Brindle Billy Burgles Badly

“A what?”

“You heard me!”

“No, seriously, I didn’t.”

The old hag turned away and shuffled toward the kitchen. “Oh, do shut up you little twit! I’m going to get my wand.”

He called after her, “Well, I think what I heard was ‘ fat panda’, which would be just dreadful! All that roly-poly black and white cuteness! Blech!” He tugged at the ropes binding him but to no avail, they being enchanted and all. “And I’m really not keen on bamboo, ‘cept a bit in my stir fry. Do pandas fancy stir fry?”

“Where is it?” she fussed, sliding drawers open and slamming them shut. “And no, I didn’t say fat panda, you idiot!”

“Ah, good! Then it must’ve been ‘bad Santa’, which plays better to my strengths. Not that it wouldn’t be hell! No sirree Bob! The red suit, the scratchy beard, and all those, sticky, smelly kids! Now that’s a nightmare! Still… the bad part is intriguing.”

Witch Hazel, crooked and bent, stomped back from the kitchen with smoke literally rising from her ears. “Not bad Santa! Not fat panda! You… you… you unwelcome rectal inflammation!”

He had slipped in through a window, intent on a little harmless burglary, but was quickly ensnared by the magic ropes. He could do little more now than try to talk his way out of this. Bound hand and foot, he watched as the old witch moved through her gingerbread living room tossing magazines and pillows into the air as she searched for the little black stick that was her magic wand. “As soon as I find it, that’ll be the end of you and your blithering, and the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned!”

“Not to worry,” said Brindle Billy, the thief unlucky enough to break into the witch’s candy-coated domicile. “My fault entirely! I just wasn’t really listening when you were threatening me is all, but I think I’m getting warmer! You said you are going to turn me into a-a-a… cabana! No, that’s wrong. A piana!”

The witch clinched her fists and screeched at the ceiling. “Eeek! You are the most annoying creature I’ve ever met!”

“Whoa! And that’s saying something, isn’t it?! What with all those trolls and ogres and such.”

Witch Hazel slipped her hand behind the sofa cushion and let out a whoop of triumph. She withdrew the ancient hawthorn branch, shiny and smooth, that gave her the power of the dark arts, and slowly turned to face Brindle Billy.

“Now, you revolting scab of human pustulence, as I clearly stated earlier, I am going to turn you into a-a-a… BANANA!”

“Aaah! There it is! Well, you say banana, I say…”

“Oh, do please shut up and listen! I want this to be the last thing you hear, because, well, you won’t have ears soon, will you, banana-boy? But never mind, you nasty toilet stain, I’ll leave you with two good eyes and enough brains to understand what’s happening to you. Because I am going to transmogrify you into a banana and then set you out in the sun where you will slowly blacken and rot until you are no more than a slimy patch of goo that no one will touch but the blue bottle blowflies, and then they will finish you off, slurp by nauseating slurp!”

“Right,” said Brindle Billy, desperate to keep her talking. “But maybe, we could just stick a pin in that one and revisit the whole panda concept, because, as I see it…”

At the same time, Witch Hazel raised her arm over her head and brought it down with a sharp snap. A bolt of darkness shot from the tip of the wand and struck Brindle Billy square in the chest, and then he was gone. In his place, lying on the floor among the loose and writhing enchanted ropes, was a ripe banana.

The old witch grunted with discomfort as she stooped to pick him up. Gripping the banana firmly, she bent back the stem and split open the yellow peel. She pulled back first one, then the next, and the next, and finally the fourth section of peel, just enough to reveal two familiar eyes blinking back at her.

“Hello, Brindle Billy. Oh, excuse me. I meant Banana Billy! Nothing to say? Well, never mind. I’m sure I wouldn’t really listen anyway, and I’d probably get it wrong. But let’s get started, shall we?”

Brindle Billy’s eyes widened with fear as she hobbled out the front door and into the yard.

The old witch had a well for her water, the kind with the crank to raise the bucket and a small pitched roof over the top. There was a short stone wall ringing the well. She set the banana in the sun, perched on the top of the wall.

Brindle Billy was trapped with no way to escape, but he had a plan, hopeless though it was. In the warm sun, he began to ripen. As he did, he wriggled what might pass for the shoulders and hips of a banana. Growing softer by the minute, he slipped out of his peel and pushed it to the ground beside the well.

Moments later, Witch Hazel came out to gloat over her captive banana. When she saw it was happily sunbathing in the buff, she rushed forward to investigate. Just as Brindle Billy had hoped, she slipped on the banana peel and stumbled. Arms pinwheeling and feet back-peddling, she fell headfirst into the well. As she tumbled, her wand flew into the air and landed on the top of the stone wall, teetering on the edge. With great effort, the banana-man was able to roll himself inch by inch closer to the wand. When they touched there was a flash of light and then there was Brindle Billy, stark naked and stretched out on the wall.

He snatched the wand just before it tipped down into the well and with it he conjured a new set of clothes. He then spotted a mouse and, with the wave of the wand, turned it into a saddled horse. Mounted on his steed, he picked a crab apple from a branch and tossed it into the well. As it fell, he transmogrified it into an enormous banana, sealing the well shut and trapping the wicked old witch, at least for a while, at the bottom.

With that, wand in hand, Brindle Billy rode off in search of more mischief.