

"No, YOU! YOU do it! YOU do it!" Brad sneered as he pointed and started
the chanting again. Satiety hated these kids sometimes, but she
couldn't just ride away. She'd never live that down and they were the
only kids around to play with. She thought about it for a bit, trying
not to listen to their loud crowing. How do they know that lady's a
witch, anyway?

"No." Satiety said, quietly at first. "No!" She had to get louder so
they could hear her over their yelling and noise making. Everyone
seemed to get quiet at once.

"If you don't, I'll tell my dad that YOU threw the rock that broke Mr.
Watson's windshield........" Brad teased, as he threatened her. "Then
my dad will tell your dad...." All the other kids cracked up laughing
as loud as they could.

"Go ahead, my dad won't believe him! I'll go tell him right now and
when your dad comes, my dad will already know the truth!" Satiety
switched the foot that was on the ground up to the peddle, and the
other foot she put on the ground, making it look as if she might leave
that instant.

"If you do that...... I'll kick your ass....." Brad teased again.

Satiety didn't know how to respond to this kind of playing. 'What?
He'll kick my ass?' She'd only moved there with her family a month
before, and there were no children where she'd come from before that,
but people were usually nicer to her. She didn't react at first and it
didn't matter, what with all the other kids laughing loud enough to
wake the dead. But, it was pretty clear to Satiety that she had no way
out of this.

"Okay," Satiety said reluctantly, getting off her bike. She walked it
to the curb and stood there looking at the ground for a minute before
she laid her bike down. 'Am I really gonna do this?' She couldn't help
but wonder. She turned toward the field at the dead-end and looked
across it. The brown grass was shoulder-high across the
blackberry-brambled field to the vineyard out back of the run down
cottage that faced the highway. Before when they'd played in this
field, the gang had told her stories of stealing grapes and being shot
at as they fled, and they always kept a keen eye on the house while
they were there. She had good reason to be afraid. Plus, this woman was
a witch.

"Here, take the paper," Brad said, taking it from Brenda and shoving it
into Satiety's hand. She stepped off the pavement when Brad yelled and
snapped her back to attention. "No! You gotta go around! You can't go
up to the back door, 'cause that's where we'll be, stupid!"

"I'll go with her," Brenda offered.

"Good, then we can make sure she does it!" Brad snapped. Satiety
wondered who made him leader of the gang.

"Me too, I'll go with her too," Barbara said. Flanked with the two
other girls, Satiety started down the sidewalk with another thought on
her mind. Her parents had always told her that the highway was her
border, and she wasn't to go past the sidewalk at the corner. To get to
the Witch's house, she'd have to turn right at the corner and go past
another wide property to get the the front door. She hoped nobody that
knew her parents drove by while she was there.

Satiety's stomach twisted a little, as they got closer to the little
run-down cottage. Cars flew by, their occupants unchanged by the
presence of the girls on the sidewalk. The girls didn't really talk;
they just walked fast. When they reached the corner of the Witch's
property, Satiety stopped.

"Well, go on!" Brenda demanded. Satiety reluctantly stepped behind a
big rhododendron that had just dropped it's pink and white blooms and
they laid on the ground turning brown in the summer heat. She looked
around the over-grown yard and saw blackberries growing right through
the side of the house's old foundation, and an unkempt lawn nearly
overtook the entire yard . There was a cracked cement path leading from
the sidewalk up to the crooked steps below the front door. Brenda and
Barbara pushed Satiety out into the yard, laughing at her as she
stumbled on a mound in the tall grass and fell. She quickly picked
herself up and looked angrily at the two girls, making a mental pact
with herself to never play with these kids again. She brushed her
clothes off and picked up the newspaper, starting for the
walkway.

She approached the door and stood on the crooked step, looking at the
cracked window pain that had little cobwebs in the corners. She could
see herself in the dirty glass, but her reflection was mottled because
the window had a coating of light green moss lining its edges. Behind
the old pane was a sheer and faded drape, grey or maybe blue once upon
a time. Satiety looked back at the girls who she could still hear
giggling at her. Then she gathered up her courage, and knocked loudly
three times, stiffening as she folded her arms across her chest,
waiting. She didn't hear the traffic of the highway behind her or the
girls giggling in the bushes, now; all she heard was silence coming
from behind the barricade in front of her.

'Okay, long enough. Not home!' she thought, though it had only been a
second or two. Just as she started to turn down the crooked steps, she
heard it. Footsteps coming to the door. Suddenly her heart beat harder
and she started to breath a little faster. She jumped when she saw the
drape inside pull away from it's place for just an instant, and then
she heard the locks on the inside click. She looked at the knob and
watched it as it turned, and slowly pulled open. Taking a deep breath,
Satiety looked up at the face in front of her.

It was wrinkled like well-worn leather with drawn-on eyebrows, and this
old woman had no lips; just thin edges of her mouth coated with a
painted-on lip-shape of brilliant red. Her eyes had been lined in black
by a shaking hand and her grey hair was pulled away from her face,
except for a few strands that stuck straight out, and she wore lavendar
rhinestone earrings that were large and sparkly. Not much taller than
Satiety, this old woman's cool blue eyes met hers and locked in.
Satiety didn't realize she was hypnotically staring with her mouth
open.

"Yes, did you want something little girl?" The old woman's voice was
thin and frail, sounding as if it might crack if she spoke too loudly.
The corners of her mouth curled into a grin and so did her eyes, but
with a twinkle of light in one of them that seemed to brighten her
whole face. Satiety was even more taken in; this lady didn't look like
a witch to her at all.

Satiety held up the newspaper she'd been carrying. "Um..." she
stammered. "I... I brought you a newspaper, if you w-want it," She
studdered. The old woman looked at the paper and looked a bit caught
off guard by the child's odd offer. Satiety smelled the heavy
grandma-type scent that wafted around her, and silently wondered if
this lady had grandchildren.

"Why yes, I was wishing I'd had a newspaper earlier, how thoughtful of
you," The old woman croned, smiling as if the little girl had just done
her a great service. "However did you know?" Satiety shuffled where she
stood and even blushed a little, surprised by the woman's reaction.
"How much do I owe you, young lady?" Satiety stopped breathing for a
second before remembering it was a dime.

"Ten cents," Satiety said quietly, trying to smiling back at the
woman.

"Come on into the kitchen, that's where I keep my change." the woman
said, turning as she spoke so Satiety didn't have a chance to respond.
Satiety looked back at the girls in the bushes, who were no longer
giggling, but waving their hands at her frantically, whispering as loud
as they could, "Come on! Come on!"

Satiety turned and went into the house, and cautiously closed the door
behind her. The only light was coming through a doorway on the other
side of the room she stood in, but she could still see. It smelled
dusty and there were pictures on the walls of people she couldn't
recognize because of the darkness, or more likely that she didn't know
them at all. No pictures of children, though. The sparse furniture was
well-worn and had big round sides and looked as if the springs were
coming through the cushions.

"Come all the way in, Dear," the old woman said from across the room,
waving her into the doorway there. Satiety crossed and entered the
well-lit room. It was a large and cheery kitchen with bright yellow
walls and white trims, and windows facing east and west; away from the
side the field out back was on. The smell of oatmeal cookies slapped
her in the face, and she couldn't help but take a deep, long breath of
the wonderful scent. The sun shone in the east windows and made bright
window shapes on the white tile floor. In the corner was a black
pot-bellied wood stove, and there was a small dining table decked with
plastic daffodils in a bud vase beside a small television, and a chair
on either side. A fan hummed in the corner on the counter top while the
woman moved quickly about the room, as if to please Satiety in a
hurry.

"Would you like a cookie, Dear?" she asked as she pawed through a
pocketbook. Satiety thought about this for a moment before she
answered, knowing it wasn't a good idea to take food from strangers.
But this woman didn't seem to be a threat, and the smell was making her
hungry beyond common sense.

"Sure," Satiety answered timidly, taking two from the saucer the woman
passed to her.

"Don't look so scared, Dear; I like children. I know the kids around
here must think I'm terrible, but really I'm not."

"They think you're a witch," the child said, more quietly by the end of
her statement. The woman laughed loudly, and it did sound a bit like a
cackle, scaring Satiety just a little.

"Why on Earth do they think that?" the woman questioned, her eyes
sparkling again.

"I just moved here, so I only know what they told me," Satiety started
with disclaim. "They say you're a witch because nobody ever comes or
goes except the grocery man, and we never see lights on even at night."
Once Satiety got started, she found it easy to talk; not feeling so
uncomfortable with this woman. "And they said you shoot guns at them
when they play in the field, and that you put a spell on a boy once and
nobody ever saw him again," she said, never taking her eyes off the
woman as she spoke.

"Really? I knew they'd start stories about the gun going off, but I
never thought they'd think me a witch!" The old woman laughed again,
only not as loud this time. She looked Satiety square in the eye. "Do
you believe them?" Satiety tried to think of something to say and
looked down at her cookie. Seeing her reluctance to respond, the old
woman knew her answer. "My name is Minnie. Glad to meet you," she said,
offering her hand. Satiety thought it was funny; a grown-up wanting to
shake the hand of a nine year-old, and responded in kind.

"I'm Satiety," she said. "Nice to meet you, too."

"I don't suppose you can see any lights from the back lot at night,"
Minnie said as if she were thinking out loud. "Since my Bill died I
don't use many of the rooms anymore, saves on light and heat bills. I
stay in here most of the time. I just bake goodies, watch television
and talk on the phone. My family all lives down in Texas, you know."
She got up and opened the refridgerator, and looked back at Satiety.
"Juice? Have a seat."

"Sure," Satiety smiled, pulling the old chair out and sitting at the
small table.

Minnie chuckled as she poured two glasses of juice at the counter.
"And, you're right, the grocery man IS the only company I get anymore.
Once ya' get old, people seem to forget about 'cha." She looked at
Satiety as if she'd just had a stroke of genius. "Would you like to
hear how the story about shooting the guns came about?"

"Sure," Satiety said again. She didn't need to say much; Minnie easily
filled all the quiet moments with her delightful little voice. Minnie
sat down at the table after placing the juice glasses at each place.
"Well, Bill - that's my dead husband's name, he used to run that
vineyard out back to make his own wine. We always knew the kids came
and ate them, but we grew more than we could use anyway!" She chuckled.
"Between the kids and birds, at least more of 'em got used and didn't
go to waste on the ground! Bill loved to play tricks on the kids, and
sometimes when they'd sneak into the vineyard, he'd hide and growl as
they walked by him!" She laughed out loud again, infecting Satiety into
laughing with her. "They'd get so scared and they'd run and scream. One
day Bill was getting ready to go hunting, and he was cleaning his gun
in the back yard. The kids had come to play in the field out back, and
the gun had a round in the chamber and it went off. Lucky he didn't
kill someone," she said with a bit of disgust in her voice. "Those kids
screamed and ran faster'n we've ever seen 'em, and then we didn't see
them come back for a long time. I'm surprised nobody called the
police!" She took a long drink from her juice and passed the cookie
plate again.

"They're out back stealing your grapes right now," Satiety said, not
knowing why, really. Minnie's face lit up.

"Are they? Want to go scare them?" she asked as playfully as someone
Satiety's age. Satiety got a slow grin.

"Sure!" They got up from the small table and she followed Minnie
through another doorway at the back of the kitchen. The dark, tiny
cramped room they entered was packed full of boxes piled on furniture,
and cobwebs that strung across the room swayed with the breeze they'd
brought in. Minnie went to a window and crouched down, with Satiety
right beside her. They peered over the sill like two spies in an old
movie, and watched as Brad and the others picked grapes and shoved them
into a paper bag each had, looking over their shoulder at the house all
the while. Minnie and Satiety giggled at the sight. Minnie quickly
turned and rifled through the boxes.

"Ah-ha!" Minnie exclaimed, looking as if she'd found a treasure,
pulling out a long tube. She looked around at her feet and picked up a
few pebbles and then motioned Satiety over to the other window with
her. It was a big window that was divided into squares, and some of the
square panes were cracked and one on the bottom was broken out
completely. "Watch," she said, nodding toward Brad through the window.
She put the pebble in the end of the long tube she had in her hands and
then put it to her lips and blew as hard as she could. The pebble shot
out at Brad and when it hit him, it didn't hurt, but he felt it and
turned around. Seeing nothing, he went back to picking grapes as fast
as he could. The two in hiding giggled as Minnie loaded the tube again
and handed it to Satiety. This was her chance to get him back for being
so mean to her all the time. She aimed and blew as hard as she
could.

Pfffft, she could hear the pebble fly out the tube. She blew much
harder than Minnie had, and the pebble stung when it hit Brad's bare
arm. "Ow!" he said as he swatted at it like a bug was biting him. He
turned back to his grapes and Minnie and Satiety tried to hold back
their laughter like two kids passing time at a funeral. Then Satiety
remembered the girls waiting out front for her.

"Oh no, Brenda and Barbara are waiting for me out front," Satiety said
playfully, in a 'what should we do?' kind of way.

"Oh, then let's get them some cookies, and you can tell them I call
them Gretal cookies!" Minnie said happily, giggling like a
nine-year-old. Satiety couldn't believe this old woman; seemingly older
than dirt, yet so much fun! She followed her into the kitchen where
Minnie got out some waxed paper and began piling cookies on it. "How
many kids are there?" she asked.

"There's Barb and Brenda, and me," Satiety said with a smile, hoping
for more cookies for herself. "And Brad and Gordon and Terry are out
back." Satisfied that there was enough cookies in the paper, Minnie
wrapped it up and handed it to her. Walking her back to the front door
of the little house, Minnie stopped at the door and turned to Satiety,
looking her square in the eyes again.

"You come on back and visit me anytime you like, Dear." She put out her
hand to shake again, and Satiety took it. She liked this new
grandmother-friend. Minnie opened the door and they said their
good-byes as Satiety went down the steps and the walk, when Minnie shut
the door. She walked across the grass to the rhododendron to find only
Brenda left waiting.

"What did you do, are you CRAZY?" Brenda scolded. "You were never
supposed to go IN the house!" Satiety began walking home, holding the
wrapped cookies and not speaking a word, with Brenda following angrily.
"What's the matter with you? Why aren't you answering me?" Satiety
stopped and turned toward Brenda, unwrapping the paper in her
hands.

"Cookie?" she offered, without another word and keeping a straight
face.

"You're under some spell, aren't you?" Brenda asked, horrified. "Don't
eat those! Give them to me!" Brenda grabbed at the paper full of
cookies, but Satiety turned and kept them. Brenda scolded her all the
way back to the dead-end, and when they got there Brenda ran to the
field to tell the boys what Satiety had done. Satiety didn't join the
kids in the vineyard. She got on her bike and rode home with her
cookies, excited to tell her mom about her new friend.

The next day Brenda came to Satiety's front door and asked for her. She
had joined the kids in the neighborhood almost daily, but they never
before came to her door. The gang was at the curb on their bikes and
they wanted to know if she would come and play. It was so out of the
ordinary, that it made Satiety suspicious and she wondered what they
wanted her to do this time. But Satiety had other plans. She was going
back to Minnie's house.

She visited Minnie often after that. They baked cookies and all kinds
of goodies, and shot frozen peas at the boys through the window. Minnie
taught Satiety how to sew her own clothes and together they
experimented with candle-making and many other projects over the next
few years. Every weekend during the school year and almost every day in
the summers they stayed fast friends, right up until Satiety turned 13;
that's when Minnie died. But Satiety never felt like Minnie was gone
completely. In fact, she made sure of it every time she told the new
kids in the neighborhood about the Witch that used to lived there, and
how she was the only one who'd made friends with her.