Andy Stanton

The Old Well

In the middle of the village green there was an old well, made of bricks with a sloping wooden roof half-covered in moss. To draw the water up you turned a rusty iron handle. It was just like a well in a fairy tale. One summer’s evening I was taking Buster for a walk when I heard a voice.

‘Help!’

I looked around, but apart from me and Buster, the green was deserted.

‘Down here,’ said the voice.

With a strange feeling in my stomach I walked towards the well in the fading light, Buster following at my heels.

Winning entry from Kit Moore-Lambe, aged 8 from Caernarfon

There was the tiniest pixie you had ever seen. He was chained up by his wrist, sitting on a ledge down the well. What could I do? I shone my torch at the pixie.

‘Hello, looks like you need help,’ I said.

‘To help me, you need to get the tinniest key for the lock on this chain’, he said.

‘Where can I find it?’

‘The last time I saw it, The Witch of The Dark Wood threw the key into the well down there in that gloopy green water’.

I had to think hard how to get it. It was getting dark. I winched up the old wooden bucket. Buster was our only chance.

‘Jump into the bucket Buster’, I said, and then I winched the bucket down. Down the well, I heard a different voice this time. ‘Hee, hee, hee. I have your dog now, hee, hee, hee’.

Oh I couldn’t believe it, the pixie is the Witch of The Dark Wood.

‘I lied to you. Hee, hee, hee’, she said.

Buster, Buster are you alright? I said.

‘Woof, woof’, he replied.

‘Why do you want my dog’, I said.

‘I think that he will be rather tasty’, she said.

‘Noooooo, leave him alone’. What could I do?

I know, the witch really hates water. I shall go to the stream by the well. There I found an old metal container, filled it with water and went back to the well.

‘Leave my dog alone’, I said, as I threw the water on top of her.

She coughed and spluttered and disappeared in cloud of green smoke.

‘I will winch you up Buster’.

’Woof, Woof ’, came the reply.

Buster looked happy to be out of the well.

As we ran home, I am sure I heard a chuckle coming from the well.

‘We won’t be going back this way again’, I said to Buster.