The Delicious Fortunes of Master Waffles.

   “Welcome! Welcome, Master Waffles. My name is Esmeralda the Great. Let's read your fortune shall we?’ 

A small figure appeared in the dark doorway wearing a lime green turban covered in gold star stickers. Her hands jangled with oversized bangles, as she led the portly ginger boy from the quiet hallway into a room that smelled of play dough, cheap perfume and something else. Something delicious, he couldn’t quite place.  The curtains had been yanked over the morning sun, casting an eerie green and blue hue across the floor. Master Waffles tip-toed through a sea of trinkets on the threadbare rug. Pots filled with petals and mud, jaunty cloth dolls with pegs pinned to their limbs and rocks with holes in them like eyes stared up as him as he walked across the sweltering hot room.. He jumped as he saw, waiting in the dark Sitting stiff in a chair, a small pale lady, her porcelain hands cradled in her lap of white satin with blue ribbons. Golden ringlets dipped into a plate of sticky triangles of jam sandwiches, teetering on the edge of a small plastic table, laden with playing cards and a crystal globe. The pale lady's glassy eyes, unblinking, stared off into space.  He shivered and whined under his breath.

   ‘Oh don’t mind Margery - she won’t share your secrets,’ Ezmeralda twirled by Master Waffles, spun around and whispered in his large ears. ‘Because I cut out her tongue.’ 

   Ezmeralda cackled as she danced around Master Waffles then over to the plastic table set for three, and pulled out a tiny chair.

   ‘Please, do sit down.’ Ezmerelda summoned. 

Master Waffles hesitated, looked around him again and sniffed the air. Sausage. The phantom smell was sausage. He was sure of it.

   ‘Come come!’ She slapped her hand on the plastic chairs seat. ‘Up you get. Good boy.’

   Master Waffles snapped to and obeyed smartly, not one to test the temper of a witch.  He scrambled his way up into the too tight chair and swallowed hard as she shoved him in, his chest snug against the table. 

   ‘Hmmmm, a Libra I see.’ Ezmeralda eyeballed him as she curved around the table, then lowered herself slowly onto her chair that was donned with purple scarves and a pink fluffy pillow.

   'No wait!’ She thrust her hand forward and flipped over his chapped palm. Her movements, sharp and unpredictable, put Master Waffles heckles up. He felt sweat start to bead on the back of his hairy neck. Her small rose painted nails circled his palm. He licked his lips, unsure of what else to do. 

   ‘You are a Picses! like me!’ She dropped his hand with a thud and danced her fingers in front of Master Waffles brown blinking eyes. ‘A dreamer. A sweet soul, bound for visions and great imaginations of…um, giving chase to rabbits and digging up your neighbours roses? Are you a gardener, Master Waffles?’ She leaned in across the wobbly plastic table, ‘Speak up boy, speak!’ 

   Master Waffles huffed through puffed cheeks, not wanting to give too much away.

Ezmeralda sat back in her chair and folded her arms and smiled slowly.

   ’Ok then, cat got your tongue?’  

Mr Waffles yelped, his eyes darted about the room. He hated cats.

Ezmerlda leaned forward and shushed him, and gently stroked his hairy arms that lay flat on the lace tablecloth. 

   ‘Let's start shall we?’ Ezmeralda began humming a haunting little tune as she swooped her hands in circles over and about her crystal ball. Inside the glass, a little church. Its doors open to the wintery meadow where tiny plastic sheep stood frozen in time.

   She picked up the small globe in her dimpled hands, squeezed her eyes shut, then let out a long ‘Oooohhhhhmmmmm’One green eye popped open, and snuck a peek at her customer.

Mr Waffles sat perched on his small plastic pink chair, licking his lips, panting, with obvious excitement she thought. She snapped her eyes shut again, lifted her hands and face to the ceiling fan, her bangles slipping down to her armpits,

   “Are you a believer, Mr Waffles?’ Her voice, shrill and loud. 

Mr Waffles didn’t dare move, he just stared into the crystal ball, placing quickly at poor Margery then back again.

   ‘You must believe! Believe!!” She threw her jangling hands to the heavens and raised her voice skyward. Her turban fell backwards, She caught it, quickly readjusted the lime green bathroom towel atop her small head, before it revealed her true identity. A few golden stars, curled their points and fell hell bound. Ezemerelda picked one up, leaned over the plastic table and planted one right on Mr Waffles' quivering wet nose.

   “Like my mother and grandmother and great grandmother and great great GREAT grandmother  before me, I am a Gypsy Master Waffles. A Seer, A witch and I will now, without further adieu, read your mind. BEHOLD!” She shot up, her chair fell backwards, Mr waffles yelped as the lime green turban fell to the floor with a thump. 

   ‘Oh pants and black cats!’ Ezmerelda cursed

Mr Waffles winced a bit as shuffled in his chair, while she struggled to hold the globe and readjust her turban, but he stayed put, just as he was commanded to do so. Ezmerelda held the snow globe between her knobbly knees, bent over, twisted the towel like her mother had shown her and then violently flung her head backwards, emerald eyes wild and wide.

   ‘Ta-daaaa”

Master Waffles yelped, and started scrambling off his seat.

   ‘Sit!’ The witch demanded, pointing her bejewelled finger directly at him and his quivering soul.

He needed to get a hold of himself! He shook his shoulders, took a deep breath and puffed it out, making the playing cards flutter in front of him. Ezmeralda then took her seat again, swooped up the crystal ball from between her knees and shook the glass globe in the long sweeping arches over Mr Waffles Ginger head.  His enormous ears wiggled, his bristly ginger head cocked to the side, his hairy eyebrows pinched together. Sniffing deeply, the sausage aroma that wafted about  him. The golden star  on his nose suddenly fluttered up his nostril and he sneezed,  making the playing cards take to the air like a murder of crows.

   Be a good boy. He willed himself and tried to regain his composure.

   “Oh!” Ezmeralda gasped, ‘The wee devils have shot from your nose and told me your future dear boy!’ slamming the globe down on the table, the snow inside the crystal ball was a blizzard of snowflakes pelting the side of the tiny plastic sheep. Ezmerelda lifts two small fingers to her temple and rubs them, her eyes pinched shut.

   “Hush now. They-they are saying, hmmm?’ She moved her head in slow circles, in a trance, her lime green towel turban swept past Master Waffles nose.

His brown eyes half closed, entranced. He could feel himself panting, as an overwhelming sausage fragrance filled his senses. He licked his lips again and swallowed hard. 

   ‘Master Waffles! They say you want …. SAUSAGE!”

Master Waffles stopped panting, eyes widened at the word.

   “Master Waffles? is that right boy? Speak to me, speak to the spirits all around us. Do you want a sausage?”

   How did she know!?

He whined, a small pathetic noise. then again,. Stop it,this time he must, he must speak up! 

“grrrr-AARP!” He barked.

“Goood Boooiiii!” Ezmeralda cheered, clapping hysterically, as she pulled a wrinkled beef sausage from within the folds of the dishevelled turban and flung it into the air with a flourish of her bangles. Mr Waffles leapt from his chair, knocking over the table, poor porcelain Margery. The 6 year old Ezmeralda, cackled, as she watched her beloved Corgi catch the sausage, mid air in-between his sharp white teeth.