Candy Mountain
Sisel, Liesel, and Penelope were
siblings. At the time of our adventure,
Sisel was ten, the oldest in our group of three. Liesel was nine, but had the maturity and
height of most twelve to thirteen year olds.
And Penelope, well, she was seven and of an average seven year old
height.
It was summer in Austria and the three Glockenspiel children
had played every game they knew in the little field by their house. Liesel had made Penelope so many crowns of
wildflowers that Pen could barely hold her head upright. Not that Liesel herself wanted to make
another, her hands were aching and her pointer fingers stained green from all
the stems.
“There’s nothing to do.” Remarked Sisel, lying on his back
staring blankly up at the drifting clouds.
“We could collect berries.” Liesel answered.
“We picked all the berries months ago.” Sisel said, shooting down Liesel’s
suggestion.
“I bet there are still berries on Candy Mountain.” Penelope piped up.
Candy Mountain, I’m not sure how many of you know about
Candy Mountain. Some children claimed it
was a wonderful place, others said it was the most horrible and dark place
imaginable. Reality was that neither the
children who thought it wonderful, nor the children who thought it horrible knew
anything about it, they had never been.
Sisel, Liesel and Penelope had never been either, so all they knew was
what other similarly ignorant children told them (and this, my young friends,
is no way to learn anything!)
“It’s a four hour journey from here to the brambles,” Sisel
said, in a somewhat discouraging tone, “and there probably aren’t any berries
left there either” he added.
“Only one way to find out.”
Liesel said.
“Yay!! Candy
Mountain!” Pen cheered.
“If we go, and I haven’t said yes yet,” Sisel, being the
oldest knew that he would be held responsible if anything went wrong, or, if
their grandparents (with whom they were staying) ever found out. “If we go,” he began again, “you two will
have to listen to me.”
Grandma Annaliese never said a bad word about Candy Mountain
or the Strega who lived there. Strega,
do you know the term? It’s a kind of witch,
an Italian witch. When they asked
Grandmamma about the Strega, she just shook her head. “There is an Italian woman who lives on the
south-side of the mountain, by the upper-peak.
She and her husband were confectioners in town, but he died in a trolley
accident after the war. That’s all I
know. Whether or not she’s a Strega, I
don’t know about all that.” Their Grandpapa
had stronger feelings on the subject. He
ran messages for Free-Austria, an underground organization that was working
with the British and American allies during the war. He said that it was no coincidence that the
couple moved into town during the height of the war. “Refugees,” he sneered when he said the word,
“that man was a spy and everyone knew it, and as for the wife, she’s the
definition of a Strega. She killed that
little girl with her butterscotches.”
“She didn’t kill that little girl,” Grandma Annaliese
interjected. “If anyone was to blame, it was her own mother. Who gives a child with consumption hard-candy? The child choked while having a coughing fit,
that can hardly be the fault of the candy maker. The child was wasting away, wouldn’t eat or
drink anything, but she had a craving for the candy; and as for the coughing
fit and the consumption, the good-Lord saw fit to give her that. You can’t blame the Italian for the death of
that child.” The children’s grandmother
made her statement with such finality that no one dared put forth any other
comments. The whole town was divided on the subject. And our little trio of siblings, well, they
were divided themselves, Liesel against Sisel, the two of them against Pen, and
they were divided in their own hearts and minds as well.
Some of the kids in town said that the witch had bushes
outside her house that grew bon-bons.
Others said that her house was a real-life version of the witches from
Hansel and Gretel, made entirely of candy.
Still others said that the candy façade was all fake and that bushes
didn’t grow bon-bons but rather poison berries.
“If we go,” Sisel said, “we won’t eat any candy or unknown
berries. Everything we pick we will
bring home to be inspected by Grandmamma.
We’ll pack bread and cheese for our lunch and some cured meat for a
snack. We’ll have to leave by morning
light in order to be back in time for dinner.
Do you two agree to these terms?”
“Yes, I promise to do everything you say. I won’t eat anything other than what we
bring. We’ll just pick the berries and
come home.” Liesel promised.
“I promise too.
Please, please.” Pen begged.
Needless to say, Sisel was persuaded to lead the group up
Candy Mountain in search of berries (and a little adventure) the following
morning. At dinner that night Sisel was
serious, thoughtful, and a little timid around his grandparents. He didn’t like disobeying, or even misleading
them. Liesel was lost in all sorts of
daydreams throughout the meal. Mostly,
she moved her potatoes, peas and gravy around her plate as she stared off out
the window. Pen ate everything. The excitement of the trip only added to
little Penelope’s appetite. She ate her plate
clean, asked for seconds, and when Grandma Annaliese brought out the gooseberry
cobbler, her eyes and smile grew so wide she looked like she was going to fall
out of her chair, she was so happy.
Body fed and teeth brushed, Sisel went off to bed, leaving
the girls to climb the twisting stairs to their room. The girl’s room sat like a hat on the head of
the house, with the chimney rising alongside the upper-room like a plume
sticking in its side, feathering out smoke.
Pen quickly put on her nightgown and dove into her spot on the bottom
bunk. Liesel, slid into her gown and
slowly ascended the ladder to her bed above Pen’s. Dreamily looking out her window at the moon,
Liesel asked Penelope if she thought there really could be, such a thing, as
a house made entirely out of candy.
Silence was her only answer.
Silence interspersed with little snorts and coos, what would sound to
anyone else like a giant mourning-dove-pig, Liesel knew the sound to be Pen
snoring.
Ten can be a tough age; Liesel knew this to be true. She felt as if she was standing on the
threshold of something rather important, but she couldn’t tell if it was
something great or horrible. Liesel
wanted to get lost in the magic of the world like Pen did, but lately, there
was this nagging skepticism that crept in.
‘Bushes full of bon-bons, how deliciously wonderful,’ Liesel thought,
her chest filling with excitement, ‘but that was just a product of someone’s
overactive imagination. Such wonderful
things couldn’t be real.’ And like a
balloon, her chest fell and her hopes deflated.
There were two Liesel’s going on the expedition the next day, the Liesel
who desperately wanted to be the first up the mountain to see the bon-bon
bushes, and the Liesel who knew there was no such thing as bon-bon bushes. Lying on her upper-bunk, both Liesels felt
entirely alone in the quiet of the house.
Between the worrying and dreaming, the three did find
moments of sleep, some more than others.
Until, “Cock-a-doodle-doo.” The
rooster sent all three bolt upright in their beds. It was morning, morning already. Grandma
Annaliese and Grandpa Friedrich always stayed in bed an extra twenty minutes
after the rooster’s crow. The children
had it all timed out. They had their clothes
already set out on their chairs and ready to be thrown on. Liesel being the quietest would stealthily go
into the kitchen and load up on provisions.
Pen would go into the barn and collect the berry-picking buckets off
their hooks and bring them to the meeting point under the apple trees at the
edge of the little farm in the woods.
Sisel, being the oldest, would write the note. It would only say that they went in search of
some berries and that they would see them when they returned from town. Every Saturday the children’s grandparents
took a journey into town to do their shopping, a little butter, flour, and town
gossip to last them the rest of the week.
This was an all-day event, so if all went well, no one would know if the
children were gone an hour or seven, they were counting on this.
At the end of phase one, everything was going as
planned. Liesel had her stash of food and
was sitting beside Pen, both on an upside down pail, with an empty pail beside
them waiting for their brother. The girls
didn’t have to wait long before they saw Sisel trudging across the field. While he had nothing in hand, he seemed to be
carrying the weight of the world. With a
nod, signaling to the girls that the deed had been done, he grabbed the handle
of his bucket and began the journey into the woods.
As they walked, the branches breaking beneath their feet
sent small critters scurrying away from the band of human intruders. I use the term human here merely as a
technicality. The first two in the group
looked decidedly human, but as for the third, she appeared to be one of the
wild beasts scampering about. Had she
not been wearing an embroidered dress and bonnet, it would have looked as if
the older children were being chased by a fox or some other woodland creature. Sisel led the way, sticking to the path that
led straight up the steep slope. Liesel
followed closely behind her brother, stepping only where he did, in order to
avoid dislodging a stone onto her little sister below. The youngest in our group went left, then
right, looked up, then back down the hill, taking everything in from all sides
and senses as she followed the calls of her siblings ahead of her.
After the first ten minutes Pen complained that she was
hungry. A piece of bread was pulled out
of Liesel pack and passed back. After
another ten minutes, Pen declared that she was still hungry and wondered if
they were going to be taking a break anytime soon, since her feet were hurting
as well. The notion of a break was
quickly shot down, but they did appease her with a hunk of cheese and another
bit of bread. The children progressed in
this way for the next few hours, the older two marching on with their younger
sister munching and trudging behind.
The siblings did stop for a bit in a clearing about half-way
up the mountain to have a proper lunch and rest. Penelope was grateful for this, but could not
understand why her portion had been decreased based on her earlier snacks.
