O Captain My Captain

Author’s Note: In this piece I’m analyzing the poem “O Captain My Captain” on the literary devices Walt Whitman uses to create more meaning to the poem. Also, I am going to be comparing the poem to actual history, as Walt Whitman romanticized the poem.

When someone is reading the poem “O Captain, My Captain”, they might notice, as did I, that not only is the poem a romanticized poem about Abraham Lincoln, it also uses a variety of literary devices that enhance the poem’s meaning.

“O Captain, My Captain” uses a lot of repeating of words and phrases, and the repetition adds feeling and emphasizes certain feelings and happenings. The word “O” is repeated often: “O Captain”, “O heart”, “O the bleeding drops of red”.  We use the exclamation “Oh!” when we don’t know what else to say. Most of the time we use it when we are surprised, however, in this case, “O” adds in the feeling that the author is sad, and perhaps a bit in despair.  Besides the word “O”, there’s also the phrase “Fallen cold and dead”, which emphasizes the fact that the captain is dead.

Another literary device Walt Whitman uses in “O Captain, My Captain” is an extended metaphor. “O Captain, My Captain” is written about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, right after the Civil War. The captain in the poem is Abraham Lincoln, and the ship the captain is steering represents America. The ship’s journey would be the Civil War, and in “The prize we sought is won”, “The prize” represents the ending of the Civil War.

Besides the literary devices, the whole poem contains romancing. The poem gives the illusion that Abraham Lincoln ended the war himself.  This is not true. Like any leader, Lincoln had people who gave him advice and helped him along the way. In the second stanza, the crowds are cheering for the captain’s return and the successful voyage. However, in real history, many people couldn't care less that Lincoln had been shot; he was not popular at the time, and had many enemies.

Altogether, the literary devices that “O Captain My Captain” uses create more meaning and depth to the poem. For me, the literary devices along with some of the romancing help me understand the poem better, and despite the poem’s sorrowful feeling, make the poem more enjoyable to read.

Life of Pi Reflective Piece

Authors Note: When reading Life of Pi, I noticed the short, italicized chapters, and was confused, because they didn't follow the rest of the book at all. After consulting with my advisor, I learned that these italicized chapters were “stories within a story”. In this reflective piece, I wrote about how the stories within a story can affect the reader and their perspective on the book.


When one is reading Life of Pi, one will most likely notice that there are multiple italicized chapters. There are many, even though they have absolutely nothing to do with what’s going on with the book. These are called stories within a story, and are written by the author to add realisticness to the book. Basically, the story within the story is what is supposedly happening to author as he/she is writing the book. Not true at all, of course, but it definitely causes the story to seem more real.

These stories within stories can also add more than realisticness. For example, in Chapter 33, which is one of the italicized chapters, adult Pi, while talking to the author, mentions how he couldn’t remember his mother’s face and voice. Now, this is before the part where the boat, Tsim-Tsum, sinks, so Chapter 33 gives some foreshadowing. It makes the reader wonder, what’s going to happen to Pi’s mother?

Another example is Chapter 36 , which is right before Part Two, where the boat sinks. Once again, it’s an italicized chapter. In this chapter, the last words are, “This story has a happy ending.” It’s as if the author’s preparing and clueing you for a tragedy about to occur, which happens to be the boat sinking. Placement of these stories within a story are important, too.

There are many reasons why the author places these chapters where they are, and one of these ideas is to prevent the reader from thinking that the next few events that are about to occur are unreasonable and unrealistic. It brings the reader back to reality, to Pi telling the author the story, and it just adds even more realisticness than ever.

Soda Senses Experiment

Problem:

We would like to determine if sight has any impact on taste.

Hypothesis:

Sight does affect your taste.

Materials:

• Sprite soda
• Yellow and red food coloring
• Dixie cups, and straws
• Five middle school students

Procedure:

First, to prepare for the experiment, we poured an equal amount of Sprite into five different cups, and added different mixtures of red and yellow dye in each cup to make dark and light shades of orange. In the first cup there was one drop of yellow dye. In the second cup were two drops of yellow dye, resulting in a darker color. In the third cup, there were three drops of yellow dye. In the fourth was three yellow drops and a half drop of red, and in the fifth was three drops of yellow and one drop of red. We lined up the cups from light to dark, so our test subjects would clearly be able to see the color difference.

After the preparation was over, we had five students come over one by one. They were each told to take a straw and take small sips of liquid from each of the five cups, in any order. After they drank, they would tell us in which cup they found the liquid most flavorful.

Observation:

The first person who we tested sipped the sodas from lightest to darkest. After tasting each one in turn, they decided that the fourth cup was the most flavorful. They were hesitant on the matter, however, and said that they were stuck between the fourth and fifth cup which were the two darker ones. The second test subject tried the soda in each cup in a similar fashion, and stated that the darkest cup had the most flavor. The third, fourth and fifth person agreed with the second. The overall results stated that four of the five thought the darkest cup had the most flavor, and the other said that the second darkest cup had the most  taste. All of them tasted the cups from lightest to darkest.

What was interesting was the fact some test subjects commented that the drink inside the last few cups holding the darker orange Sprite was actually a different soda, although they were all Sprite, only differed by the fact that the shade of color.

Conclusion:

While our experiment did seem to be a success, there are a few unknowns about the test. What if we had made the subjects taste the sodas in a completely random order? What if we had them taste the sodas in backwards order? These could have had an effect on our test. Perhaps the only reason the last cups were chosen, could be due to the fact that they were the last cups. There is a chance that the more you tasted the soda, the stronger the flavor became, and the last cups came to be the most flavorful. These unknowns should have been tested.

As a result of this experiment, we have found that your eyes can trick your taste buds. This is proved by the observation that four out of five test subjects chose the darkest colored Sprite, and the one who didn’t still chose the second darkest. The commentary is just extra evidence as to how much our own brain can fool itself. So, our conclusion is that, yes, sight does impact our taste.

Dinosaurs

Go to http://dinosaurs342.weebly.com/index.html and click on 'Parasaurolophus' for my part.

United Kingdom Project

Click here to view a website about the Five Themes of Geography of the UK.

The Heroics of an Insufferable Elf Named Pi

“NO! DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH THAT!” I shriek .

Not taking my eye off the criminal, I quickly hop down from my post at the Ornament Maker and start sprinting. I brush past curious and startled looks and vault on top of the Main Computer.

“PI, PUT THAT DOWN NOW!” I screech. Huffing and puffing, I run over and tear the Oobleck Maker out of Pi’s dirty little hands just before oobleck was going to be spattered all over.

“Now, now, Dot, no need to get selfish!” Pi smirked, wagging a finger, acting as if nothing was wrong, “Why don’t you go back to preschool and re-learn the concept of sharing? Sharing is caring, sharing is caring . . .” The curly-haired elf began to sing in a high-pitched, made-to-annoy-me voice, all the while skipping lightly over machines. That elf is going to be the end of me, I swear!

I rub my temples. “Hey, Charlene, “ I call over to a short elf with flaming red hair, the strands stuffed under her hat, “Can you help me do some of the work Mr. Jerkface conveniently forgot?” The much talked about Jerkface grins at me from across the room and sticks out his tongue. I roll my eyes in response and turn back to Charlene. “How about it?”

“Sure!” Char replies eagerly and jumps to the job. With Char was completing the tasks, I could get back to my post as the Elf Sentry. Naturally, I’m proud of how I got the job, and I can’t afford to lose it. I had to rise from the lowly Elf Workers to an Elf Creator, a Creator to an Idea Maker, from that to the Sentry. I could’ve picked the job of a Deliverer, but running around the world delivering gifts just isn’t my thing. I much prefer guiding elves at the workshops. I also happen to like the fact that I get rewarded with chocolate.

I survey the workshop and am surprised how smooth everything’s going, with the exception of the insufferable Pi. Bo, the jolly and slightly chubby elf in the corner, was actually not falling, tripping, or dropping anything. “Good job, Bo! Keep it up!” I yell encouragingly. Mistake of the century. Bo looks up at me, trips over flat ground, and the freshly grown mini Christmas trees spilled out of his hands and into the Stuffed Animal Maker. The machine stopped spewing out perfect reindeer, bears, and moose; instead, out came one demented, smiling, red-ish colored moose with claws and an antler. The machine stopped chugging after this.

Pi swooped down on the deranged stuffed animal. He picked it up lightly, and ran his hands over it, probably to make sure at least the fabric had good quality. Despite his trouble-making tendencies, I must say, that guy had a seriously good eye for quality. That’s the sole reason that Santa, our boss, kept him the elf workforce. Pi was currently our only Quality Checker.

Pi, evidently done checking the stuffed animal, had a look of disgust on his pointy face. He muttered something about “Stupid 0.10 per-cent cotton” and chucked the animal randomly.  This proved to be the mistake of the millenia.  The unfortunate toy landed in the Magical Sack Maker, and the machine sputtered to a stop. For a second I was ok with that, because I thought the elves had finished making the Magical Sacks, as the deadline had been last week.  Then came crashing down on me the fact that there hadn’t been enough material and the sacks were never made.

All the other elves were transfixed with horror. A couple of newer ones burst out crying, because who wants a disaster to happen on their first day? Even Pi seemed to be able to understand the seriousness of the situation. The Magical Sacks are where the Deliverer elves put the gifts for children all over the world. The sacks magically make all the toys fit, and controls the heaviness, too. Once the Deliverer elves’ reindeer arrives at a house, the sack automatically tips over and delivers the gift into the chimney of the house.  Without the sacks, presents would have to be delivered by hand. With the small amount of Deliverers, and the ever-growing number of humans in this world, Christmas gifts would take 10 years to deliver! Santa could lower it to 10 days, as Santa’s magic itself is very powerful, but that would still be too late.

Suddenly, I spot Pi’s face brightening. He hurries over to Char, and whispers in her ear. Char’s face also lightens, and a smile breaks out on her face. As Pi goes to tell Bo, Char catches my eye and heads toward me.
I lean down to the short elf to hear what she has to say. “ . . . .Pi’s idea, amazing . . . . Narwhals . . . . The Cat in the Hat . . . . Candy Canes. . . . Toucans . . . . Christmas trees . . . .”

The more Char spoke, the more I was amazed. To think that Pi would come up with this! It was nothing short of genius! I turn around, beaming, about to congratulate Pi on a job well done, when Pi looks at me and smiles in an irritatingly smug way, “I’m such a genius, aren’t I?”

Way to ruin the moment. And I finally thought he turned good! Whatever. Time to start on the plan!

30 min. later. . .

“. . . . And that’s how we’re gonna save Christmas!” I explain. About 500 elves looked shell-shocked and confused. Pi gets up and gives them a summarized, shorter version, and much more elves seem to understand. Like I said before, whatever. It’s time to save Christmas!

We split up. 100 elves go contact multiple narwhal pods, and get them to deliver presents near the coasts. Narwhals like cold waters, so Char sewed up a little ice suit to keep them cold even in the tropics. The suit also let narwhals walk on land. Pi spewed special camouflage Oobleck over the suits, lest humans see the narwhals.

The same 100 also go contact some birds to deliver presents, but I feel uneasy relying on birds. I mean, everyone knows that they are flighty. But then I find out the birds are toucans, and I feel much better. I like toucans. I have one named Okra as a pet.

150 new little elves go ring the doorbell on Dr. Seuss’s door, and they manage to convince him to help deliver presents through books and TV. How? I don’t know, and I have no idea how Pi knew that The Cat in The Hat could jump from book to book, TV to TV. As long as he’s successful and no pink goo is splattered over people’s houses, I don’t care.

Next, 100 more elves gather candy canes and have Mrs. Claus enchant them to have presents on the inside, according to who the candy cane will be eaten. Of course, I took no chances and I personally used my elf-charms to make sure the correct person would eat it.  

The rest of the elves were in charge of helping the make time go slower while the presents were being delivered. This is done by a certain trademark secret :True Christmas Trees. True Christmas Trees are very, very, very, hard to find. They grow mostly at Christmas time, and occasionally in the month of December. True Trees are sprouted from a true Christmas spirit, and they take forever to grow. Naturally, we elves have a tendency to hoard precious things, and quite a bit of us contributed to the pile of True Trees that were to be used to slow time. I have a few trees myself, and I donated most of them. Bo, as a tree worker, donated about 20, since he probably had about 50 True Christmas trees. Char was a goody-two-shoes, and did not hoard many things; therefore, she only donated 2. The real donator was Pi, who spilled 75 True Trees into the pile. Of course, being Pi, he kept the other 300 at home.

At last, it was only me, Pi, Char and Bo left at the factory. I walked around straightening things, while thinking about how I could fix the broken Magical Sack Maker. I noticed Pi had a look of concentration on his face, too. I walked over and put a Santa’s Special Thinking Hat on him.

“Now, hurry up and think up some plan to fix the stupid machines,” I say. His face loses that concentrated look for a moment while he grins at me, but then his brain resumes turning like a clock-work.

“Ah-Ha!” He cried, smacking a fist into his open palm, “That’s it!”

“What is it?” Char asks.

Pi looks at me mischievously and says, “Elf Sentry Dot here is gonna have to do some gymnastics.” Then, he sends Bo to get a couple of tools and a Lucky Santa Hat.

“Why do I need a Lucky Santa Hat?”          

“You’ll need it.” Just great.   

“Hey, Dot, you see that screw waaaaaaay up there?” shouts Pi, pointing, “That’s what you’re gonna havta screw off. “

Even as I speak I can feel my brain working to figure a way to scale the Magical Sack Maker. “But Pi,” I complain, “To get up there, I have to do 5 somersaults in mid-air, 10 cartwheels with one hand, 5 cartwheels with no hands, and the splits!”

“See? I knew you would be able to figure it out. And, if you must know, you’re the best at gymnastics in the whole elf population. Or maybe I was mistaken?” Pi replied smugly. That little compliment helped, but it was the challenge that really did it. My weakness is that I can never back down from a challenge, no matter how dangerous or silly it was. In this case, it was dangerous. The Sack Maker was a large, uneven, and boxy metal machine, with sharp edges and many precipices where it was only supported by thin cardboard. If you fell off one of them, you would land in a giant hole where either the supplies were piled in, or where the Sacks came out. At best, you would have the wind knocked out of you. At worst, you would be impaled by steel spikes that were used to mash up scrap fabric.

When Bo arrives with all the tools, I throw on the Lucky Santa Hat, vault on top of the machine, flip over a not-functioning gear, cartwheel over several garlands, and land on a narrow metal precipice. I just need to swing on that chandelier, let go, flip twice, and throw the screwdriver at the right angle while sliding down a volleyball net pole. If I miss, I would probably have to go through that again. I ready myself and jump toward the crystal chandelier.

Right away, I know I did something or calculated something wrong,  because only the tip of my Lucky Santa Hat caught on the chandelier. Luckily, the tip stayed hooked. I slowly raise my hands, and one by one my fingers grip the branches. I start swinging, let go, and flip only once, because my momentum was too small.  I throw the screwdriver, and watch it successfully hit the screw. Mission completed. The Sack Maker starts up beneath me, and I am so proud of myself that I totally forgot about the volleyball net pole that I’m flying toward. In fact, I probably would have been knocked out if Pi, Char and Bo hadn’t shouted, “VOLLEYBALL NET!”. Alerted, I automatically have my hands find the pole, and gently slide down it while giving grateful looks to Char and Bo.

As soon as my petite elf-y feet touch the ground, Pi asks, “What about me?”

“What about you?” I reply distractedly.

“You give Charlene and Bo looks like you want to hug and kiss them, but I get nothing!?” I did not expect that. Pi, jealous of elves who couldn’t even properly cause mischief?  Unheard of.

At this moment, elves stream back into the factory. “Mission successful!” “We made it!” and “Woohoo!” echoed around the cavern-like room. All the children in the world received gifts, and the elves were the ones who did it, even with 2 broken machines and an unsatisfactory amount of Deliverers. All because of an insufferable Pi. A smile tugs at my face, and without thinking, I hug Pi while a “You are awesome!” escapes my mouth.

Pi smirks. “I know, right?”

Ugh. Some things never change.

Hansel and Gretel: The REAL Story

Author’s Note: I wrote this piece because I wanted to try a third person piece (usually I write first person). I got the idea of having the narrator ‘interfere’ more from a book I read awhile back, and in that book it was almost as if the narrator was talking directly to me.

All was well in the town of Allucaneat. The houses were repaired with even better quality candy, and the more grumpy witches became content again. The naughty children who thought they could blow up two big villages were taken care of. They were by no means killed, of course, and not one of the witches had tried. That’s just rubbish. I suppose that you know what your dear narrator’s talking about, right? I am, obviously, talking about Hansel and Gretel. Or, more specifically, the real story of Hansel and Gretel. What? You don’t know the real story? The actual happenings? How those meddling brats were actually the bad characters? How it was not just one witch’s house they tried to destroy, how it was a whole village? Hm, well, maybe you should sit down and read this, the real story, the most important one . . .

*******

There once was a quaint little village called Allucaneat. Mind you, it’s one single word, not three-and-a-third. Back to the story. If you happened to take a stroll in Allucaneat, you would have seen quite a bit a interesting houses. You would goggle at them, and polish your glasses and stare at them some more. I did that, too, long ago. I remember looking at the gumdrop roofs against the blue sky, and running my hands down the polished and thin caramel windows, which had just a slight tinge of toffee color.  The bigger houses had crystallized sugar windows that were very pretty, and butterflies often flocked there. The birds that visited the village regularly preferred to peck at the Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate bricks, and the squirrels stored Jawbreaker decorative pebbles under the snow in winter. Occasionally, a bee flew through the open archway doors and landed contentedly on a non-sticky Butterfinger or a hardened-honey chair. Not all the furniture were made of candy and sweets, but most were. Circles of Lifesavers and giant logs of Jolly Ranchers piled together formed a passable candy road that melted into the normal roads and stuck onto the edible green-grass made of thin sheets of pure sugar. Instead of turning colors in fall, the leaves on the magical candy trees turned flavors. Flowers formed lollipops, and after you were done eating them, you would throw the lollipop’s stick onto the ground and watch another flower grow.

The best thing about the whole place, though, were the witches living there. Wait, why are you looking at me like that? What did you expect to see living in there? Pelicans? Of course it’s witches, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to keep the candy nice and soft, gooey and fresh! These witches were not regular witches though, definitely not! They were the dainty and sweet candy witches, and they weren’t dangerous at all, since they couldn’t do a drop of magic unless it was related to candy. Candy witches eat candy breakfast, lunch and dinner, so they always ate parts of their own village. Next morning, the part that they ate would have already grown back. Candy witches read, eat, watch TV, and eagerly wait for the arrival of the new iPod. Candy witches are exactly like you or I, except for the magic part. And, unlike some people these days, they are very nice, almost too nice. If you came across the town of Allucaneat, by the time you got out, you would be carrying pounds of free candy, and if you were a girl, you would have gotten quite a bit of clothes, too. They even lived in peace with the village over, and supplied the humans there with delicious candy straight from their wands.

The village over happened to be the town of Wegitcandy. This was a regular village, with cobblestone roads and red brick houses, and was located just over the hill.  The people who lived there were pleasant, although not as pleasant as the witches. Occasionally, two or three mean and unpleasant people moved in, but they usually were driven away by the niceness of the rest of the citizens. “How d’you do? I see you are buying some milk, so why don’t you take a free bottle?” The shopkeepers were especially nice.

*******

One day, two naughty and nasty children were caught while running on the grass in the town of Wegitcandy. They were, of course, Hansel and Gretel. Those two little, not-so-innocent children were caught stealing some of the candy witches’ most famous exports, the Peppermint Dragon, the Bouncing Banana Bean, and the Chewbacca Chocolate. These were considered the the most peppery, bouncy, and terrifying candies of the world. Some of their ads include: “A peppermint so peppery it breathes fire in your mouth!” “Bounce and eat, bounce some more, it’s the new Bouncing Banana Bean!” and “The Chewbacca Chocolate will terrorize your taste buds!”   Each of the candies looked like the name. For example, the Peppermint Dragon looked like a white, sparkling dragon. To steal even one piece of these candies would result in serious punishment. However, along with pick-pocketing, Hansel and Gretel were also famous for their bullying, so their punishment would be even worse, because nobody really liked them. Many even hoped it was banishment from Wegitcandy. Because ever since the Sticklebottoms moved in, life in Wegitcandy was never the same.

Hansel, Gretel, and their father Mr. Sticklebottom moved in a couple years ago. Right away, Hansel took advantage of the nicest kids, and sent them crying to their mothers. Gretel charmed the village boys, and rejected them harshly one by one. After all the other village children knew to avoid them, Hansel and Gretel both started insulting and throwing stuff at everyone. The village adults knew how to deal with horrid grown-ups, but children were children, and nobody dared harm them. For a while, everyone hoped that the father would help with the situation, but Mr. Sticklebottom thought Hansel and Gretel were wonderful, innocent children, and he would threaten anybody who would say otherwise.

And now, because of the father, the villagers ended up with a not-so-severe sentence for Hansel and Gretel. The punishment ended up to be Hansel doing 100 push-ups each day for a year, and Gretel sewing a piece of clothing for everyone in the village once a week. Both would have to give up candy for five years. No one was particularly happy about this punishment: the citizens of the village because it was not horrible enough to really make up for the evil deeds done; Hansel because his arms had pea-sized muscles; and Gretel because she despised sewing.

The little tattletales complained to their father about the sentence every night. “Ugh, my arms are sore!” and “Owwie! My fingers are pwicked!” and even, “Oof, Father, I think I broke my wrist doing these push-ups!” Their rather pathetic excuses somehow convinced the father that the villagers were “obviously trying to kill the poor children, and the villagers had to chase the father out of Wegitcandy so nobody would get run over by a horse.

Now, Hansel and Gretel were technically homeless. None of the people of Wegitcandy wanted them running around unsupervised, and nobody wanted to adopt them, but something had to be done. A little girl named Alice suggested that Hansel was sent to the far side of Allucaneat, and Gretel the near side. Many people agreed with this, not including the trouble-makers themselves. So, Hansel and Gretel were both transported on the candy witches’ pet foxes to Allucaneat. As soon as the foxes carrying Hansel and Gretel stepped over Wegitcandy’s boundaries, everyone was immediately relieved. Little did they know, however, that there was going to be trouble, big  trouble, soon . . .

Brother and sister arrived at their destinations. The foxes unceremoniously dumped them, and hurried off to wherever they lived. Hansel and Gretel found that they would be living in a small, regular brick cottages, both built specifically for them. Inside the cottage contained self- refilling food jars, self-replenishing water bottles, self-washing clothing, and any other self-blankity-blank-blank items that the candy witches deemed suitable for living in the woods.  No candy was involved, just so the children wouldn’t be too happy with their conditions.

The witches decided to give weekly visits, to check on how the prisoners were doing. At first, the witches would find Gretel screeching at the top of her lungs for “Someone who can GET ME OUT OF THIS DUMP!!”, and Hansel biting and kicking anybody who came close. After a few days, Gretel eventually gave up screaming and sulkily paced around her cottage. Hansel appeared settled in, however, his evil mind was spinning and weaving a plan. He posted a “Stay AWAY” sign at the front of “his” yard, and got right to work. He wrote up blueprints, built his dastardly weapons, and fine-tuned his rather hard-to-carry-out plan.

Now, you might be wondering why it was Hansel doing this, not Gretel. You see, Hansel had gone to a particular school called “Saint Molasses’ Training School For Horrible and Uneducated Kids”, while Gretel went to “Saint Sweet’s Normal School For Young Lads and Lasses”. The difference in these schools were that Saint Molasses’ had much more vigorous, unpleasant ways of educating children, while Saint Sweet’s was too nice. Therefore, Hansel had gotten more education, and Gretel wouldn’t have understood even a smidge of the technicalities in Hansel’s plan. Barely understood the process of adding, too.

Now, back to young and horrible Hansel. As a reader, you get to know things that many people in the story will not. For example, I am now going to tell you Hansel’s secret and deadly plan; or at least part of it. This scheme revolved heavily on explosive bread crumbs, and Gretel’s help was also involved, so Hansel had to get to Gretel’s cottage soon. It also depended on Hansel’s muscles, but he tried not to think about that. The plan was to carry out the next ‘morrow.

The sun was making it’s slow ascent into the puffy white clouds and the  blue sky. Hansel tugged on his black clothes, although why he would be wearing all black like a ninja in daylight made absolutely no sense. I suppose he wanted to feel like he was a professional. Hansel slowly crept out of the cottage, carrying his secret weapon in a blue-colored sack. He passed the now too cold and wasted porridge resting on the table outside, and made his way toward the trees that grew between his cottage and Gretel’s.

The trees were magical, and their loyalties lied with the candy witches who had nursed them to health when these kinds of trees were almost extinct. The pine dutifully poked Hansel painfully, and the cedar followed instructions by waving its branches all about as to confuse Hansel. These tactics, combined with about 200 other trees, were very successful. However, the trees had forgot one thing. While they were so busy trying to drive Hansel out of the forest, they totally forgot about the part where they were not supposed to lead Hansel to Gretel’s cottage.

Greedy Gretel was playing with un-edible dolls which she had stolen from the witch children who were taking “How to Fit in With Humans” classes. As she was ripping the dolls’ arms apart, she suddenly spotted Hansel emerging from a clump of thrashing branches. With a cry of evil delight, she leapt up and ran over.

Hansel quickly explained the plan to Gretel, who, despite her grades in school, had a very good listening skills when it came to dastardly schemes. After the quick briefing, the plan was put into action. Gretel screamed piercingly, ensuring that the candy witches were distracted. Then, Hansel started running. He sprinted around Allucaneat, spreading his deadly bread crumbs on the way. Fortunately, he got tired after jogging a fourth of the village, and had to stop and rest. Why weren’t the bread crumbs exploded as he went, readers may ask. Well, I have the privilege to tell you. If the crumbs were exploded in small section as Hansel went, then the witches would be able to use magic to quickly fix it up. If the crumbs were exploded in one big instant, then the witches would be overpowered by all the salt in the bread. Yes, Hansel had wickedly and ingeniously added tons of salt --- a candy witch’s worst enemy.

As Hansel made his way around the village at a snail’s pace, the candy witches who visited Gretel had speedily figured out that the two brats were planning something. A young witch, Melissa, hurried around Allucaneat and Wegitcandy to spread the news. All non-magical citizens were to evacuate, as everyone had smartly realized there was something about a bomb in Hansel’s plans. Gretel was recaptured and put into a Cool Whip prison, where she is currently residing as a old woman of age 121.

After Gretel was dealt with, the candy witches started on the immediate problem of bread crumbs. Slow he was, Hansel had spread bread crumbs over half of Allucaneat.  Inexperienced young witches tried magicking the explosives away, and found themselves being banished to Antarctica. The group decided to split in two, one to go after Hansel to see if they could stop him from detonating the crumbs, and another to stay at the village hall and figure out a solution to the problem.

Meanwhile, Hansel was still huffing and puffing and trying to get around the whole of Allucaneat. He had tried to enlist the help of three magical candy pigs, who for some reason thought he was a wolf. Hansel said that later, he would eat them for breakfast. This did not help the cause. Hansel decided evilly that he would explode the bread crumbs around the pigs’ house first. He took out something shaped like a skull and started fiddling with it. Luckily, at this moment the small group of witches arrived. They immediately saw the detonator, and a wise candy witch well-practiced in the art of witchery made the detonator zoom right out of Hansel’s hands with a couple of rock sugar spears. Three other witches bound the villain and cast him to the same jail as his partner in crime: The Cool Whip Prison of Candyzban.

Explosive over-salted bread crumbs, as it turns out, are very easy to get rid of. All you have to is dump sugared pepper on the bread to make the crumb sneeze out the explosive part, which is full of a high-in-allergies metal called Salted Silver. Sugared pepper tends to spread easily, too. The candy witches who stayed at the village hall soon found themselves facing a bunch of harmless bread crumbs, and birds soon started flocking there.

As you can see, all ended well. Several resistant bread crumbs exploded, but there was minimal damage. Soon, both Allucaneat and Wegitcandy were settled, and life went back to what it was before the Evil Sticklebottom Twins. Quiet, pleasant, and sweet.

*******

One day, the Brothers Grimm were looking through history books. They were immensely bored, as that was what happens to one when they look at history. Suddenly, one of the brothers spotted the story of Hansel and Gretel, and of the candy witches. The other brother looked over, and decided that that would make a good story, especially with the witches, candy and bread crumbs.

“Of course, we’re going to have to change it up, “ one brother reminded, “Nobody likes history, and our books wouldn’t have sold at all if we didn’t change the real story up . . . and who likes nice candy witches and quaint little villages anyway?”

Hansel and Gretel were turned into angelic little kids. Candy witches were transformed into one, child-eating witch that reflected the real Hansel and Gretel’s nastiness. Allucaneat, the village, turned into Allucaneat, the house, and Wegitcandy was totally erased.

Parents now tell the Brothers Grimm bestselling story “Hansel and Gretel” to their children at bedtime. If you had heard the story before, you probably had shuddered at the thought of the witch, and gasped at the children’s bravery. You went to bed feeling scared of a creepy witch who would eat you, and dreaming of delicious yet evil candy houses.

But now you know the real story.

A footnote: Wondering what happened to candy witches? Where are they in this modern society? To my knowledge, they hide in the mountains, with their candy houses and all their magic. Which country, I cannot be sure. Wegitcandy is also somewhere, but this is the extent of my knowledge.

I hope you use the truth well, and farewell, dear Reader!