Once upon a time there was a lonely old lady. She had small, slanty eyes of the blackest coals. A long, crooked, pointy nose with a large hairy wart on one side. She had tired weather beaten, wrinkled skin and long straggly grey hair that she tried to hide underneath a tall pointy black hat. Time had not been kind to her. All the children laughed at her and the adults looked away with fear or disgust, she never was quite sure which. So she decided to leave the town she called home and make a house of her very own in the middle of the woods.

She wanted to build a house that children would love. A house where they would want to come and play. A place where the mums would gather and drink tea. A place that they would be her friends, the children she never had.

So she began to build the perfect house. The sweetest house. Walls made of candy and doors made of chocolate. Windows made of sugar paper, a roof made of biscuit with candyfloss smoke billowing from a shortbread chimney. Sugar cane flowers and a liquorice fence. But the perfect plan, the perfect house didn't make the perfect dream. Now the villagers called her a witch and no one came by. She was lonelier than before, with only trees for company and only birds to watch. The days turned in to weeks and the weeks in to months. Until one day she saw a boy and girl outside the window, nibbling on a sugar cane mushroom. They looked so happy. At that moment all her hard work and waiting seemed worthwhile.

"At last I have someone to keep me company," she thought happily to herself.

She straightened her skirt and smoothed her hair. Then with her biggest smile she opened the door.

Oh the screams, the looks of terror and fear. She grabbed them both and carried them inside.

"If only they can see my lovely house and talk to me for awhile. They will see I'm nice and tell everyone else. Then I'll always have visitors and never be lonely again," the poor old lady thought.

"Just sit awhile," she said to the children.

"Please don't cry. I won't hurt you."

She turned around and opened the oven.

"Children like biscuits" she thought. "The smell of freshly baked biscuits will calm them down. Gingerbread men I think. With raisin eyes and an icing smile."

As the lonely old lady bent down to light the oven, the nasty, cruel, frightened little girl pushed her in and shut the door.

"But I only wanted to be your friend!" she screamed in terror and pain as the flames leapt around her head.

Later that day a young boy and girl sat on their mother's lap, telling her how bravely they stopped the wicked witch from cooking them both alive in her oven.

And everyone, (well almost everyone) lived happily ever after.

The End.