The Woods Were Alive With … Something

Hansel woke the next morning to the sound of thousands of cheerily annoying birds. They tweeted and twittered and toodley-ooed from all around them. It was bright and sunny, well past dawn, and Hansel was surprised he’d slept so long. Maybe the last few days were catching up with him. He checked his pocket for his beans and found them safe and unleaky. He sat up.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Grendel boomed. The monster had rekindled the fire and was cooking something in a pan. Hansel thought it might be eggs.

“Morning. Are the birds always like this?” Hansel hadn’t ever camped out in the woods before, and it was turning out to be louder and more personally smelly than he’d realized. He could smell his own armpits without whiffing them on purpose. The sun and the birds and the smell of the campfire…