beatrix bobbit and the pumpkin patch

Halloween Day...

"Do something, Beatrix, dear!" Mrs. Bobbit shrieked and swatted her broomstick at the hoard of animated pumpkins now storming the garden.

"THEY'RE COMING FOR PENNY, HELP!" Mr. Bobbit held Penny above his head as he bobbed in and out of the pumpkins.

"I think it's kinda fun," Sybil patted a pumpkin walking at her feet.

"I'll call Aunt Pan," Beatrix said at last with a reluctant shrug. She didn't know how the potion and spell had gone so awry, when all she meant to do was bring life into the sad patch of pumpkins. Not bring them to Life.

Earlier...

Beatrix, Sybil and Mrs. Bobbit all stood with hands on their hips surveying the field of pumpkins before them.

"They're a bit..." Mrs. Bobbit began, fiddling with her yellow floral scarf.

"Shriveled?" Beatrix finished.

Mr. Bobbit had gotten it into his head that he would like to grow a Pumpkin Patch only a year before, and used the flat, open field behind their house to undertake this project.

"What happened?" Sybil asked with a tilt of her pigtails.

"Well, come along, girls..."

"Wait! I can fix it!" Beatrix exclaimed, and darted back to the house. She didn't stop running till she was back in her bedroom with her wand in hand and a small glass bottle of her latest concoction. A Growth Potion she had made for Mrs. Bobbit. "I'll make more," Beatrix said to herself as she sprinted down the stairs, knocking into Mr. Bobbit along the way.

"Beatrix," Mr. Bobbit grunted. "Where are you off to in such a hurry? Slow down, Penny could be napping on the stairs. You know the second black stair from the bottom is one of her spots."

"Sorry, Dad! Could you please feed Penny dinner? I may be back late, byeeeee," Beatrix was out the door before Mr. Bobbit could reply.

When Beatrix returned to the field, Sybil was dancing and singing to the pumpkins, and Mrs. Bobbit was cleaning and patting them rather encouragingly.

"Yay! Bea is back, and she'll know just what to do," Sybil sang in perfect tune to a particularly warty and shrunken pumpkin.

"Was that not for my garden?" Mrs. Bobbit asked as she swept her jacket back and forth across a row of pumpkins.

"I'll make more if it works," Beatrix responded as Sybil and Mrs. Bobbit came to stand at her side. Beatrix plodded forward into the field, not caring that her black cowboy boots were squishing in the mud. Methodically, she walked the rows of sad pumpkins, spilling drops of the Growth Potion and waving her wand over each one.

She finished the last of the potion as the sun was going down.

"Did it work?" Mrs. Bobbit asked breathlessly, squinting against the orange glow.

"I hope so. We'll check tomorrow, I'm starving."

Sybil blew a kiss at the ugly little pumpkins half covered in shadows and half in crisp yellow light. "Can we make pumpkin pie for dessert?"

"NO!" Mrs. Bobbit shrieked. "Hm, not with these odd pumpkins. We can make carrot cookies though, Sybil, dear."

As Sybil and Mrs. Bobbit trekked up the hill and towards their house, Beatrix tossed her long black braid over one shoulder. The full moon was rising in the sky, when she flicked her wand to and fro several times until the wind picked up. The wind blew gently all across the moonlit pumpkin patch, and through the sound of rustling leaves, Beatrix heard a soft lullaby.

"Bea! Hurry! We're gonna make cookies," Sybil shouted from the top of the hill. With a final look at the Pumpkin Patch, Beatrix hoped the combination of spell, potion and wind would be enough to save Mr. Bobbit's prized pumpkins.

"I can't wait to take Penny to the Pumpkin Patch with me tomorrow. I wonder if she'll love them as much as she loves carrots," Mr. Bobbit mused while reaching for a cookie after dinner.

Mrs. Bobbit's eyes widened in alarm, and Beatrix kicked her under the rickety kitchen table to keep her from divulging the pumpkin disaster.

"Owwwwwww!" Mrs. Bobbit squealed dramatically.

Mr. Bobbit leapt from his seat in alarm. "Judy, what happened? Are you alright?"

"Oh yes, dear. Of course." Mrs. Bobbit stuffed her mouth then with two large cookies and smiled through the crumbs.

"Wanna see my pumpkin dance?!" Sybil popped up then, and gave Beatrix a wink, before prancing into the living room.

Mrs. Bobbit wiped the crumbs from her face, and took her place at the piano. When Mr. Bobbit, Beatrix and Penny were situated on the little yellow sofa, Mrs. Bobbit sighed and began to play a jaunty tune.

Sybil twirled and tumbled and leapt through the air with perfectly pointed toes while Mrs. Bobbit's cheeks flushed from pressing her fingers fervently into the keys. Beatrix caught a glint of something in Mr. Bobbit's eye, and felt her own eyes get misty from Sybil's performance.

Afterwards, they clapped and cheered heartily. Mr. Bobbit had Penny hop to Sybil with a single stem and clapped the loudest when she succeeded in dropping the stem four feet from Sybil's feet.

"Well, time for bed. Goodnight, girls," Mrs. Bobbit patted them both before retiring to their downstairs bedroom with Mr. Bobbit and Penny.

Once upstairs in the low-ceilinged bedroom they shared, Sybil asked, "Do you really think it will work, Bea? Is there anything more we can do to help?" Her blue eyes grew even larger in concern.

"I have an idea! Grab your dancing shoes, and I'll meet you in the garden," Beatrix whispered. Sybil slid silently down the stairs, smiling widely in her orange, long sleeve nightgown.

Beatrix, meanwhile, placed her new Witch Hat on her head. A gift from Aunt Pan's Witch Hat Making Workshop at the Witch Camp Reunion. Beatrix tapped the hat four times with her crooked twig wand, and said, "Aunt Pan? Can you hear me? I could really use your help with some really sad pumpkins if you're not busy."

After a moment of silence, Beatrix was a little disappointed. So, she snapped her fingers and allowed herself to appear in the garden in a dramatic puff of smoke.

"Wow," was all Sybil said.

Holding hands, they trotted towards the Pumpkin Patch with a gentle breeze at their backs. The grass tickled their bare legs, as foxes and hedgehogs and raccoons scampered through the open field alongside them. Bats followed overhead in constant chatter and owls tracked their path from the spindly fragrant trees.

Up ahead, a darkened figure stood before the Pumpkin Patch, hidden in a hooded cloak. Beatrix's heart began beating very quickly then, but the animals pressed on without fear and Sybil gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. As the girls and animals approached, the hooded figure removed their hood, revealing a glistening black sheet of hair that toppled out in crashing waves.

"She came, it worked!" Beatrix jerked Sybil's hand and ran.

"Hi, Aunt Pan!" Sybil beamed.

"Hello, girls," Aunt Pan's pug grunted. "Indeed this is a sad Pumpkin Patch. It seems your Dad has lost his touch. Shall we revive it?"

"I've already tried a Growing Potion and Spell," Beatrix said. "But nothing's happened."

"That's a good start, Beatrix. Now, let's see. Sybil, I need you to dance down each row. Six pirouettes a row should do nicely. As for you, Beatrix, follow your sister with your wand and give each pumpkin a single tap once more while uttering the word 'Pumpkanimus." I'll be performing my part from right here. Understood?" Aunt Pan grinned and shooed them into the field.

Sybil carefully tied her dance shoes, they began following Aunt Pan's instructions. So lost were they in the cool moonlight and the squeaks from watching critters and the rhythm of twirling and tapping, that they hardly noticed what Aunt Pan was up to.

From her vantage point in front of the field, Aunt Pan was waving her wand and chanting under her breath with such speed that the words were disguised. Then, strangely enough, the pumpkins felt the vibrations from Aunt Pan's words and twitched on the ground, rolling and shaking until, like falling stars, bright light burst over each pumpkin.

Beatrix and Sybil stopped to watch the splendor unfold. When it finished, the brittle grass was soft and shimmering against their skin, and humming so faintly.

"That should do the trick!" Aunt Pan clapped her hands together and disappeared.

The next morning, covered in grass stains, Beatrix and Sybil were awoken to shrieks of terror. When they ran towards the shrieking in nightgowns leaving silver dust in their wake, they found Mrs. Bobbit attempting to sweep away a horde of living pumpkins from her garden. She was standing precariously atop a black metal chair with wild hair when a pumpkin with exceptionally long arms snatched her broom.

"HELP!" Mrs. Bobbit wailed, clutching her broken broomstick.

Currently...

Through her Witch Hat, Beatrix called Aunt Pan with one part worry and two parts amazement. It wasn't every day a patch of pumpkins came to life and invaded your garden, after all.

What a Halloween.

Aunt Pan arrived in her usual cloud of glimmering smoke, muttering, "Oh dear."

"What went wrong?" Beatrix asked as they ran downstairs and towards the garden.

Beatrix stifled a laugh when she saw the scene in the garden. Mrs. Bobbit was chasing two pumpkins who were using bits of her beloved broomstick as swords. Mr. Bobbit had mistakenly offered a bite of pumpkin to Penny, and she was now hopping from pumpkin to pumpkin out of his reach. Sybil was balancing on the largest pumpkin and twirling over and over while it walked.

"Tsk tsk, Jack!" Aunt Pan said with a smirk.

"WHAT? PANSY HELP US. THE PUMPKINS GOT PENNY!"

"Oh she'll be fine. It's you I'm worried about. Seems your magic has gotten a bit rusty, eh?"

"What are you talking about?" Beatrix looked from Aunt Pan to Mr. Bobbit. His face was turning redder by the moment.

Aunt Pan placed her palm on one of the dancing pumpkins. It stilled at once while she nodded her head vigorously. "Quite, right. I see now," turning to Beatrix, "your Dad here performed a spell of his own last night. Seems the combination of spells and potions led to this splendid occurrence. Shall we leave them as is? I find them rather festive."

"You knew about the failed pumpkins? I'm so sorry, Jack, dear. We tried to hide it from you..." Mrs. Bobbit was now engaged in a tug of war for the bristled part of her broom.

"Yeah, Dad! We didn't want you to know!"

"Hold on," Beatrix said. "You're still performing magic?"

Looking frantically out to the vegetable garden, Mr. Bobbit said, "Oh no, the carrots!"

At precisely that moment, rows of carrots plucked themselves from the dirt, and marched towards the garden.