It was a dark and stormy night.  With each lightning strike the trees froze in eldritch poses as they advanced slowly on the lonely house.

It was a dark and stormy night.  With each thunderclap the werewolves howled in the forest.

It was a dark and stormy night.  Lots of scary stuff was happening in the woods as the thunderstorm raged at the ground, throwing thunderbolt and lightning into the earth.

In the little house by the forest, little Anne hid under the blankets in abject terror.

It wasn’t the thunderstorms that frightened her.  Oh no.  Only silly babies were scared of thunder and lightning.  I mean, what was the worst it could do?  Strike the roof of her home and burn the house to the ground with her inside.  That was nothing, not for a girl like Anne.  No, there were far more scary things afoot on this evil night.

Anne was all alone in the house.  Her Mummy and Daddy, though they said they loved her, were really only looking after her long enough for her to grow big enough to eat.  Because you know what they say, a loved little girl is a tasty little girl.  But on this occasion they had left her all alone in the big, empty, dark, creaky, scary house.  They were off at a special grown-up party where they gossiped about how terrible little children were, and argued about who had the nastiest little child.

Which meant that Anne was all alone in the huge, echoing, creepy, terrifying house.  And outside, just a few yards from the garden fence, was the forest!

Oh, I can see by your look you don’t think that there is anything frightening about a forest.  You imagine it is just trees, where little birds flit, singing songs to the fluffy bunnies?  Perhaps you’d have a picnic in a shady glade, laughing at the butterflies lightly settling on the summer flowers?

Oh, no.  Not this forest, sister.  In this forest the birds try to eat the bunnies before the bunnies can eat the birds.  If a butterfly landed on a flower, the flower would just gobble it up.  This is a bad forest.  An evil forest.  A hungry forest.  Hungry … for blood!

Now, if grown-ups knew about just how evil the forest was, why, they’d just come along in their bulldozers and tractors and turn it into a shopping mall.  So the forest was clever.  It would only attempt to capture tasty, little, nasty children when there were no grown-ups about.  Like the dark and stormy night I am telling you about.

So, between lightning flashes, the trees would drag themselves closer and closer to Anne’s house. She could hear them between thunder claps.  CRASH, drag, drag.  CRASH, drag, drag.  Closer and closer.

BANG!  That was the garden fence.  One was in the garden now, getting closer to Anne’s bedroom window.  She could hear the rain splatter against its trunk.  She could hear the wind whistle through its branches.  She risked a peek over the edge of the blanket.  Just at that moment a bolt of lightning lit up the outside like a paparazzi’s flash gun at a nightclub.  Etched in black and white across the ceiling, Anne saw the silhouette of a bare and twisted tree.  It was here!  It was right outside the fragile glass of her window.

The girl-eating tree tapped at the window, scraping its twigs over the glass.  “Little girl, little girl, open the window and come to us,” it hissed.

“Go away, I’m not afraid of you,” called out Anne, though she was very afraid indeed.

“Little girl, little girl, come sit on our branches, and we will show you the whole world from up high in the sky,” came the hissing.  This, of course, was a lie.  They just wanted Anne to sit on their branches so that they could rip her into pieces and gobble her up.

Anne sat up.  “Could I really see the whole world?”

“Yes, yes.  Come to me and I will show you the four corners of the world, and its edges too.”

Anne got out of bed and stood on the carpet.  “And would I really be high up in the sky?”

“Yes, yes.  As high as the clouds, as high as the birds, as high as the moon itself.”

Anne walked towards the window and looked out at the tree.  “I don’t believe you.  You don’t look very tall to me.”

“I am taller than a house, I am taller than a telegraph pole, I am taller than the tallest thing you can imagine.”  And the tree stretched itself up to show her.

Anne put her hand to the window latch.  “You are quite tall, I suppose, but I’m sure I’ve seen taller trees.”

“Taller?  Taller than me?  Impossible!” hissed the tree, and stretched himself to its very highest reach.  “I am the tallest tree in the forest!”

At that point there was a blinding flash, and down from the heavens streaked a bolt of lightning, looking for something tall to earth itself on.  With a bang that threw Anne to the floor, the tree exploded in a ball of flame and woodchips.

“The tallest,” agreed Anne, picking herself up from the floor.  “And the stupidest.”

Anne jumped back into bed, safe in the knowledge that all she had to deal with now was the possibility of the house catching fire.

But though she had defeated the tallest (and possibly the stupidest) tree in the forest, Anne knew that this wasn’t the end of it.  Oh, no.  Because outside, beyond the broken-down fence, lurked hundreds of more trees in the evil forest.  On days when dark clouds scudded low across the sky, Anne would hear the trees hissing out for vengeance for their fallen comrade.  If she stole a glance in their direction, she would see them lean towards her, branches reaching out like a million grasping fingers.  Just like that tree there.