THE SCARECROW CANDIDATE

I suppose all of us who enjoy writing have a few favourite characters that come and go over the years, and here's one I turn to every so often, Griselda Entwhistle, a grumpy old witch...

Griselda Entwhistle, besides being older than a person has any right to be, knew she was a wild witch of the forest. She spent huge wodges of time wandering through it and she knew every path, every branch on every tree and every sparrow, rook and robin. She would spend half a day, sometimes, standing by the spooky entrances to ancient warrens, waiting for Mr or Mrs Bunny to poke their noses out, and they did sometimes, poked furry little whiskery noses and bright eyes out and stare at her, fearless. They were always fearless because they knew they had nothing to fear. Griselda Entwhistle exuded the kind of peace and rustic love that all wild witches exude, to animals if not to humans.

And she was happy with her life, which she refused to share with anyone, though more than once she had been woken in her bed at midnight by the voice of Eldred Pinchbottom warbling little love songs at her from the patch of grass outside her little thatched cottage. She hadn't done much to discourage him because she always thought it ungrateful to spurn real kindness of the spirit, and Eldred Pinchbottom had that, in spades. So she'd just pulled her quilt up round her ears, closed her eyes and thought lovely thoughts about dandelions and daisies, cowslips and columbine. Then the warbling voice of dear old Eldred would fade away into her dreams and a secret sort of smile would cross her face and she'd be off on waves of images into a wonderland that was only in her head.

Then came a day when she met someone she'd almost forgotten about.

Long ago, when she'd been a witchling in her teens and filled with dreams and hope, dressed in black silks and blacker denim, she'd met the scarecrow under the trees that kissed and creaked together overhead in the skies above her favourite clearing. She'd loved that clearing back then, and she loved it still, and in that earlier dreaming life she'd felt some affection for the scarecrow, who preferred to be called Mister Dumpling, and Mister Dumpling had wooed her so convincingly that she'd let him kiss her, and all would have been well with the joyous young couple had it not crossed her mind that her beau didn't have a scrap of magic in his make-up and would make a most unsatisfactory partner if she let things go much further. He was already showing signs of being keen on her and once he'd even tried to push his straw hand up inside her jumper. It had irritated her in more than the obvious way.

“Get your scarecrow hands off my boobies!” she had shouted.

“Why, what's wrong?” he had asked, shocked and withdrawing said appendage from her then magnificent cleavage.

“They itch, and besides it's not right for a non-magical person like a tatty old scarecrow to do things with a very magical person, like a witch!” she had explained, not too patiently.

He had fixed one of his eyes on her, the one that could actually see because whoever had made him had pinched it from a pet poodle, and muttered, “so be it, witchy Griselda, but one day we'll meet again and then you'll maybe want me!” and he had slunk off like a very slinking thing.

That, of course, had been years ago. Griselda was no longer the frivolous young thing she had been but was a craggy old witch with a temper to match if things went wrong and the sad thing about her was the very last person to try any kind of fumble with her flesh had been that romantic young scarecrow, Mister Dumpling, way back before the last two big wars had been fought and she had been nubile. Not even Eldred Pinchbottom had tried to go that far.

Then the day came when she chanced to meet a pompous looking and officious older man strolling into her clearing in the forest. It was, in fact, the aforementioned scarecrow-person she'd almost forgotten about, and he had changed.

“Why, Mister Dumpling, you've changed!” she exclaimed. “You're not the scraggy old scarecrow with fingers that make a girl's boobies itch but quite a handsome fellow, with a buttonhole and stuff!”

“You've changed too, Griselda,” he boomed (he'd developed a booming voice in the interim between then and now). “When you were my heart's desire you were a fey young thing with charm and beauty, and now you're a craggy old hag with very little in the way of charm left to you!”

“You know how to sweet-talk a girl,” she hissed. She was good at hissing and even enjoyed the feeling of invective slipping between clenched teeth and past her quavery old lips. “What are you up to?” she asked when it was obvious he wasn't impressed by her insults.

“I'm your candidate, Griselda,” he boomed, “and I've come a-calling to see if I can canvas your vote in the forthcoming election.”

“Why, Mr Dumpling, you in politics?” she screeched. “I could teach you a thing or two about politics, I could. I was Prime Minister once*, and know all the wrinkles!”

“You're a silly old hag, but I would like your vote,” he sighed. “I'm fighting for the local seat on the platform of corruption in Parliament! There's just not enough of it and I reckon there should be call-girls on tap for everyone in Government, or else how would they be able to concentrate on important stuff, like banning cats and pulling down every ancient structure older than ten years and building new ones? Think of the revenue if we fined the owners by the year for keeping old houses standing longer than a decade! Why, the dosh from Stonehenge alone would pay off the National Debt!”

“You're loony,” decided Griselda, “but you'll get my vote all right!”

“I thought it might be harder than that...” boomed Mister Dumpling, suddenly thoughtful. “What's made you want to vote for me?”

“The call-girls for politicians issue,” mused Griselda. “I think it's a rattling good idea, and I'll apply, of course.”

“You will?”

“Of course! I'd make a lovely call-girl, you know!”

Mister Dumpling looked at her for a moment, speechless. “Oh dear ...” he mumbled. “I think … I do believe … I'll withdraw my candidature straight away … you, a call-girl, on tap..? Never!” And at that he scurried off, never to be seen by Griselda Entwhistle again, and news went round that he'd withdrawn from the election for no apparent reason, which was a shame because, according to rumour, his policies were very popular in some stuffy conservative quarters.

But Griselda Entwhistle's cackling applause, long and battered and filled with a timeless kind of joy, sounded in every nook and cranny of her favourite forest for the best part of ten minutes before she got distracted by an Italian aria sung in perfect pitch by Eldred Pinchbottom.

*For details of how Griselda Entwhistle became Prime Minister check out my book “Spellbound” on Lulu.com