There’s just no end to the plums
There must be a thousand hanging from the branches, and if you so much as touch one, twenty of them drop to the ground.
We gather them up, my niece and I, and toss them into big buckets.
She’s eight and staying over with me.
We wash the plums, weigh them, and pack them into sturdy plastic bags.
We take a little trip to the local supermarket to check how much plums actually cost in the shop, and then we set our own price.
We put a table by the garden gate, make a sign and a cash register, display the plums, and play shop.
We get real customers too
After two days of selling plums, we’ve had enough of it.
We count our money and hop on our bikes.
We’re going for ice cream.
The best ice cream maker in the country is just a town away, so that’s perfect.
It’s summer.
The sun is shining.
Deeply satisfied, we sit on a bench in the sun with our ice cream.
We’re looking out at a rather creepy-looking house.
"Who lives there?" my niece asks.
"The witch, I think." I say.
We are in Oudewater after all, so it’s entirely possible.
"Is she a bad witch?”
"I don’t think so."
I tell her about the little door between the alley and the street that we can see, the one she always sneaks through. Mostly at night, when she goes out with her cats.
How they dance among the dandelions in the park during spring. How she grows wild garlic, and how she used to breed purple horses back in the day.
I put on my fairy-tale storytelling voice, making the story a little bit spooky and exciting. I decide to make the witch quite sweet. ‘Cause, why not? Witches already have such a bad reputation around here.
"What’s her name, anyway?" my niece asks.
"Dunno. Hmm. What do you think her name could be?"
"What do you mean, you don't know?”
She looks at me with wide eyes.
“You know everything about her, but you don't know her name?"
"Nah. Just making all of this up, aren’t I?
It's just a story."
"Oh. So you're just full of shit?"
Disappointed, she slides off the bench.
No fantasy stories for my niece.
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