Once upon a time, in a quiet little town,
There was a quaint little school for quaint little girls.
They played with their dolls and wore shining ribbons in their hair.
They skipped and they twirled and they jumped proper rope,
and giggled at boys from the school across town.
But among them was a peculiar little girl,
who wore little black boots and a black woolen dress,
with a single black curl peeking out from beneath a little black hat.
She did not wear ribbons,
or giggle, or twirl.
She did not jump rope.
But knots.
Knots she could tie.
She tried to play dolls,
but the other girls would shriek,
“How creepy it is for just a head to be a doll!”
A witch! they cried.
A freak! they whispered.
But Mimsy didn’t mind.
In her little bag of heads,
she had all the friends she could need.
Their eyes never laughed.
Their lips never lied.
And with no legs,
never could they leave.
But then one autumn day, when the air turned to smoke,
and the trees lost their leaves like forgotten old cloaks,
a new girl arrived with a suitcase and scarf,
and eyes like the sky when it’s thinking too hard.
Her name was Annette.
She wore secondhand shoes,
and her secondhand doll had been patched up with thread.
“Hello,” she said to the other girls on the walk,
but their noses they turned and quickened their talk.
She sat by herself at the edge of the yard,
and ate all her lunch from a dented tin box.
But Mimsy sat too, just a few steps away,
and offered a friend with one glassy blue eye.
“Her name is Lenore,” said Mimsy, quite plain.
“She doesn’t talk much, but she listens just fine.”
Annette didn’t scream, or scoff, or turn up her nose.
She just brushed back the hair from Lenore’s dusty cheek.
“She’s pretty,” said Annette. “Did you make her yourself?”
And Mimsy smiled and said,
“With a little help from my friends.”
Every day after that, they’d sit in the grass,
and shared half their sandwiches, cookies, and laughs.
But the other girls watched.
And they didn’t approve.
Two freaks together?
This just wouldn’t do.
So they followed Annette
after class, down the hall,
and closed in around her, cutting off her escape.
“You’re odd,” said the first.
“A freak,” said her friend.
“You’re just like the witch, and two there can’t be.”
With smirks and with sneers,
with a push and a shove,
Annette fell down and bumped her head.
They pulled at the threads and yanked at the patches.
The stitches gave way and her laces came loose.
Her sleeve tore wide and her doll split apart,
spilling its fluff, its pieces and parts.
Then off they ran, laughing and making fun
of the new girl Annette,
And her secondhand clothes,
Her secondhand toys,
And her secondhand friend.
When Mimsy stopped by,
With her dolls and a game,
She saw poor Annette,
And the state she was left.
Not a word was said,
Not a moment was lost.
She turned on her heel
Down the hall she then stalked.
She stuck to the shadows,
Past the doors she did creep,
To the kitchen she snuck,
To her work she did set.
She gathered her wares from shelves up high,
Sugar and spice, and nothing else nice,
Vinegar and salt, and an old pickle’s jar,
If a witch is what they want, a witch is what they’ll get.
With the sun’s last breath and the moon’s first shine,
she set to her task with her knots and her brine.
Then as the moon did wane and the morning grew near,
there was one last thing she had left to prepare.
Annette still slept when Mimsy first arrived.
So with needle and thread, she stitched and set right
the patches and fluff that were lost in the fight.
And before she departed, she left a small gift.
From her bag she reached and placed on the stand
a few new dolls Mimsy had made just this night.
To keep Annette company.
To help her feel safe.
With glassy blue eyes
and ribbons for hair, they were all the friends
she ever could need.
Mason Beck Fiction 