Glenda, the Mediocre Witch

Many years ago in a land far away, a young girl named Glenda sat across the desk from her visibly nervous school guidance counselor.

The counselor rustled her papers and chewed the paint off her pencil. “Can I be brutally honest with you?” she asked.

“I’d prefer you sugar-coat it,” Glenda replied.

“Alrighty then,” the counselor said, “Your prospects are just about nil.  You lack the looks for a fair maiden. You haven’t the smarts for wizardry and given that you flunked phy-ed, forget about a career in agriculture.”

“Have I no options?” Glenda asked.

The counselor picked a chip of pencil off her teeth, “I can think of only one,” she said.

So Glenda changed her major to witchcraft but she was no better at it than anything else.

She couldn’t handle a broom. She forgot her spells. She lacked the heart to scare children and the courage to scare their parents. The only thing she could master was turning things into amphibians – yet she scraped by.

A month prior to graduation, the counselor called her back in.

She was even more nervous.

“You aren’t much of a witch,” she said, chewing her nails, “besides the enlightenment has disrupted our business model and frankly, there is not much I can do for you.”

“How am I going to repay my loans?” cried Glenda.

“About that,” the counselor said, “I might have one opportunity but it isn’t much. There is a kingdom in the far, far north that been without a witch for decades. You will just have to make due.”

***

So Glenda journeyed to the far, far north to revive an abandoned practice.

What she found was worse than anything she imagined. The local population was so poor, so sickly and so devoid of hope that they lacked even the luxury of superstition.

Her office was a mere hovel in the woods – barely worthy of the name. The roof had fallen in, the wicker walls were no more than mouse nests and the hearth,  a pile of rubble.

Undeterred Glenda set about cleaning it up – which all had to be done manually because she never mastered the broom. As she worked, the young prince of a nearby castle rode into her yard.

She was not impressed.

He was short, squat and had hair like a dirty mop.  He couldn’t even sit on a horse properly. He was no prince charming and  wasn’t all that bright either.

Nor was he impressed with her.

But call it what you will, perhaps the magnetism at the bottom of the barrel but both fell instantly and hopelessly in love.

“Well,” she thought to herself, “I guess that worked out.”

***

Soon they were married and would have lived happily ever after – but for one complication.

Within a year, the couple was blessed with a handsome and brilliant baby boy and with each passing year, the child became even more handsome and even more brilliant until it reached the point where neither parent could stand him.

“I am sick of being asked if he is really mine,” wailed the prince, who was now a king.

“And I am sick of the little snot correcting me every time I open my mouth,” griped the witch, who was now the queen.

They both agreed the boy needed a lesson in humility.

“So what are you going to do?” the king asked.

“Me? You are the king,” exclaimed the queen, stating the obvious.

“Yeah but you’re a witch,” said the king.

“Hmmmm….”

Glenda didn’t have to think long about it because as a witch she only knew how to do one thing.

Poof!!

***

Many years later, Glenda stood at the edge of a pond with an awesomely well-mannered, good-looking and intelligent princess from a neighboring kingdom.

The girl was occupying herself by skipping stones when she happened to bounce an exceptionally large one off the head of a frog lurking among the lily-pads.

“Ribbet!” cried the frog.

“Oh dear,” said the princess lifting the stunned frog out of the water.

Something, she didn’t know what, prompted her to gaze deep into its eyes.

“Oh for pity sake,” snarled Glenda, “we are not going through this again.”

Poof!!

“Ribbet!” replied the princess.