Boggarts in the Walls and Honey on My Foot!

The kids and I just finished reading the Spiderwick series. We absolutely loved it, but now my second oldest daughter, "The Hippie," is taking things a bit too far.

                     In the book, if you're nice to one of these:

 

It will turn into one of these (a brownie):

THEY REALLY LIKE MILK in the book, but the movie strongly suggests giving it honey.   Wrong move Nickelodeon Productions!

"The Hippie" keeps leaving honey EVERYWHERE!  She knocks on walls and says they knock back.  She talks to herself in strange Spiderwick voices and even asked if we could make a hole in the wall--just to see if our Boggart is inside.  I LOVE when kids use their imaginations, but not when it involves leaving honey everywhere and wanting to put holes in my beautiful walls!

So, my little boy "The Zombie Elf" disappeared somewhere in the house.  I screamed for him, yelled like my hair was on fire.  It's scary when he hides like that.  When I finally found him in the closet, he sat sulking like Gollum and was completely covered in honey.  I kept expecting him to say, "My precious," but instead he said, "Bad guy did a no no."

"Yes, bad guy did do a no no," I said.

It took forever to wash the honey off.  The whole time I scrubbed he talked about bad guys in the walls.  He's more scared of the boggart than anyone I've ever seen.  "The Hippie" walked past and said, "Shhh.  She doesn't have the sight.  She doesn't know she's a water nymph."  That cracked me up.  If I REALLY was a water nymph, wouldn't I "have the sight" too?  I smiled smugly thinking about it.  My kid thought I was a water nymph--that was cooler than cherry taffy.

After banishing all the stickiness, I decided to clean the T. V. room.  It was A MESS.  A music box had died amongst various other toys I'd spent tons of money on over the past years.  "What in the world?" I turned and asked my golden-haired daughter, "The Hippie."


"I told you we had a boggart."  


I groaned.  "Do you expect me to believe a boggart did this?"

"No," she said.  "You don't have the sight."  She tried to tra-la-la from the room, but I grabbed her by the arm.

"Oh no, you don't.  You get right back here and help me clean up this mess."

But instead of helping, her eyes suddenly darted about nervously.  She whispered, "If she's mad now, imagine when she sees your house."

"Who are you talking to?"

"No one."

I felt like I was back in Alzheimer's Hall   Would she talk to herself like that forever?  Would I need to admit her and then myself!  She scooted against the wall and smiled like she'd just eaten every single one of my favorite cookies.  "What are you hiding?" I asked.

She pushed her back even closer to the side wall.  "Nothing.  Mom, did you know that I love you.  You're the best mom in the whole world."

"That's . . . great."  I love compliments, but not when they're administered at a crime scene.  "But if I'm so awesome, you wouldn't mind telling me what you're hiding.  Would you?"

"The Hippie" fidgeted.  "I'm not hiding . . . anything."  Her eyes looked at something next to her.  "I think she's onto you, Boaggie."

That was enough.  "Stand up."

"I don't want to."

"Are you telling me no?" 

She moved like an arthritic old lady, or someone defrosting from nine-hundred years in ice.  As she stepped from the wall, my heart fell into my butt.  My lungs stopped working.  My eyes refused to blink.  There was a hole--IN MY PERFECTLY-YELLOW WALL!!!  "What have you done?"  I was beyond reason.  "What have you done?"  I turned, but "The Hippie" had vanished from the room.

My legs seemed like heavy boulders.  I trudged closer to the wall, put my finger in the hole and stared at my pointer, mystified when it came out powdered in sheet rock.  "Get your butt down here!!!"

Little feet scurried down the stairs behind me.  I knew "The Hippie" had come back into the room when she said, "She really wasn't a nymph!  She was a Brownie this whole time, but now she's turned into . . . a Boggart!  This should do the trick."

I stepped backward, stumbling really, so upset I couldn't contain myself.  That was when my foot slipped into A BOWL OF HONEY!

"AHHHHHH," I screamed and watched as honey dripped from my foot and hit the freshly vacuumed carpet.  "AHHHHHH!!!"

"Oh no . . .  The honey wasn't strong enough."  After the words left her mouth, I saw "The Hippie" swallowing hard.

I didn't have the ability to move further.  I felt worse than that poor woman in The Parent Trap.  Do you remember the one the twins don't want marrying their father.  They played all sorts of pranks on her until she turned insane.  They never show you what happen to her in the end.  I bet she went straight to the nut house where she made balloon animals--ALL DAY LONG!

"The Scribe," my oldest daughter must have heard me scream.  She came into the room and asked, "What happened?"  She saw the wall and gasped.

"I know it . . . it's horrible.  Can you believe this?"  I said, knowing she'd understand.

"No."  She shook her head and didn't even look at me or my golden foot.  But then she shocked me with her response.  "This is awesome," she whispered.

I blinked, stunned.  How was it awesome in any shape or form?  "How is this awesome?"

She grinned at the hole in the wall.  "We have a boggart!  Spiderwick is real!"

I snorted, that was looking at the glass totally empty.  I DO NOT want a Boggart in my house and I will never buy honey ever again! 

But the day wasn't all bad.  "The Hippie" apologized after that.  "I'm so sorry about the honey, mom.  I didn't think you'd step in it."

"It's . . . okay," I said.  "But can you stop putting honey everywhere?"

"Yeah, and I won't let the Boggart put any more holes in the walls."

I rolled my eyes.

"How are we going to fix the wall?" she asked. "I'll give you all my allowance even though my piggie bank gets sad when it's empty."

"You don't need to give me your money."  I paused trying to think of something--anything to make things better.  "I was just thinking, that looks like a perfect place to put the couch."  I pointed to the marred wall.  "As long as you promise to stop pretending quite so well, I'll let you help me move the funiture."

"It's a deal," she said, and after I finished cleaning off my foot we spent the rest of the day moving furniture until it looked just right--like something a Brownie would approve of.

 

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