The Writers' Circle

Imagine...the sky was a brilliant blue, and the lone, white cloud in the sky failed to look menacing, and instead resembled something small, cute and fluffy. A small bird tweeted cheerfully as it flew overhead, high above our protagonists, a motley crew of two red squirrels, both teenagers in squirrel years, a young adult otter, an old hedgehog, a young albino squirrel, and a young rabbit, who wore a tuxedo and a top hat.
	"Pleeeeeease can I have another cookie?" the young albino squirrel, Sherbert, whined.
"Oh, do be quiet," the female red squirrel, Orangeblossom, snapped, "You've already had a cookie, you don't need another one. They're Reece's anyway, you should be grateful that he gave one to you in the first place."
	Reece was the young rabbit who wore a tuxedo. He was the only bunny magician in the land, and he was very popular because of his trademark magic trick, in which he made cookies 'appear' by covertly pulling them out of a secret compartment in his top hat.
"If you're always hungry," Orangeblossom continued, "Then cookies are just wasted on you."
Sherbert grunted, paused for a few seconds and then tried, "Can I have some of that chocolate that you were given at the market then?"
"No!" Orangeblossom answered firmly.
"But you were paid to deliver the box," Sherbert squeaked, "The hamster didn't say that you had to deliver the chocolates inside as well."
	Orangeblossom glared at the albino squirrel, who quickly decided that it would be a good idea to be quiet. Pipsqueak, a male red squirrel, was carrying one side of the huge, human-sized box of chocolates, while Splosh the otter, carried the other side. The hamster had asked them to deliver the box to a damsel in distress, who lived alone, stuck in a tall tower, with no stairs or doors. The hamster had said that he didn't know how to reach the fair maiden, but Orangeblossom had always said that, 'Where there's a will, there's a way.' The poor hamster had been trying to deliver the chocolates for a month, and the Prince would come visiting soon. Because the hamster was getting desperate, he had offered Orangeblossom a small fortune to deliver the box.
	They marched up another grassy hill, and as they reached the top, the tallest tower that they had ever seen came into view. The stone tower was located at the centre of a gigantic garden, with a short red brick wall around the perimeter.
	As the travellers approached the small red brick wall, that was taller than them, but small for a wall by human standards, Pipsqueak the squirrel noticed a small white sign stuck to the bricks.
"I can't read human!" Orangeblossom cried as she stared at the strange, black letters on the sign. She hated not knowing things, and she was desperate to know what the sign said. Fortunately, Ms Spike, the hedgehog, was travelling with them, and the old hedgehog knew almost everything, including how to read human.
	She walked towards the sign, and stopped when she was inches away from it, and then she began to read very slowly, "No entry...private property. Trespassing may result in death, trans...blimey, that's a big word...transformation into a newt...or the theft of your children. Lots of love, Dame Gothel, the wicked enchantress. Kiss, kiss, kiss."
"What are we getting ourselves into this time?" groaned Pipsqueak.
	The mammals helped each other over the wall, giving each other leg-ups and pulling each other over, and, with a great deal of effort, they managed to get the box of chocolates over the wall too. The garden was very leafy, densely populated with trees and bushes. A lovely little gravel path ran from a wooden gate to the the tower, but the silly travellers wouldn't find that until later because they didn't bother to look for the gate.
	Suddenly, a little newt burst through the undergrowth and stood before them.
"Oh my goodness!" Orangeblossom shrieked.
"There's one she got earlier!" Sherbet shouted, remembering what the enchantress had written on the white sign on the wall outside.
The newt grunted and muttered angrily, "You guys never seen a newt before or something?"
"Actually, I haven't," Pipsqueak admitted.
"Not one made by a witch, anyway," added Splosh.
"What are you on about?" asked the newt, "I've always been a newt!"
	Orangeblossom, Sherbet, Pipsqueak, Splosh and Ms Spike all blushed and said together, "Oh, sorry." Meanwhile, Reece the rabbit was occupied digging up some tasty-looking leaves of lambs lettuce.
	The newt scurried away, back into the undergrowth, murmuring about the stupidity of tourists. Orangeblossom grabbed Reece's paw and managed to pull him away from the lettuce...they had a mission to accomplish, the lettuce could wait.
	Eventually, the group arrived at a clearing at the centre of the garden, with the tower at the centre. They stopped and dived back into a bush when they saw an old woman walking along the gravel path towards the tower. The woman was much larger than the squirrels, the rabbit, the otter and the hedgehog, as humans generally are...and the fact that she was probably Dame Gothel, the wicked enchantress, terrified the little animals. They didn't want to spend the rest of their lives as newts. No offence to newts, but none of the mammals liked the idea of being green, slimy and spotty, and they didn't know of any kind of spot-remover designed for newts.
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair," the enchantress called, "So I may climb the golden stair."
	Suddenly, hair dropped from the window of the tower, long enough to almost reach the ground, and it was strong enough for the enchantress to climb up.
"That's weird," Pipsqueak commented.
"Well, there is an enchantress involved," said Orangeblossom, "So 'weird' can be expected."
"If the old lady is an enchantress, why doesn't she just fly up to the window?" asked Pipsqueak.
"Maybe she just enjoys climbing," Splosh suggested.
Ms Spike had another thought, "I hope that girl doesn't straighten her hair...imagine how long it would take her! Poor child."
	The hair was pulled back up into the tower when the old woman reached the top. The animals waited in the bush for about half an hour, until the hair dropped back down again, the wicked enchantress gave Rapunzel a goodbye kiss, and then Dame Gothel climbed back down the hair again, walked down the gravel path, and disappeared from view. Orangeblossom heard the gate squeak as the Dame left the garden.
"How did the witch make the hair come down?" asked Pipsqueak.
"It sounded like she said a rhyming couplet," Ms Spike answered.
"A rhyming what?"
"A rhyming couplet," said Splosh, "Something like...Princess, princess, throw down your locks, so we can climb up and give you the chocs."
	Rapunzel heard animals squeaking outside, and as she was a fan of nature, and as she didn't have anything interesting to do in the tower, and she didn't have a television or any magazines to pass the time, she decided to see what all the fuss was about. She slipped on the wooden floor of her bedroom as she walked towards the window, and some of her hair came down to the animals as she recovered her balance and stood by the window.
"Splosh, you're a genius!" Orangeblossom shouted.
	The animals began to climb. Orangeblossom, Pipsqueak and Splosh carried a corner of the box of chocolates each, while Reece and Sherbet carried the other corner together. Ms Spike would have liked to help, but she had to keep untangling Rapunzel's hair from her spikes as she climbed.
	Rapunzel didn't know what to say. Animals had never tried to climb up her hair before...and these animals seemed to be carrying some sort of box. She let them climb, hoping that they would climb down afterwards, because Dame Gothel wouldn't be too happy if she found wild animals inside Rapunzel's bedroom.
	Finally, Orangeblossom, Sherbet and Reece reached the window, and they climbed onto the windowsill and pulled up the box of chocolates.
	Rapunzel gasped with delight when she saw the adorable bunny wearing a suit, and she gasped with delight again when she read a small note attached to the box of chocolates, explaining that the chocolates were a present from 'the Prince', who apologized for not wrapping the box, but his kingdom was suffering from a shortage of wrapping paper.
	Rapunzel straightened Reece's bow tie, then she began to sing to them. The animals, with the exception of Orangeblossom, sat on the edge of Rapunzel's dressing table to listen. Orangeblossom was worried...what would happen if the enchantress came back now? They would be in serious trouble. She was about to say that they should all be getting ready to leave, when Rapunzel paused to breathe, and Orangeblossom heard the squeak of the gate.
"The gate squeaked!" Orangeblossom shouted, "The enchantress is back! Let's get out of here!"
	Rapunzel stopped singing when she heard the panicked squirrel squeaking, and suddenly the other animals scurried back to the windowsill. She didn't know what was happening, but she realised that the animals wanted to leave, so she lowered her hair for them to climb down.
	Reece gave Rapunzel a goodbye kiss, then the animals all began to climb down as if their lives depended on it. As the enchantress would turn them into newts if she caught them, their lives pretty much did depend on it.
	Orangeblossom, Pipsqueak, Sherbet, Splosh and Ms Spike reached the bottom and climbed into a bush. However, Reece couldn't climb down as quickly as the others, because, although he wouldn't admit it, the bunny was a bit scared of heights.
	Orangeblossom could hear the crunching of gravel under the feet of a human as Reece reached the bottom. Was it too late? Orangeblossom dived out of the bush and sprinted towards the bunny to help him. Reece finally reached the bottom when a shadow fell over the bunny and the squirrel. Orangeblossom's heart was pounding as she turned, not to see the enchantress, but to see a man, who was staring up at Rapunzel, who was leaning out of the window. Orangeblossom and Reece ran between his legs and dived into the bush.
	The Prince climbed up Rapunzel's hair, and when he reached the top, the two humans began to talk dreamily. The animals couldn't hear what the humans were saying from where they were, but they could tell that Rapunzel and the Prince were both happy anyway.
"How romantic," Orangeblossom commented in a dreamy voice.
"Right," Pipsqueak said with a cough, "Now, let's get out of here before that witch turns up again."