The Disastrous Gift

By: Olivia Migliorisi

I, Mary Smith, love baking. I always have. One Christmas eve, we were opening presents, and my grandmother had just given me a small little package. “Wow, Grandma. What is it?” I asked.

“Open it. You are going to love it!”

So, I did. I really wish I had not though. I got a small container of gingerbread mix. My grandmother was right. I loved it! Who knew it could change my life forever?

The next day, well, after Christmas day, I opened the mix. The sweet smell of ginger filled the air around me. I read the instructions:

1. Put 11/2 cup of water per gram
2. Mix well
3. Set oven to 570o F
4. Put in cookies for 1 hour
5. Enjoy!

“Hmmm.” I thought to myself. “What an ODD recipe! Oh well. I never tried it before. Maybe it will be better!” I was… half right.

When I took them out of the oven, I saw they were golden-brown. Not burned at all! I mean, the dough was so wet and sticky, that I was SURE it would come out bad. I had the frosting all ready in a bowl. After I frosted the first cookie, I tasted it. It was amazing! I ran out of the kitchen to give my mom a taste.

“Well! That is simply divine!”

“Thanks, Mom!”

“How many more do you have?”

I counted in my head, trying to recall how much the mix made. “Five more.” I said finally.

When I got downstairs, I saw that one of my cookies was missing. At first I thought nothing of it, and continued to frost the rest of my cookies. I figured my dad or sister had eaten it. Then, I heard a small snicker. I looked around. Climbing out the window was my missing cookie!

I ran after yelling. “Come back, Cookie! I don’t want to hurt you! If you want, I won’t even eat you! Just come back please!”

At one point, I needed a break. The little gingerbread looked at me with his little gingerbread head and stuck out his little gingerbread tongue (which I don’t even remember making) and ran with his little gingerbread legs faster than ever. Then, he disappeared into the forest.

Fortunately for me, it snowed and I was able to see his little gingerbread tracks in the deep snow. I followed them into a clearing. There, I saw something I thought I never would see. My grandmother. I gasped. “Grandma?”

There she was, outside a little shack with boxes of the gingerbread mix tins. My gaze drifted to another house. I heard muffled screams and through a window, I saw my grandmother. I had two? The little gingerbread looked at me and screamed something that sounded like gibberish, but I figured it was just some kind of secret gingerbread language.

The look on my grandmother‘s face was pure terror. As I ran to help her, the “look alike witch” saw me. She smiled deviously.

“Well, well, well! What do we have here? Another child? Going to free your grandmother, I presume? Well, we can’t have that!”

She took what looked like a wand out of her pocket, flicked it, and sent me flying into a chair by a fire. The flames roared. I screamed. “Now, now.” The witch said. “No need to worry. It will all be over soon!” “NO!” I screamed. “Help me! Somebody! Anybody!”

“Ha! Silly little girl you are! You are in a force field! No one can hear you, and you can’t get out!”

I screamed, thinking she was going to cook me and eat me or something, but no.

“So,” The witch said. “Are you going to cooperate with me or not?”

“Never!”

I panicked. Started sobbing.

“My GOD! All you have to do is agree to become my gingerbread man minion! Or say goodbye to your grandmother.”

“Ok. Ok! And if I am your minion?”

“Well, you will replace all of the gingerbread mixes in the store with these!” The witch held up a cup of gingerbread mix. The same one my grandmother had given me!

“It makes such good cookies. Then, one hops off the plate and runs back to me. The person follows it and then the rest of the gingerbread men jump off the plate and come over here, to my secret hideout, where I am, waiting to trap you and EAT YOU! No. I am just kidding. Small children taste awful. As if you are eating a piece of rotten meat. Grownups taste even worse!”

I make a face. “So” I say. “I become one of your little minions who replace gingerbread mix with evil mix, and you let my grandma live?”

“Well, yes. You will be immortal, but you will also be a snack. Your grandmother will have her memories about you erased. The same with the rest of your family.”

“But if I am immortal, you can’t eat me!”

“No no. I can eat you as many times as I want. You will just pop back up in front of me. I can also crumble you up, break you in half, burn you, freeze you, soak you in the river over there.”

“Ok. Ok. I will be your little minion.” I say.

The witch starts to cast a spell.

“Gingerbreadius manies! One gal, one treat. Gingerbredius manies. Immortala!”

I feel a tingling in my body. I float up and am wrapped in a golden chain. I can’t move. I am stuck. I can feel myself changing. I feel the crumbling of my new gingerbread body. Then, I fall down. I look up and see the witch smiling at me. Me, her new gingerbread minion.

“Now, gingerbread.” The witch says, handing me a stack of Evil Mix. “Go place these on the shelves at Stop and Shop!”

I go. I can not do anything else. She took away my mind. My free will. I have to do everything she tells me to. She controls me. She is in charge.

“Yes, Minerva.”

THE END