The Toffee Apple Tree

Once upon a time, in the corner of a field, grew a toffee apple tree and, every Autumn, its fruit would ripen and kids would go into the field and pick its sticky sweet fruit and climb in its branches and run and play all round about it.

But then, one day, a witch was flying past the field on her broom when she saw the tree and when she saw it, she saw dollar signs in front of her eyes and heard the jingle of coins.

“What a waste”, she said, “All those sweet delicious toffee apples being picked for free when I could sell those toffee apples to children instead and make lots of money”.

And so she bought up the field in which the toffee apple tree grew and, waving her wand, put a magical wall all around it, with barbed wire and guarded by fierce black cats and ginger bread men dressed like soldiers with scowling faces so that kids could not come into the field and steal what she saw as her property.

However, because the kids no longer came into its field and climbed its branches and ran and played round about it, the toffee apple tree started to feel lonely and sad and when it felt lonely and sad its toffee apples stopped growing.

“Oh what’s the point in my lovely toffee apples if I can’t give them away to the children”, it said gloomily.

And when the toffee apple tree got sad all the flowers in the field that were its friends felt sad and they didn’t want to grow any more either and soon there wasn't a single flower left in the field.

However, when the witch saw that the tree wasn’t producing any toffee apples she felt like she’d been cheated.

“Why that old trees good for nothing and this field has become barren too”, she said, “What a waste of money”.

So then the witch tried to sell the land but because nothing wanted to grow upon it she couldn’t so she just went away and left it.

And when she left, her magic left with her and the magical wall that she had put round the field; the barbed wire; the fierce black cats and the gingerbread soldiers all started to fade and vanish.

And when the wall disappeared the children came back into the field to play and run around and when this happened the Toffee apple tree, seeing the children and hearing their laughter, became happy again and when it became happy its toffee apples started to grow once more and when all the other flowers in the field saw that the toffee apple tree was happy again they became happy again as well and started to bloom and grow.

And, before long, all was as it had been before the witch had arrived; the field was bright and beautiful; the toffee apple tree was full of sweet toffee apples and the children were happy and thankfully, because the witch never came back, it remained that way ever after.