The Balloon Boy and The Clockwork Girl

Once, two poor little orphans, a brother and a sister, seeing a tree in a garden upon which lollipops were hanging like fruit, climbed over the wall of the garden and stole two of the lollipops.

Unfortunately, the house belonged to an evil old witch who, when she caught them stealing the lollipops, punished them both by turning the girl into a clockwork girl and taking away her key and turning the boy into a balloon boy before letting the air out of him.

Then she kept them both in her attic; the clockwork girl forever leaning forwards, motionless and the balloon boy lying deflated on the floor.

One day however, a mouse crawled across the attic floor and accidentally nudged the clockwork girl so that she fell forwards onto the balloon boy and the balloon boy, seeing an opportunity said,

“If you can manage, blow me up, sister and then I can find the key to wind you up”.

And so, craning her neck as far as she could, her neck and head the only part of her she could move without being wound up, she blew up the balloon boy.

Then the balloon boy searched around the attic and, when he couldn’t find the key there, opened the hatch in the attic floor and crept down into the main part of the witches house.

Fortunately, looking around he saw that there was no sign of the witch, who had gone out to work mischief and then he found the key hanging upon the wall and floating back up into the attic and sliding the key into the slot in his sisters back, wound her up.

Then, seeing their chance to escape the witch, as quick as they could, the two children ran out of the witches house and into the forest.

When the witch came home, however, and saw that the two children had gone missing she was furious and then, turning herself into a flock of magpies, flew after the balloon boy and pecked him until they burst him with their beaks, then the magpies stole the key out of the girls back so that, when her clockwork motor ran down no one would be able to wind her up again.

But the Clockwork girl didn’t want to give up hope and so she picked up her deflated brother and kept on walking until, suddenly, she saw a cottage up ahead and, knocking upon the cottage door, begged for help.

Then, just as her clockwork motor ran down, an old man answered the door.

Fortunately, the old man was a handyman; a trained blacksmith and carpenter and, on his blacksmiths forge, he made another key to fit the back of the clockwork girl and wound her back up and she was so happy that she danced around, then he patched up the balloon boy and blew him back up again and he was so happy that he floated up to the ceiling and bounced around on it.

And the little boy and girl were happy living with the kind old man who they called their uncle.

Unfortunately, the wicked witch sent a spy into the forest; she took out her left eye and cracking it open like an egg, a magpie flew out of it and went off to search for the two children in the forest and saw them both outside the cottage of the old man playing and when it came back she asked it,

“Are the two children still where I left them, motionless and helpless, the clockwork girl wound down and the balloon boy deflated?”.

“No”, replied the magpie, “They are living with an old man in a cottage in the forest and he must have made the clockwork girl a new key and mended the balloon boy for they are playing happily”.

Then, hearing this, the witch became furious and, climbing into a magic washtub, she flew to the cottage of the old man and when the boy and girl saw her they ran inside the cottage and locked the door begging the old man to protect them.

“Don’t worry”, he said, “It is a well-known thing that iron is a protection against witch’s”.

And he nailed up an iron horse shoe on the inside of the front door of the house and underneath all of the windows, then he put an iron cooking pot on the fire under the chimney and took the lid off of it.

Now when the witch tried to open the front door, the moment she touched the handle, she got a shock like her hand had been struck by lightning and when she tried to open the windows her hand got burned like she had touched something very hot and she shrieked angrily, snarling at the children as they watched from behind the windows.

But then she saw the chimney of the house and cackled to herself and the next thing that happened was she leapt up in the air dived straight down the chimney pot.

But the moment that she did this, she landed in the old man’s iron cooking pot that was, by now, red hot and, before she could leap up out of it, the old man slammed its iron lid down upon her head and, because the lid was made of iron, the witch couldn’t touch it to take it off and so, with the heat of the fire, her body turned to ash and her wicked soul turned to steam flying back up the chimney with a loud scream.

But then, when the witch was dead, the spell that she had put upon the two children was broken and they turned back into a real little girl and boy again and lived with the old man happily ever after.