It was a cold, miserable day as I was walking through the forest with my best friend. He was a playful boy and always liked to go on adventures. The path I was walking on was wet and slippery and there were a lot of puddles around me. When I was walking, I could hear the leaves crunching under my feet. I looked around me and the leaves were all kinds of colours. There were orange, yellow and red autumnal leaves. So much rain had fallen that the leaves were slimy and brown.
Whilst walking through the forest, we came across some old, black steps. David ran towards the steps to get a closer look. They looked steep. I became worried that David might want to climb them.
“Come away from the steps!” I shouted.
“I want to know what’s at the top!” David called.
We started to move towards the first step. It was wobbly and dangerous. I didn’t want to walk up them but David kept going. I was getting more and more nervous about going up the steps because they looked steeper nearer the top.
After a while, I decided to follow him and slowly climbed the first two steps. The steps wobbled under my feet and I was scared that they would crumble and break. I could see water falling from a tall tree stump and I wondered if it was slippery at the top.
Before long, we reached the huge tree stump and we heard a loud BANG!
“What’s that?” I screamed!
“I think it was thunder,” David screamed back.
I was really scared but I didn’t want David to know that. I thought about turning round but decided to do something brave and continue to the top.
At the top we found a huge door. That must have been the noise I thought. It was the door slamming. We knocked on the door but there was no reply so we went in. We looked inside and we looked around, there was a table, chairs and food on the table. Suddenly we heard voices, someone was coming!
We hid under the table. As the voices came closer they got louder. The voices sounded calm and gentle. We slowly shuffled closer to peak out from under the table. We were confident enough to come out and we whispered, “Who are you?” in shocked voices.
We saw a little girl and boy walk in through the door. They looked scruffy with muddy clothes. In a quiet voice the boy said,
“We are lost in the forest. We were picking mushrooms for our mother and we heard a booming bang and a loud growl and ran until we found this dirty, gloomy wooden house. We thought someone would be here to help us but no-one was. We waited to see if anyone would come back as there was food waiting on the table. When no-one did we left and had another look around outside. We saw you walking up to the house and decided to follow you. We are so glad to see you! Please can you help us find our home again?”
They both looked so upset we knew we had to help them. David quickly jumped up as if he had remembered something! He said excitedly, “I have a map in my pocket which could show us how to get to your house. Let’s go!”
We looked at the map of the forest and planned our way back to the other children’s house. We started walking through the foggy, dark, spooky forest. Suddenly, behind us we heard trees sound as if they are crashing down and twigs snapping. We started to run as quickly as our legs could go through the forest. I turned to look back and thought I caught a glimpse of something big, furry and orange in the distance.
“RUN!” I shouted.
“RUN WHERE?” David screamed.
I grabbed the hands of the little boy and girl and sprinted as fast as I could towards a house in the distance.
“THIS WAY” I screeched but David was standing still, looking at the furry orange creature. I felt terrified because I thought the creature might be an aggressive tiger, so I carried on running with the boy and the girl until we reached the door of the house. It looked like it might be haunted. We ran inside and slammed the door behind us. Suddenly, we heard a zooming sound and when we looked around us, we realised we had shrunk to the size of tiny ants. In the corner we could see a giant badger, who looked like he had an injured paw. All around us was the sound of witchy cackling.
“What has happened to us?” whispered the little girl.
“What is that noise?” asked the little boy.
“Never mind all of that,” I whimpered as I started to cry, “What about David?”
Just then we heard footsteps in the room above us. The footsteps were getting closer. Someone, or something, was coming down the stairs! We waited anxiously and then to our surprise a little girl appeared dressed in a witch’s cloak and hat, holding a magic wand. She looked at us and said,
“Oh my goodness! You have shrunk a lot!”
“Who are you?” I shouted, “And what have you done to us?”
“My name is Polly,” the little witch replied. “My mum is a big witch but I’m just a beginner. I have been practising using my mummy’s wand and trying out some spells. I tried to shrink my ginger kitten, Marmalade and my pet badger, George. But something went VERY wrong and both of them became HUGE! Then Marmalade ran off out of the door and poor George ran after him but he trapped his paw in the door on the way out.”
“Well you certainly managed to shrink us and we can’t stay like this forever – we need to go home and we need to find our friend David. Please can you undo your spell and make us normal-size again?”
“I don’t think I know how to do that but my Mum might be able to help when she comes back. Oh hang on I can see her now.”
The door opened an in came a big, tall lady, with spiky blue hair, wearing a long purple cloak.
“What in the world is going on here?” she said. “What have you done Polly?”
Then Polly told her all about her spells and what had happened.
“Right young lady. I’ve warned you before about messing around with my magic wand. Now let’s get this all sorted out. Give me my wand.”
Then she said some magic words and waved her wand over us. We could hear that funny zooming sound again and then we were miraculously back to our normal size!
At that moment we heard David’s voice calling us through the window. “Where are you? You’re never going to believe this but the big furry orange monster in the woods is only a giant kitten! I have no idea how he has got this big!”
“We do!” we all called and then we explained the whole story to him.
Then we watched whilst Polly’s mum sprinkled another magic spell over Marmalade and George and returned them to their right size. Then she turned to us and said, “We had better get you all home before your parents start to worry about you.”
She told us to hold hands and close our eyes and with an ‘Abracadabra’ and a swish of her wand we felt ourselves whirling and twirling through the air.
When we opened our eyes again the little boy and girl were nowhere to be seen and David and I were back at the bottom of the steps.
“That was fun,” said David. “Shall we go back up the steps again?”
“NO!” I replied, “We are going home – QUICK! Race you! Last one back is a rotten egg!”
by Year 1 pupils from St. Edmund’s, Stanley, Sheen Mount, Archdeacon Cambridge and East Sheen primary schools