Wanda the witch has burglars

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Wanda the Witch has Burglars
Janelle Meraz Hooper

There were burglars in Wanda’s neighborhood. It was bound to happen. They were everywhere lately. As thick as pumpkins in a field.

What Wanda couldn’t figure out was why they hadn’t hit her house yet. She had some good stuff—everyone, by now, must know. Her kettle for mixing up her secret potions was top of the line. Her pumpkins were from the snootiest grocery in Tacoma. And her brooms! High-tech all the way with GPS built right into the handle. How could they not want to get their hands on one of those?!

Lately, every night, just to be safe, she locked herself into her bedroom with all of her good stuff: the kettle, her brooms, her secret recipes for toads and snails, and…of course, her cat, Rochester, and her iguana, Iggy.

One night, when she and her pets were sound asleep, the worse happened. The neighborhood hooligans broke into her home through the sliding glass door on her deck. Well, it had glass when it was new; it had been broken out for years when Wanda flew her broom through it when it wasn’t open. Since then, Wanda had thought about fixing it, but the front doorbell was also broken so she thought she’d just leave everything the way it was. This way, her friends could land their brooms on the deck and come right into the kitchen. That’s where she usually was anyway.

With a sigh of relief the next morning, Wanda counted her blessings. Everything she treasured was still in her bedroom where it had been before she went to sleep. Just to ease her mind, she even counted the toads and snails but they were all there too.

She wasn’t too upset to find the boys had cleaned out everything in her living room. She’d been meaning to give the room a good dusting anyway. Luckily, now that the wide screen TV, new computer, and stainless steel popcorn machine were gone, it’d be easy to get into all of the corners with a dust rag. She’d do it someday. There was no hurry because there was never anything good on the television anyway.

It wouldn’t be hard to figure which of the boys were running around after dark causing trouble. All she had to do was fly around at night until she smelled popcorn and saw the glow in a window coming from a big screen television. A really big, big screen television. Wanda had conjured it up with a special potion and there wasn’t another one like it anywhere.

Luckily, Wanda had a plan to get even. She had a toad soup in her old kettle that she’d started weeks ago and forgot to put away so it was likely pretty thick by now and would be easy to spread. On Halloween night, she’d spread a nice, thick layer on their car’s windshields and fill the insides with bats.

They were smart boys. She was pretty sure her television and all the other stuff they’d taken would be brought back as soon as they saw—and smelled—their cars.

And, as soon as she got her stuff back, Wanda would wave her wand and all would be back to normal. The bats would be gone, the stink would be off their windshields, and all would be forgiven. What a fun Halloween this was going to be!

the end

Happy Halloween!

 

My first Halloween costume!

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Wanda, the Wicked Writer of the Northwest

pumpkin

Happy Halloween to all of my writer friends!

This is a story about Wanda the Writer…          

            Wanda never went to the mailbox without her baseball bat. For every rejection she found, she gave the box one whack. Of course, this scared the bats that lived in the box’s belfry silly, but Wanda was always so angry she didn’t notice.

          Back inside her house, Wanda meticulously filed away each rejection. The rejected stories about gardening she kept neatly stacked under a leaky flowerpot. The children’s stories she filed in the bottom of her bird’s cage, and the novel rejections she filled at the bottom of her cat’s litter box.

          Wanda was especially chagrined at the rejection of her latest 500,000-word novel. What were they thinking? It had a plot and everything! Actually, it had several plots—it was about a gravedigger who was afraid of dirt.

          Other stories were rejected because they didn’t follow the required format. Format, smormat! So what if the stories weren’t double-spaced? So what if she used the Rave font instead of Times Roman? So what if she didn’t include a SASE? One story was returned because she didn’t put any postage on it. The nerve.

          They had to be punished. The whole lot. Publishers. Agents. Newspaper editors. All of them.

          The ticked witch went to her kitchen and whipped up a batch of special candy for the rejecters. She’d show them to have a little respect. She filled her black kettle with a recipe of special hard candies that turned into wiggling slugs when they were sucked on. After the candies were wrapped in Halloween paper, she put them into a tote bag and took off for New York. Thanks to her new 300 high-speed broom, she was able to zip in and out of each office without being seen.

          Back home, Wanda poured a glass of wine and lit the candle in her Halloween pumpkin. Then she turned on CNN and waited patiently for the story to break. Soon, all over the city, there were reports of people in the publishing businesses choking on slugs. Oh, they just choked a little—they didn’t die. And how those slugs loved to sing! When they were spat out, they stood up and sang in a perfect imitation of Aretha Franklin:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T! (Find out what it means to me…take care of TCB!)

          Wanda put out the cat and turned out the lights. Tomorrow, she’d start a new novel. This one would be really big.

Happy Halloween!

Janelle Meraz Hooper: Substack, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Amazon, Barnes & Noble


 

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© 2007, Janelle Meraz Hooper.

Originally published in Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories

Paperback & eBook

(Illustration for blog only)

 

 

How about a Halloween story? Wanda and Iggy

Wanda and Iggy on Halloween

 

A short story suitable for the little ones

Wanda and Iggy

It was just a few days before Halloween and, at the last minute, Wanda’s cat had to go on maternity leave. With the economy the way it was, Wanda counted herself lucky to hire a last minute replacement at the bargain salary of a few hibiscus flowers and all the bugs he could catch. You see, he wasn’t a cat—he was an iguana. Although the price was right, using a lizard in place of a cat did create some problems. For instance, not only was he big and green, but his balance was lousy. He kept falling off whenever she made a sharp turn. At least he looked cool, and she figured that all the other witches would envy her.  Off they went. Iggy, the iguana, was delighted at the way the bugs that Wonda flew through stuck to his tongue. Wanda was tickled at the shadow their silhouette cast against the big, orange moon. They were having such a good time they flew a couple of circles around Mt. Rainier holding hands. Well, actually, Wonda was just trying to keep Iggy from falling out on the sharp turns…

Somehow, their photo made the front page of the paper the next day. The headline above it read, “Iguana Hold Your Hand.”

Unfortunately, Iggy got broom sick, and they had to go home early. Proving, once again, that it’s not easy being green—even if you’re an iguana.

Happy Halloween! Janelle