Good Golly, Miss Lolly | Martin Feekins
Tommy saw Miss Lolly give Joey the birthday lollipop and instantly wanted it for himself.
The lollipop lady called Joey back after seeing a group of children across the road on their way home from school. She reached into a deep pocket in her white coat and pulled out the treat. On the end of a stick was a swirl of multi-coloured rock the size of a saucer.
“Happy birthday, Joey,” she said.
Joey’s face lit up as he took the lollipop and shut it away in his school bag.
Tommy kept an eye on his brother as they walked home, but he didn’t walk with him, of course. He was eight and Joey was only five – six now – so they walked with their own friends.
At home, Joey ran straight up to his bedroom, with only a perfunctory hello to Mum. Tommy followed.
“Let me share,” he said, “or I’ll tell Mum and Dad.”
It was mean to bully Joey, but this was a Miss Lolly lollipop they were talking about.
“But it’s mine, Tommy.” Joey tried to hold the lollipop out of his older brother’s reach. “It’s my birthday. You had one on your birthday.”
“I know.” Tommy made a grab for the sweet. “That’s why I want some more.”
“I won’t let you come to my birthday party.”
The party was going to be at the weekend.
“You know that if Mum knows you’ve got the lollipop, she won’t let you have any of it. So give me some and I won’t tell, then we’ll both get some.”
“That’s not fair!”
No, but Tommy knew he had the upper hand. Miss Lolly gave all the children at Kingsbech Primary School a lollipop on their birthday, a lollipop from the lollipop lady.
Everyone loved Miss Lolly. She knew all the children by name and always had a friendly greeting and a kind word. She was always there, a constant, comforting presence on the school walk.
Teachers loved her, because she was a kind of early warning system, tipping them off to any problems pupils had. Parents loved her, because she kept their children safe. They were especially grateful because of the children who had gone missing in recent years, even though none of the disappearances had been around school time. And the pupils definitely loved her, because she never told them off and gave them birthday sweets. Tommy didn’t know her real name. Everyone only ever called her Miss Lolly.
Tommy’s Mum and Dad also called her a treasure, whatever that meant, and they wouldn’t normally have minded her giving Joey a birthday lollipop. After all, Tommy had received four over his school years and Joey had eaten the one he was given on his fifth birthday last November.
The thing was, Joey was getting fat. He had been putting on weight for the past year, even though Mum and Dad made him exercise and eat properly, so sweets were banned.
“Life’s not fair,” Tommy said. That was something Dad said. “So share.”
“No!” Joey jumped on his bed and held the lollipop above his head. Of course, Tommy was taller, so when he jumped on the bed he had no trouble grabbing Joey’s hand and trying to prise open his fingers. As the brothers grappled, the bed shifted, banging into a chest of drawers and toppling a lamp. As they struggled, the lollipop smacked against the wall and a chunk spun away onto the floor.
“What are you two doing up there?” Mum’s voice came up the stairs.
“Nothing,” the boys said together, freezing in mid-fight.
"Well do it quietly.”
Tommy noticed his brother was crying and released his grip.
“I know I’m fat,” said Joey. “I can’t help it.”
Tommy stepped off the bed and picked up the piece of lollipop from the floor.
“I’ll just take this,” he said.
“Leave me alone,” said Joey.
“Sorry,” said Tommy, as he left his brother’s room. He wasn’t sure why he was apologising, he just knew he didn’t really want the lollipop anymore.
Later, though, when he was settling down to go to sleep in his own room, he did eat his chunk.
From the first lick, he knew it was something special. It was sweeter and more flavoursome than any birthday lollipop Miss Lolly had given him, as if this was what his taste buds had been made for. The taste awakened something within him, some sense that was part taste, part smell. It made him aware of something even more delicious than the lollipop, something that was out there if he could only track it down.
He put on his slippers, pulled his dressing gown over his pyjamas and followed his nose – and his tongue, sticking it out to capture this tantalising sensation.
Mum and Dad were watching a detective show on TV as he crept past the door. It didn’t occur to him to speak to them, any more than it struck him as odd that he was sneaking out into the dark in his night clothes.
His nose and tongue and now his eyes led him along deserted winter streets. He could see the trail he was following, as if the taste and smell had colours, a rainbow streamer that snaked ahead of him. He passed people on the street and was vaguely aware of their funny looks, but no-one challenged him.
He had passed into an unfamiliar part of Kingsbech by the time he saw the two people at the kerb two hundred metres ahead.
He knew one of them instantly. After all, he had lived with him for the last six years. Joey must have eaten what was left of his lollipop, it must have awakened the same sense in him and he had sneaked out, too. Mum and Dad were going to be so angry if they found out.
The other person… well, white coat, sign in hand. For a moment, Tommy had the notion that Miss Lolly was always at the roadside, a permanent fixture waiting to help children cross the road, but that was stupid and this was nowhere near school.
She was helping Joey cross the road, though. Even though there was no traffic, she stood in the middle of the road, sign firmly planted, and beckoned Joey across.
Tommy had stopped when he saw Joey and Miss Lolly, but now he started walking again, faster than before. He was confused. More than anything he wanted to find the fabulous treat that must be at the end of the scent trail. He also knew he should get his brother home before Mum and Dad found out, but then Joey was with Miss Lolly, so that must be all right.
As Joey walked past Miss Lolly in the centre of the road, the circle on top of the pole spun left and right, making the silhouetted boy and girl on the sign look as if they were chasing each other in a playground game.
Tommy was mesmerised by the sign for a moment and when he looked for Joey he couldn’t see him, not on the road, not on the far pavement. He must just be lost in shadow, thought Tommy, but he started to run.
Miss Lolly had turned to follow Joey, but turned back at the sound of Tommy’s running feet.
“Miss Lolly,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I’m looking for Joey.”
“Well, well, what a pleasant surprise. Did you steal some of your brother’s birthday lollipop?”
“No! Well, not steal exactly.”
“No, not a good boy like you, eh Tommy? Come along, if you’re coming with Joey we haven’t got all night.”
“Why are you here, Miss Lolly, in the middle of the night?”
“To help children to cross, of course, children who have had a taste of what’s on the other side.”
The trail was especially strong here. Tommy felt faint from the sweetness and the rainbow streamer flowed around Miss Lolly and off into darkness.
He stepped into the road. As his passed Miss Lolly she spun her sign again. He watched it: left, right, left, left, right. His feet should have touched the kerb on the far side of the road, but he was somewhere else.
It was the edge of a dense wood, stretching away to left and right. In front of him was a compact cottage. If he didn’t know better, he would say it was made of gingerbread with icing decorations.
“Home, sweet, sweet home.” Miss Lolly was at his shoulder. Behind her, back the way they had come, was darkness.
“Where are we? Where’s Joey?”
“Joey has been a good boy and followed his nose into my humble abode. I’d say little Joey managed to keep the lion’s share of his birthday treat from big brother.”
“But I’ve eaten” – Tommy counted on his fingers – “four of your lollipops. This never happened to me.”
“There’s more than one recipe, dear Tommy. They’re all delicious, but some are… enchanting.”
“Well, I’m not enchanted.”
That was true. The scent was still powerfully strong, but reality – if this could be called reality – had kicked in and the trance that had led him from his home was gone.
“No,” said Miss Lolly. “More’s the pity. I do so hate inelegance, but needs must.”
She swung her sign in a wide arc and the dancing silhouettes cracked Tommy on the skull.
He came to in a cage with bars of red and white candy spirals. Joey was in a similar cage next to him. He was trying to eat his way out, but as soon as he bit off a chunk of a hard rock bar it reformed, perfect and ready to be eaten again.
“Joey, stop it.”
Joey looked at his brother. His lips and tongue were red with food dye.
“But I like it,” he said.
Miss Lolly laughed, a witch’s cackle. She was sitting in a rocking chair, which might have been made of barley sugar. She still wore her lollipop lady uniform and her sign was propped against the wall behind her. Her features, which had always been soft and friendly, had somehow become hard and sharp.
“You could eat forever and never escape, my darlings,” she said. “Candy is a most resilient building material. How else would a gingerbread house survive in a wood?
“Of course, young Joey is already quite fat enough for the hunt.”
She went over and patted Joey’s head through the bars as he crunched another mouthful of rock.
“Joey here is a bit of an experiment. The birthday lollipop I gave him last year was a new recipe. Since then, everything he has eaten has turned to fat. Saves us so much time and effort on this side.”
“Us?”
“Tommy darling, you didn’t think there was just me, did you? After all, everyone crosses with the lollipop lady. And they never ask what’s on the other side.
"I always like to keep a little memento of my catches. I like to remember my children.”
She pointed to dozens of hooks on the wall, each with something hanging from it: a Ben 10 watch, a dental brace, a threadbare teddy, an Alice band – a sky blue Alice band, just like the one Nicki Wenner had worn, Nicki with whom Tommy had held hands on a school trip to Hadrian’s Wall, Nicki who had disappeared last Christmas.
Tommy grabbed the bars of his cage. They were sticky.
“Why are you doing this?” he shouted. “You’re supposed to look after us.”
Miss Lolly cackled.
“I do it for the Wild Hunt, of course. The hunt must have its prey and it likes no prey better than human children. Humans drove all the faery folk from the world with their witch hunts, their burnings and drownings and the shining beacon of their science. They drove us to this shadow world, but we’re taking our revenge, coldly, slowly and forever.
“Talking of which, listen.”
Tommy could hear horns and dogs howling, the sounds were distant, but drawing closer.
“Come on, Joey,” said Miss Lolly. “Time to run off some of that fat... before it’s eaten off.”
She collected her lollipop sign and planted it in front of the cage door, which Joey still ate ravenously. Tommy watched as Miss Lolly spun the sign: three turns left, the same number right. The cage door clicked open. Joey clung to it as it swung wide, still chomping at the self-replenishing bars.
Miss Lolly took his wrist, but couldn’t prise him from the bars.
“More sweets,” he said.
“My, you are a glutton.”
She leaned her sign against the cage and tried with both hands, but Joey clung on and kept eating. She crossed to what appeared to be a bowl of fruit and picked up what looked like an orange.
“Marshmallow, Joey.”
She tossed it towards him and he released the cage to catch it and stuff the whole thing into his mouth. Miss Lolly waggled a marshmallow apple at him and he followed her to the door.
“Joey! Come back!”
Joey turned to his brother and Tommy saw there were tears in his eyes.
“I can’t help it, Tommy.”
Miss Lolly took Joey’s hand. The horns and hounds were closer.
“Don’t worry,” Miss Lolly said. “They’ll give him a good head start. He might even outrun them… for a while.”
She closed the door behind her as she took Joey outside.
Tommy slammed his fists against the bars, creating cracks in the canes that healed instantly and shaking the cage. The vibrations made Miss Lolly’s sign slip an inch. Tommy hit the bars again and again. On the fourth or fifth thump, the sign toppled. He reached through the bars and caught it in one hand. With both hands he stood it upright in front of the door to his cell and spun it: three turns left, three right. Click.
He headed for the cottage door. As he passed the bowl of fruit, he picked up a marshmallow pear. Surely one bite wouldn’t hurt. It smelled delicious and he knew it would taste even better. So would everything in the house. His eyes roamed across spun sugar lampshades, liquorice rugs and jelly bean curtains. So good…
No! He clenched his fist, marshmallow oozing between his fingers, and knocked the bowl to the floor. It shattered into shards of hard-shelled chocolate. He wrenched open the door and stepped out, lollipop sign in hand.
Miss Lolly stood a little way off in a clearing, holding Joey’s hand and looking ahead through the trees. The sounds of the Wild Hunt were much louder outside. As Tommy approached Miss Lolly and Joey, as quietly as possible, he caught glimpses of people – or creatures – through the trees. So much had already happened this night that it seemed quite reasonable that the hunt should be made up of trolls and ogres and imps and frost queens and fire kings and centaurs and unicorns. It would have been wonderful if the hunt wasn’t being led by drooling, red-eyed hounds.
Tommy broke into a run. Miss Lolly turned in surprise and, when she saw the sign, a little fear. Tommy didn’t think. Gripping the pole near the bottom with both hands, he swung it like a golf club. He closed his eyes, afraid of what he would see when the sharp edge of the circular sign connected with Miss Lolly. So he was surprised when he heard a crack.
He opened his eyes to see Miss Lolly’s head lying on the ground and her body crumpling next to it. Her neck had shattered. She was made of candy, just like her house. Did that mean she could repair herself?
Maybe if he and Joey crushed her into little pieces. But there was no time. The hounds crashed through the woods, almost upon them.
“Run!” He grabbed Joey’s hand and set off.
“I want sweets,” said Joey.
“I’ll buy you a whole sweet shop.”
“Promise?”
“Just run!”
Tommy risked a backwards glance. The hounds had stopped to devour the body of Miss Lolly. That would slow down them and her, if she was trying to regenerate, but for how long?
They reached the spot where they had appeared after crossing the road in Kingsbech. Tommy pictured Miss Lolly spinning the sign: left, right, left, left, right.
He copied the sequence. Nothing happened. He glanced back. The hounds were coming again, they would be on them in seconds.
“We’re going back,” said Joey.
“I’m trying, I’m trying.”
“I mean maybe it’s backwards.”
Tommy would have hugged his brother if they hadn’t been facing certain death. Instead, he spun the sign: right, left, left, right, left.
The leading hounds leapt at the boys, jaws wide and foaming, fangs gleaming. Tommy grabbed his brother tightly and shut his eyes…
…and opened them again. They were in the road in Kingsbech.
“Cross to the other side,” said Tommy, and for once his brother did as he was told. Tommy looked around frantically, no hounds, no huntsmen, the street was empty and silent.
“I feel sick,” said Joey.
“That’s what you get for eating a whole prison cell.”
“Can we go home now, Tommy?”
Tommy took his time before answering.
“There could he hundreds of witchy lollipop ladies out there, Joey, and everyone will think they are nice. Only we know they aren’t.”
Joey looked from his brother to the lollipop sign.
“Do we have to chop them all down?”
Tommy looked at the sign, too, seeing the silhouette children on their way to school, thinking the lollipop lady would keep them safe. He knew the answer to his brother’s question, but to say it out loud was so big… saying it out loud would change their lives forever.
Tommy saw Miss Lolly give Joey the birthday lollipop and instantly wanted it for himself.
The lollipop lady called Joey back after seeing a group of children across the road on their way home from school. She reached into a deep pocket in her white coat and pulled out the treat. On the end of a stick was a swirl of multi-coloured rock the size of a saucer.
“Happy birthday, Joey,” she said.
Joey’s face lit up as he took the lollipop and shut it away in his school bag.
Tommy kept an eye on his brother as they walked home, but he didn’t walk with him, of course. He was eight and Joey was only five – six now – so they walked with their own friends.
At home, Joey ran straight up to his bedroom, with only a perfunctory hello to Mum. Tommy followed.
“Let me share,” he said, “or I’ll tell Mum and Dad.”
It was mean to bully Joey, but this was a Miss Lolly lollipop they were talking about.
“But it’s mine, Tommy.” Joey tried to hold the lollipop out of his older brother’s reach. “It’s my birthday. You had one on your birthday.”
“I know.” Tommy made a grab for the sweet. “That’s why I want some more.”
“I won’t let you come to my birthday party.”
The party was going to be at the weekend.
“You know that if Mum knows you’ve got the lollipop, she won’t let you have any of it. So give me some and I won’t tell, then we’ll both get some.”
“That’s not fair!”
No, but Tommy knew he had the upper hand. Miss Lolly gave all the children at Kingsbech Primary School a lollipop on their birthday, a lollipop from the lollipop lady.
Everyone loved Miss Lolly. She knew all the children by name and always had a friendly greeting and a kind word. She was always there, a constant, comforting presence on the school walk.
Teachers loved her, because she was a kind of early warning system, tipping them off to any problems pupils had. Parents loved her, because she kept their children safe. They were especially grateful because of the children who had gone missing in recent years, even though none of the disappearances had been around school time. And the pupils definitely loved her, because she never told them off and gave them birthday sweets. Tommy didn’t know her real name. Everyone only ever called her Miss Lolly.
Tommy’s Mum and Dad also called her a treasure, whatever that meant, and they wouldn’t normally have minded her giving Joey a birthday lollipop. After all, Tommy had received four over his school years and Joey had eaten the one he was given on his fifth birthday last November.
The thing was, Joey was getting fat. He had been putting on weight for the past year, even though Mum and Dad made him exercise and eat properly, so sweets were banned.
“Life’s not fair,” Tommy said. That was something Dad said. “So share.”
“No!” Joey jumped on his bed and held the lollipop above his head. Of course, Tommy was taller, so when he jumped on the bed he had no trouble grabbing Joey’s hand and trying to prise open his fingers. As the brothers grappled, the bed shifted, banging into a chest of drawers and toppling a lamp. As they struggled, the lollipop smacked against the wall and a chunk spun away onto the floor.
“What are you two doing up there?” Mum’s voice came up the stairs.
“Nothing,” the boys said together, freezing in mid-fight.
"Well do it quietly.”
Tommy noticed his brother was crying and released his grip.
“I know I’m fat,” said Joey. “I can’t help it.”
Tommy stepped off the bed and picked up the piece of lollipop from the floor.
“I’ll just take this,” he said.
“Leave me alone,” said Joey.
“Sorry,” said Tommy, as he left his brother’s room. He wasn’t sure why he was apologising, he just knew he didn’t really want the lollipop anymore.
Later, though, when he was settling down to go to sleep in his own room, he did eat his chunk.
From the first lick, he knew it was something special. It was sweeter and more flavoursome than any birthday lollipop Miss Lolly had given him, as if this was what his taste buds had been made for. The taste awakened something within him, some sense that was part taste, part smell. It made him aware of something even more delicious than the lollipop, something that was out there if he could only track it down.
He put on his slippers, pulled his dressing gown over his pyjamas and followed his nose – and his tongue, sticking it out to capture this tantalising sensation.
Mum and Dad were watching a detective show on TV as he crept past the door. It didn’t occur to him to speak to them, any more than it struck him as odd that he was sneaking out into the dark in his night clothes.
His nose and tongue and now his eyes led him along deserted winter streets. He could see the trail he was following, as if the taste and smell had colours, a rainbow streamer that snaked ahead of him. He passed people on the street and was vaguely aware of their funny looks, but no-one challenged him.
He had passed into an unfamiliar part of Kingsbech by the time he saw the two people at the kerb two hundred metres ahead.
He knew one of them instantly. After all, he had lived with him for the last six years. Joey must have eaten what was left of his lollipop, it must have awakened the same sense in him and he had sneaked out, too. Mum and Dad were going to be so angry if they found out.
The other person… well, white coat, sign in hand. For a moment, Tommy had the notion that Miss Lolly was always at the roadside, a permanent fixture waiting to help children cross the road, but that was stupid and this was nowhere near school.
She was helping Joey cross the road, though. Even though there was no traffic, she stood in the middle of the road, sign firmly planted, and beckoned Joey across.
Tommy had stopped when he saw Joey and Miss Lolly, but now he started walking again, faster than before. He was confused. More than anything he wanted to find the fabulous treat that must be at the end of the scent trail. He also knew he should get his brother home before Mum and Dad found out, but then Joey was with Miss Lolly, so that must be all right.
As Joey walked past Miss Lolly in the centre of the road, the circle on top of the pole spun left and right, making the silhouetted boy and girl on the sign look as if they were chasing each other in a playground game.
Tommy was mesmerised by the sign for a moment and when he looked for Joey he couldn’t see him, not on the road, not on the far pavement. He must just be lost in shadow, thought Tommy, but he started to run.
Miss Lolly had turned to follow Joey, but turned back at the sound of Tommy’s running feet.
“Miss Lolly,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I’m looking for Joey.”
“Well, well, what a pleasant surprise. Did you steal some of your brother’s birthday lollipop?”
“No! Well, not steal exactly.”
“No, not a good boy like you, eh Tommy? Come along, if you’re coming with Joey we haven’t got all night.”
“Why are you here, Miss Lolly, in the middle of the night?”
“To help children to cross, of course, children who have had a taste of what’s on the other side.”
The trail was especially strong here. Tommy felt faint from the sweetness and the rainbow streamer flowed around Miss Lolly and off into darkness.
He stepped into the road. As his passed Miss Lolly she spun her sign again. He watched it: left, right, left, left, right. His feet should have touched the kerb on the far side of the road, but he was somewhere else.
It was the edge of a dense wood, stretching away to left and right. In front of him was a compact cottage. If he didn’t know better, he would say it was made of gingerbread with icing decorations.
“Home, sweet, sweet home.” Miss Lolly was at his shoulder. Behind her, back the way they had come, was darkness.
“Where are we? Where’s Joey?”
“Joey has been a good boy and followed his nose into my humble abode. I’d say little Joey managed to keep the lion’s share of his birthday treat from big brother.”
“But I’ve eaten” – Tommy counted on his fingers – “four of your lollipops. This never happened to me.”
“There’s more than one recipe, dear Tommy. They’re all delicious, but some are… enchanting.”
“Well, I’m not enchanted.”
That was true. The scent was still powerfully strong, but reality – if this could be called reality – had kicked in and the trance that had led him from his home was gone.
“No,” said Miss Lolly. “More’s the pity. I do so hate inelegance, but needs must.”
She swung her sign in a wide arc and the dancing silhouettes cracked Tommy on the skull.
He came to in a cage with bars of red and white candy spirals. Joey was in a similar cage next to him. He was trying to eat his way out, but as soon as he bit off a chunk of a hard rock bar it reformed, perfect and ready to be eaten again.
“Joey, stop it.”
Joey looked at his brother. His lips and tongue were red with food dye.
“But I like it,” he said.
Miss Lolly laughed, a witch’s cackle. She was sitting in a rocking chair, which might have been made of barley sugar. She still wore her lollipop lady uniform and her sign was propped against the wall behind her. Her features, which had always been soft and friendly, had somehow become hard and sharp.
“You could eat forever and never escape, my darlings,” she said. “Candy is a most resilient building material. How else would a gingerbread house survive in a wood?
“Of course, young Joey is already quite fat enough for the hunt.”
She went over and patted Joey’s head through the bars as he crunched another mouthful of rock.
“Joey here is a bit of an experiment. The birthday lollipop I gave him last year was a new recipe. Since then, everything he has eaten has turned to fat. Saves us so much time and effort on this side.”
“Us?”
“Tommy darling, you didn’t think there was just me, did you? After all, everyone crosses with the lollipop lady. And they never ask what’s on the other side.
"I always like to keep a little memento of my catches. I like to remember my children.”
She pointed to dozens of hooks on the wall, each with something hanging from it: a Ben 10 watch, a dental brace, a threadbare teddy, an Alice band – a sky blue Alice band, just like the one Nicki Wenner had worn, Nicki with whom Tommy had held hands on a school trip to Hadrian’s Wall, Nicki who had disappeared last Christmas.
Tommy grabbed the bars of his cage. They were sticky.
“Why are you doing this?” he shouted. “You’re supposed to look after us.”
Miss Lolly cackled.
“I do it for the Wild Hunt, of course. The hunt must have its prey and it likes no prey better than human children. Humans drove all the faery folk from the world with their witch hunts, their burnings and drownings and the shining beacon of their science. They drove us to this shadow world, but we’re taking our revenge, coldly, slowly and forever.
“Talking of which, listen.”
Tommy could hear horns and dogs howling, the sounds were distant, but drawing closer.
“Come on, Joey,” said Miss Lolly. “Time to run off some of that fat... before it’s eaten off.”
She collected her lollipop sign and planted it in front of the cage door, which Joey still ate ravenously. Tommy watched as Miss Lolly spun the sign: three turns left, the same number right. The cage door clicked open. Joey clung to it as it swung wide, still chomping at the self-replenishing bars.
Miss Lolly took his wrist, but couldn’t prise him from the bars.
“More sweets,” he said.
“My, you are a glutton.”
She leaned her sign against the cage and tried with both hands, but Joey clung on and kept eating. She crossed to what appeared to be a bowl of fruit and picked up what looked like an orange.
“Marshmallow, Joey.”
She tossed it towards him and he released the cage to catch it and stuff the whole thing into his mouth. Miss Lolly waggled a marshmallow apple at him and he followed her to the door.
“Joey! Come back!”
Joey turned to his brother and Tommy saw there were tears in his eyes.
“I can’t help it, Tommy.”
Miss Lolly took Joey’s hand. The horns and hounds were closer.
“Don’t worry,” Miss Lolly said. “They’ll give him a good head start. He might even outrun them… for a while.”
She closed the door behind her as she took Joey outside.
Tommy slammed his fists against the bars, creating cracks in the canes that healed instantly and shaking the cage. The vibrations made Miss Lolly’s sign slip an inch. Tommy hit the bars again and again. On the fourth or fifth thump, the sign toppled. He reached through the bars and caught it in one hand. With both hands he stood it upright in front of the door to his cell and spun it: three turns left, three right. Click.
He headed for the cottage door. As he passed the bowl of fruit, he picked up a marshmallow pear. Surely one bite wouldn’t hurt. It smelled delicious and he knew it would taste even better. So would everything in the house. His eyes roamed across spun sugar lampshades, liquorice rugs and jelly bean curtains. So good…
No! He clenched his fist, marshmallow oozing between his fingers, and knocked the bowl to the floor. It shattered into shards of hard-shelled chocolate. He wrenched open the door and stepped out, lollipop sign in hand.
Miss Lolly stood a little way off in a clearing, holding Joey’s hand and looking ahead through the trees. The sounds of the Wild Hunt were much louder outside. As Tommy approached Miss Lolly and Joey, as quietly as possible, he caught glimpses of people – or creatures – through the trees. So much had already happened this night that it seemed quite reasonable that the hunt should be made up of trolls and ogres and imps and frost queens and fire kings and centaurs and unicorns. It would have been wonderful if the hunt wasn’t being led by drooling, red-eyed hounds.
Tommy broke into a run. Miss Lolly turned in surprise and, when she saw the sign, a little fear. Tommy didn’t think. Gripping the pole near the bottom with both hands, he swung it like a golf club. He closed his eyes, afraid of what he would see when the sharp edge of the circular sign connected with Miss Lolly. So he was surprised when he heard a crack.
He opened his eyes to see Miss Lolly’s head lying on the ground and her body crumpling next to it. Her neck had shattered. She was made of candy, just like her house. Did that mean she could repair herself?
Maybe if he and Joey crushed her into little pieces. But there was no time. The hounds crashed through the woods, almost upon them.
“Run!” He grabbed Joey’s hand and set off.
“I want sweets,” said Joey.
“I’ll buy you a whole sweet shop.”
“Promise?”
“Just run!”
Tommy risked a backwards glance. The hounds had stopped to devour the body of Miss Lolly. That would slow down them and her, if she was trying to regenerate, but for how long?
They reached the spot where they had appeared after crossing the road in Kingsbech. Tommy pictured Miss Lolly spinning the sign: left, right, left, left, right.
He copied the sequence. Nothing happened. He glanced back. The hounds were coming again, they would be on them in seconds.
“We’re going back,” said Joey.
“I’m trying, I’m trying.”
“I mean maybe it’s backwards.”
Tommy would have hugged his brother if they hadn’t been facing certain death. Instead, he spun the sign: right, left, left, right, left.
The leading hounds leapt at the boys, jaws wide and foaming, fangs gleaming. Tommy grabbed his brother tightly and shut his eyes…
…and opened them again. They were in the road in Kingsbech.
“Cross to the other side,” said Tommy, and for once his brother did as he was told. Tommy looked around frantically, no hounds, no huntsmen, the street was empty and silent.
“I feel sick,” said Joey.
“That’s what you get for eating a whole prison cell.”
“Can we go home now, Tommy?”
Tommy took his time before answering.
“There could he hundreds of witchy lollipop ladies out there, Joey, and everyone will think they are nice. Only we know they aren’t.”
Joey looked from his brother to the lollipop sign.
“Do we have to chop them all down?”
Tommy looked at the sign, too, seeing the silhouette children on their way to school, thinking the lollipop lady would keep them safe. He knew the answer to his brother’s question, but to say it out loud was so big… saying it out loud would change their lives forever.