Chapter One - The Hundred-Year Alarm Clock

“Brring, brring, brring, clang, clang, cling!" cried the Hundred-Year Alarm Clock. "Wake a wake up, it's time to get up!"

Singra stirred in her bed and cautiously opened her left eye. Then she opened her right eye.

"Brring, brring, brring, clang, clang, cling!" the Hundred-Year Alarm Clock cried again.

"Oh, do be quiet," grumbled Singra as she sat up in bed and stretched her long skinny arms above her head.

Closing her mouth with a snap, which brought her ugly hooked nose close to her uglier hooked chin, the old hag spoke to the Hundred-Year Alarm Clock.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"One hundred years, two minutes, and twenty-five seconds," the Clock answered in its monotonous tick-tocking voice. "It took two minutes and twenty-five seconds to wake you."

"Enough of your prattle," the woman said. "I feel rested after my hundred-year nap. But there is work to do."

Flinging back the patchwork quilt that covered her bed, Singra got up and put on her long white dress, high red shoes, and tall, pointed red hat. When she was dressed, she looked just like a witch, for witches always wore something white, the magic color. She was, of course, a witch-Singra, the Wicked Witch of the South.

Singra hurried into the kitchen, for she was hungry. Who would not be after sleeping for one hundred years, two minutes, and twenty-five seconds? She lighted a fire in the huge fireplace that nearly filled one end of the small room, and looked about for the kettle. It was on a table beside the door. Lifting the kettle, Singra found that it was very light.

"Ah, empty," she grumbled as she peeked into it. "I'll have to fill it from my well."

The door was bolted with three heavy iron bolts which the old woman had difficulty in moving. Rust had collected on them over the years, but with much tugging and struggling, Singra managed to slide back each of the heavy iron bars, and pull open the creak-ing door. The sunlight that flowed into the room almost blinded the old witch.

"Bah, sunshine!" she exclaimed. "It's much nicer at night. Why must that hateful sun shine down on me?"

Muttering and grumbling to herself, she took a pail from a hook on the wall and hobbled out of the but toward the well. She hooked the bucket to a chain that was fastened to a windlass, and lowered it by cranking a handle at one side of the well.

She then had to crank slowly, groaning with each turn of the handle, to draw the full pail up again. At last the bucket came into sight, and she grasped it and drew it toward her. As she lifted it from the hook, a little of the liquid slopped over the side onto the ground, staining it red. For Singra had not drawn a pail of water, but a pail full of red ink from her Inkwell.

Smiling sourly to herself, she said, "This should make me a good cup of red herbal tea."

She staggered back to the kitchen with her heavy pail of ink, rebolted the door, and soon had the kettle filled and hanging over the fire. Rummaging through the bread box brought to light nothing but a few moldy crusts of bread that were not fit to eat. Next Singra opened the cupboard doors, and looked for food, but there was not a bite to be had. The old witch scowled her blackest scowl, for she wanted something more to break her hundred-year fast than a cup of tea brewed with red ink.

The old woman hobbled back into her bedroom and began searching through the drawers of the highboy that stood against the wall.

"Where can it be? Where can it be?" she kept mumbling to herself as she went on looking. But whatever it was that the old woman sought was not to be found in the highboy. Next she turned to the closet from which she had taken her clothes. Her search here, too, was fruitless. In disgust the witch flopped down on a rickety old chair with such force that she broke off one of the legs and fell to the floor. This indignity put her into such a rage that she picked up the broken chair and flung it out of the open window where it fell to the ground with a splintering crash.

"Where did I put it before I went to sleep?" she said to herself. "That hateful Glinda and her sleepy spells! I'll get her yet!" Her brows were wrinkled with the effort of thinking, and she tapped her pointed toe on the floor.

"Put what, may I ask?" ticked the Hundred-Year Alarm Clock.

"Well, if you must know, I'm looking for my Musical Snuffbox," Singra told the Clock.

"Is it in the highboy?" asked the Clock.

"Of course not, stupid. I looked there."

"Is it in the closet?"

"You saw me look there, too," snarled the old hag.

"Is it under the rug?" continued the Clock, ignoring the nasty tone the witch used.

"The carpet!" she cried. "I didn't look there." Immediately Singra got down on her bony knees and started to lift the corner of the rug nearest her. But there was no Musical Snuffbox there. Only a collection of dust from a hundred years.

"You should sweep," commented the Clock.

"No one asked your opinion or advice," was the rejoinder. Meanwhile Singra had hurried to another corner of the rug and lifted it

"Ah ha!" she cackled as she spied the pretty gem-encrusted gold box. "I have found it."

"Where I told you to look," the Clock reminded her.

"I would have looked under the rug myself," the witch replied ungraciously. "I don't need a mess of wheels and dials and hands to tell me where to find things."

Carefully picking up the precious box, the old woman wiped the accumulation of dust from its surface with the hem of her long white dress, and blew on its lid to remove any remaining traces of dirt.

"And now for some breakfast," she said slyly. With bony thumb and forefinger, Singra opened the Snuffbox. She took a tiny pinch of snuff from it, and sniffed it up her nose. "Ah choo! Ah choo! Ah choo!" she sneezed.

No sooner had the old witch sneezed three times than the Musical Snuffbox started up a tinkly little melody and a tiny voice sang:

"If you command, I'll understand.
Your wishes you will find I'll do."

"Good, good," gloated the witch. "I see that my Magical Musical Snuffbox has lost none of its power, even though it has been idle for one hundred years."

Then she held the Snuffbox up before her eyes and commanded, "Get me some breakfast."

Immediately there was the clatter of dishes in her little kitchen, and the aroma of bacon and eggs floated into the bedroom. Singra closed the Snuffbox, dropped it into her pocket, and hurried from her bedroom. On the kitchen table she found breakfast waiting for her.

As soon as she had poured a cup of tea for herself, she sat down on a stool at the bare wooden table and ate heartily. She ate one dozen fried eggs, a pound of bacon, a loaf of bread, and four cups of tea made from herbs and red ink, for after her nap, she had quite an appetite indeed. Then she heaved a great sigh of relief and satisfaction and pushed back from the table. The dishes stacked themselves in the sink and washed themselves.

"And now," said Singra, drawing the Musical Snuffbox from her pocket, "to find out what has happened while I slept."

Continued in The Wicked Witch of Oz
Copyright © 1993 Rachel Cosgrove Payes. All rights reserved.