All day I am on my own in the cage in the kitchen. I eat the cake and the candy. I play with the marbles Papa gave me. There are bones on the floor of the cage. They are small and dry and grey. Some are almost as black as my fingers. I think they are very old. I do not know what animal they belong to. I use them to make tunnels for my marbles. I try to roll the marbles through the tunnels. I practise and practise. Papa told me it is good to practise. He tells me to practise my reading and my writing. Mama used to help me. But Papa is too busy doing things for Marta. Greta helps me now.

I wonder what Greta is doing with the witch. I hope she is all right. I hope she will come back and see me soon. But it is nearly dark when she comes. She has more cake and water. I am glad because I am hungry and very thirsty.

“I don’t like it here. When can we go?” I ask Greta.

She shakes her head. Her hair is like black smoke. “I don’t know, Hansi. I have to find the key.”

She looks down into the cage. “You’ve been playing marbles.”

“Yes,” I say.

She cocks her head at the bones. “What are those?”

“Bones,” I say. “I’ve been using them for my marbles.”

“Bones!” Greta says. She kneels down and looks closer. She frowns. She picks up the smallest blackest bone.

“Hansi,” she says, “if the witch asks you to show her your finger, you must hold out this bone. OK?”

I smile. “Is it a game?” I ask.

Greta nods. “It is, Hansi. But only you and I know it. Understand?”

“Yes,” I say. But I don’t really. It seems strange to play a game with a wicked witch.

The next morning the witch does come and she does ask me to show my finger. I push the little black bone through the door and she takes hold of it. She wrinkles her eyes behind her spectacles. I can tell she does not like what she feels and sees.

“I will get Greta to bring more cakes and candy,” she says. “You must eat more.”

“Why must I eat more?” I ask Greta when she comes with the food.

“You mustn’t, Hansi,” she says. “You must eat only enough that your tummy doesn’t hurt. But no more. The rest you must hide in your knapsack. When the witch asks for your finger, you must show her the bone.”

“Again?” I say.

“Yes,” says Greta. “And again and again. Every day.”

“I do not understand, Greta,” I say.

“Trust me, Hansi,” she says and she kisses me on the forehead.

I ask her what she does all day. She tells me that she has to help the witch with her spells.

“She has lots of creatures in jars and tanks and cages,” she says. “She uses them for her spells and potions.”

“How does she use them?” I ask. I think I may not want to know, but I think I must.

“It’s horrible, Hansi,” Greta says. She shuts her eyes tight for a moment as if there is something she does not want to see. “She cuts them up. Yesterday she chopped off a rabbit’s foot and a rat’s tail. She cut a chicken’s throat and let its blood pour into her cauldron. I have to clear up the mess and stir her stinking potions.”

“Oh,” I say. I feel my lip twitch and I can’t stop it.

Greta puts her arms around me through the bars. “It will be OK, Hansi, I promise.” She pushes away so that she can look into my eyes and I see the scars on her arm again. “I’ll find the key. Believe me?”

I nod. “Yes,” I say. But I do not know how Greta will find the key if the witch does not tell her where it is. I do not understand why the witch keeps me in this cage. And I do not know why Greta has scars on her arms.

I do not like the nights, sleeping on the floor of my cage all alone. At least I have my blanky and Mama’s wooden cross as comfort. I hold them close to my heart and I try to think of good things, fun times, nice places. I try to think of how it was when Mama was alive. When Papa was kind and happy. When he called Greta his angel. I think about picnics in the forest. When Papa showed us the little fawns hiding in the bushes and Mama sang sweet songs. She sang always, even when she was sick and could not get out of bed. In the dark on my own I think I can hear her voice and I fall asleep.

The days come and go – two, three. I am not sure how many. I play with my marbles and I eat the cake that Greta brings. But I do not eat it all, because she told me not to. Each morning the witch orders me to show her my finger and I hold out the smallest bone. She tuts and humphs. Her face wrinkles like screwed up paper.

“Give him more cake and chocolate,” she tells Greta. “I want him plump.”

“Why does the witch want me to be plump?” I ask Greta. My body is plump already. Mama used to pinch my cheek and call me her sugar dumpling.

Greta frowns. She is not plump. Her fingers are as skinny as the bone I showed the witch. I see it as she reaches between the bars to take my hand.

“Hansi, I am going to tell you something terrible,” she says. “You must be brave.”

“I’ll be brave, Greta,” I say. “What is it? Tell me.”

“The witch wants to eat you,” says Greta. “That is why she wants to make you plump.”

I stare at Greta. A whimper is trying to sneak out of my chest into my mouth. I swallow to catch it. But my heart is jumping.

Greta squeezes my hand. “I won’t let her eat you,” she says. “I will make a plan and you must be ready to help me.”

“What plan? How will I help you?”

“I don’t know, Hansi. But I will.” Her eyes are dark burrows. “Remember Marta? She wanted to hurt us, but I made a plan, didn’t I? We stopped her, didn’t we?”

I nod, but Marta wasn’t a witch, I think. She had no magic spells to protect her.

“The witch is cunning and she has powers,” says Greta as if she can read what I am thinking. “It won’t be easy. But I will die to save you if I have to, Hansi.”

I cannot hold back the whimper now. It jerks out in a sob. My eyes are watery.

“Don’t say that, Greta,” I whine. “You can’t die. You mustn’t die.”

She pulls me close and bends down to kiss my head through the bars.

“I love you, Hansi,” she whispers.

“I love you, Greta,” I say. I want to ask her about the scars but she puts her fingers to her lips.

“Shhhh,” she says.

When Greta has gone I sit in a corner of my cage with my blanky and Mama’s cross and with my eyes shut tight. I do not want to see the bars, I do not want to see the kitchen with its big oven. And I do not want to see the bones on the floor around me, because I know what they are. I know they are not animal bones. And I am scaredy.

***

Tell us: would you like a big sister like Greta?