The Pumpkin and the Princess

The Pumpkin and the Princess.

Part of the Halloween series

 

Once upon a time a beautiful little princess went to stay with her Granny. While she was there she did as any little princess would, she looked in all the nooks and crannies of her Grannies house. She opened all the cupboard doors and  peered right into the back of every one. She looked past the packets and pots, she looked past the tins and tomatoes and then she looked past the spoons and spaghetti. She even looked past the carrots (which were grannies favourites) and the cumin seeds. She found a bowl of dried apricots hiding behind the almond marzipan, she giggled happily and took two full, plump apricots and put them into her mouth. With one juicy, plump apricot tucked into each cheek granny thought the princess had found some magic and turned herself into a hamster, because a hamster with full cheeks is exactly what the little princess looked like! As the little princess chewed on her apricots she became tired of grannies cupboards and began wondering what else she could do. Granny began shooing the princess out of the way and closing all the cupboard doors. As she closed the doors she reached into the cupboards and straightened every thing princess had moved. Granny used to say ‘’every thing has a place and every thing in it’s place’’. Princess didn’t really know what this meant but she did know granny had to have every thing in a special place and if something was not in its special place granny would get very upset.

 

And that’s when princess spied the big round orange ‘thing’ on the top shelf of the very last cupboard to get tidied and closed by Granny.

‘’Oh Granny, Oh Granny, what is that beautiful, big orange ‘thing’……………is it a ball??’’, She asked.

‘’No’’, said granny, ‘’this is my Halloween Pumpkin’’

‘’Halloween Pumpkin’’, said the princess, ‘’What is a Halloween Pumpkin Granny?’’

And that is when granny began to show the little princess what to do with a Halloween pumpkin.

 

Granny sat out the Halloween Pumpkin on the orange tiles of her kitchen table, and then she went to her cupboards and fetched one big spoon, three bowls and two very sharp knives, one big sharp knife and one small sharp knife. The little princess watched every thing and wondered what Granny was going to do, she knew she was not allowed to touch the knives so she gathered the bowls together and set them before her. Next Granny fetched a big black pen, the sort that if you get it on your clothes it doesn’t come off, Princess knew she should not play with that either so she just sat and wondered  what Granny was going to do next. And then granny started to draw on the pumpkin, she drew a smiley, funny face with two big teeth in its mouth.

When Granny finished drawing she showed it to the little princess and they both laughed at the strange funny face. And that’s when granny started to use the knives, she used the big knife to break the tough skin of the pumpkin and started cutting around the shapes of the face. After a while Granny swapped the big knife for the smaller knife and began cutting carefully around the smaller shapes in the face. When granny had finished cutting out the face on the pumpkin she drew a zig-zag line around the top of the pumpkin above the face, she cut all the way around until the top of the pumpkin came right off like a lid. And that is when granny said it was time Princess started to help.

The little princess didn’t really know what she could do because she knew she couldn’t use the knives, and she knew she couldn’t draw with the big black pen; she didn’t know what she could do. And then………..Granny started to scoop the insides of the pumpkin out with the spoon. Granny explained that the insides of the pumpkin had to go into the three bowls, but they had to go in to these bowls in a special way. ‘’Oh Dear’’, thought the little Princess, ‘’this is more of Grannies everything has its place and every thing in its place’’, but she sat and watched anyway.

Granny explained that most of the pumpkin could be cooked and eaten and that part needed to go into the big bowl, the seeds could be roasted and eaten like sweeties and they had to go into the small bowl and every thing that was left over could go into the old plastic bowl and fed to grannies composter that she kept in her garden. Princess had watched Granny feed the composter before and granny had explained that if the composter was fed all year next year it would give granny lots of good soil for the garden.

 

The little princess wanted to help, she scooped and scooped and once the inside started to come away from the hard skin of the pumpkin she put both of her little hands through the hole in the top and pulled every thing out. It took quite a long time to scoop every thing out, it was a big pumpkin and very full. Her hands were very wet and sticky but she didn’t mind, she thought it was fun pulling the insides out of the pumpkin head (Princess and Granny started calling the pumpkin ‘Pumpkin Head’ because that is what he looked like). Princess still wasn’t sure what granny was going to do with Pumpkin head once he was finished but it didn’t matter, she was having to much fun taking the sticky orange mess out and sorting it into three bowls.

 

Once Pumpkin Head was totally empty they both went out to grannies garden and fed the left over pumpkin to Grannies composter. While they were out in the garden Princess noticed some changes. There were tiny bright red apples lying under the tree. Granny explained that the strong winds that whistled around the house the night before had shaken all the apples off the tree before they could grow any bigger. Princess thought it was a shame to leave them lying on the ground. She collected them all up and put them into the old bowl they had used to feed the composter with. Then as she looked around the garden she noticed more changes, she saw that the pretty white and pink flowers that grew all over grannies hedge had gone and in their place there were funny shaped red berries. Granny told her not to eat the berries, granny said they were not called berries they were called rose hips and  she was allowed to pick them off the hedge and bring them indoors with the tiny apples if she wanted too. Granny thought maybe she could find a use for the rose hips and the apples later.

 

It was almost time for princess to go home but before she did she put tiny red apples and the rose hips down onto the orange tiled table and looked across the room at Pumpkin man. Granny had set Pumpkin head away from the table and was busy putting candles inside his empty head. Princess wondered what Granny was going to do next. Then granny turned off the lights, it was late afternoon and there was very little sunshine left to light the room, it became quite dim inside grannies Kitchen.

 

And then Granny made magic, she lit the candles inside pumpkin Head and the whole kitchen turned a lovely glowing orange. Princess stood and gazed into Pumpkin heads bright flickering head, she loved what they made made that afternoon.

 

And the tiny red apples and rosehips………………Granny said that was another story for another day

 

The end

full size photographs here

http://forgetmenot525.multiply.com/photos/album/196/The_Pumpkin_and_the_Princess_illustrations