This is part of Chapter 6 from a book called (at the moment) Dragon Lawyer, about Wendy, a five-foot high dragon who has become a lawyer in a magical land of various types of creature. She has been asked by a talking donkey and a talking horsehead nailed over the gate of the town she’s visiting (called The Next Town But One) to go and visit the frog in The Hansel and Gretel House, which is what she does in this chapter.
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In the depths of the woods, the signposts kept indicating the Hansel and Gretel House was around the next corner, that it was behind the next tree. Every thirty seconds, Wendy turned around to make sure she knew the way back, trying to spot markers that would show her the path back to town. In the end, the house was in the middle of a large clearing. The builders had made the walls of gingerbread with licorice trimmings around the windows. Finches and sparrows were pecking at these extremities with some success. Wendy liked licorice and walked over to the nearest window.
“Hello,” said a sparrow called Ambrose, “can we help you?”
“I’d like a piece of licorice if at all possible,” Replied Wendy.
“Are you in the union?” asked Ambrose.
“What union is that?” replied Wendy.
“Ambrose,” said a finch called Sid, “she’s the lady lawyer from the town, peck her a piece off the sill as a gesture of gratitude. She’s helping the likes of us, the underrepresented. The least we can do is give her a piece of licorice.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” replied Ambrose, “I didn’t recognise you.” Ambrose immediately got to work with his sharp beak and soon produced a stick of licorice two feet long and three inches wide. Wendy put her hand under the sill just before the stick fell onto the floor and placed her gift in her bag.
“Thank you,” she said, “that was very kind of you.”
“You’re welcome,” chorused the birds.
Woodpeckers were hammering at the roof made from upturned Jaffa Cakes. Vines had crept over the house so that Wendy could make out very little of the gingerbread. The birds had made nests in the thicker parts of the vine’s branches. A small puff of smoke meandered skywards reluctantly, as though homesick for the fire recently left behind. Wendy went inside through the space where the door had been. Once upon a time.
