The Wicked Witch of Uithoorn

This is an autobiographical short story I wrote for my creative writing course at uni :)

~

I look around in drawers and cabinets and under piles of rubbish to find as many sets of coloured pencils as I can. I find four, providing me with seven different shades of blue. My mum has brought home a little tableau of traditional Dutch tiles from my nan that I can use as an example. Square tiles in slightly different shades of white, the edges have crumbled a little on some of them, and they all have little flowers in the corners and simple drawings of children playing in the middle. I carefully copy the corner decorations on the square piece of paper I cut out, using three shades of blue to make it more exciting. When my school teacher gave us this assignment, he said that we could draw anything we wanted as long as it as in the style of Dutch tile work. I decided immediately that I was going to draw a witch, flying on a broomstick. I noticed that the children on my nan’s tiles had very simple faces that all looked alike, so I didn’t put as much details in my witch’s warts as I would have usually. Next to me on my desk is a stack of other drawings. They are all of witches. Some of them flying, some of them dancing around a steaming cauldron, some of them engaged in a Witches Council meeting, discussing the recent influx of vampires in the witch kingdom. The witch on the tile is our previous Witch Queen, I realise, and the tile is the centrepiece of the tiling in the kitchen of the witches palace. The current queen doesn’t actually live in the palace, she prefers her own hut where she can talk to the neighbours.

On Monday I bring the drawing of the witch tile to school. The teacher makes us put all of our drawings on the big notice board in the back of the classroom, and says we’ll go through them all and mark them after lunch. Some kids have drawn footballers in bright red shirts with a green background, or princesses in pink frilly dresses with purple hearts around them. Only a few people have put in the corner decorations. After the lunch break, which I spend outside in the bushes trying to find a twig that has the right shape to be used a communication device to let the other witches know I’m still alive, the teacher puts us all in a half-circle in front of the wall full of drawings. He starts with the one in the upper right corner, a kind of yellow rectangle with black bits in random places. Rick explains that it is a Ferrari. He gets 7 out of 10.

‘You didn’t really follow the instructions,’ the teacher says, ‘but it’s still a really good effort, and I can tell you used a ruler and made sure you didn’t colour outside the lines. Very well done!’

The teacher is a man who has marked a spot on his desk with duct tape where you’re supposed to put your notebook for inspection. Right next to a sheet of paper, taped to the desk, where your name is written up if you have scratched out any words or made any capital letters too big or too small. Tania once drew a small red heart in her maths workbook and he made her sit in a corner by herself for a week.

Leonie has done her tile all in blue just like me, and has drawn a girl singing into a microphone. The teacher isn’t quite sure about this one.

‘You haven’t used the correct colouring method again. Do you realise your drawing looks like a mess?’ 

Leonie shrugs.

‘I can’t give you anything higher than a 6 for this, you understand that right?’ She shrugs again. Stephen gets a 7.5 for his drawing of an airplane, and everyone gasps in awe when Jackie gets a 9 for her princess on a horse.

Then it’s my turn. I get so excited I do that thing where I pull up my shoulders into a cramp.

‘I see you’ve had a good look at the way the old tiles look, you’ve done the flowers in the corner and everything. But, and just to make it clear that this is a question for the whole class, has anyone ever seen a traditional tile with a witch on a broomstick on it?’
Everyone is silent. He continues, ‘What you have been doing again is abusing a school assignment to just go ahead and draw something that you like. You were supposed to learn something about our culture, but you thought your interest in witches was more important. Or was that not the reason?’

My shoulders are going to be stuck in this position forever. I stare at my shoes, trying to think of an answer.

‘I did try to really make it look like a real tile.’ 

‘Everyone can just copy the actual tiles, that is not nearly enough. I will give you a 5.5, but actually this is unacceptable.’

~

I climb into the tree behind my nan’s garden shed and look out over the field. I’m spending some time with Ignis, a helping ghost made from an old sock with buttons for eyes. He asks me if I’m angry. We communicate spiritually rather than vocally. ‘I am still angry actually, yes. But I am also glad, and I’m not sure why.’ Ignis suggests that it is perhaps a good idea to take some leaves from the tree and cook a magic potion that will make school stop existing. We get out of the tree and I take a pan from the kitchen cupboard, and fill it with wet grass and water. A muddy brown fish comes out of the ditch and walks over to me.

‘I would add a little bit of sludge to the potion if I were you,’ he says. 

‘Yes, thank you for your input,’ says Ignis, ‘I think we can manage just fine without you.’

I don’t really understand why he is so dismissive of fish, and make a mental note to apologise to the fish on his behalf soon.

Later on, while Ignis is taking a nap, I have a really good chat about it with a skeleton that has recently moved into my neighbourhood. His name is Mek. I think that’s a very strange name, but who am I to judge? 

‘Actually,’ Mek says, ‘you don’t have to be afraid of the teacher. Do you really think he could take on someone as powerful as you? You have the Witch Queen on your side, and I can put in a good word for you with the other skeletons. People fear us, we are the stuff of nightmares, but you are our friend.’ 

‘I’m not quite sure about that. I don’t think teachers are afraid of witches and skeletons.’

‘That’s because they don’t know we exist. Didn’t you used to be afraid of me? You said the idea that there was a skeleton living inside your mum and dad made you scared at night.’

I don’t understand Mek’s logic. ‘That’s different, because now that I know skeletons won’t come into my room at night it’s not quite so scary anymore.’

‘Aah, we may not come into YOUR room at night, but who’s to say we won’t do it to him? I might even see if there’s a couple of zombies that would be willing to do it.’

I tense up, I am very uncomfortable around zombies. I know skeletons and zombies tend to get on very well, but I still don’t quite trust them. I think the problem is that they don’t really talk, whereas with most skeletons I’ve met I’ve been able to have really interesting conversations. 

‘Just leave it to me,’ Mek says, ‘I will take care of it.’

~

I cycle to school with my mum the next day when it’s still dark, and when we cross the bridge I can see a bright white light coming from the direction of the football club. It’s a zombie light, I’ve learned recently. If the light is on, the zombies are out there. The closer we get to school, the more convinced I become that when I‘ll arrive, class will be cancelled. The teacher will not show up to work today, and when his worried colleagues will go see if he’s home they will only find a pile of bones. One of the zombies will have left a note that says ‘We ate him. Love, zombies.’ The Witch Queen has cast a spell on the bones to make sure that he won’t come back as a skeleton.

When I walk into the classroom the teacher is standing by the notice board, telling Eva’s mum about the Dutch tile project. His face is not the face of a man who’s been confronted with skeletons or zombies in the last few hours. I sit down at my table. Maybe the zombies will eat him tomorrow.