Brownies by Rebecca Penfold

Brownies, handy little helpers – A Bedtime Story by Rebecca Penfold

Beep, beep.

The shrill sound of the oven timer echoed through the empty kitchen, the noise muffled by the thick walls, unheard by the old homeowner’s sleeping ears.

It stopped. Silence as the oven door creaked open seemingly on its own. Invisible helpers took a tea towel and removed the hot tray, placing it on the marble counter. A large knife cut through the warm, gooey chocolate brownies easily, slicing them into near perfect squares before lifting each one out, and onto a cooling rack.

Oven off. Sweet treats rescued. Crisis averted.

CRASH.

Glass shards scattered across the living room carpet, a few sparkling fragments tumbled under the sofa. It was a hell of a mess. Mess did not please the Brownies at all. They knew they would have to pick the smallest shards from the fibres of the carpet and risk cutting their tiny hands. For Brownies are tiny. Reaching perhaps the height of a small jam jar. They are clever, strong, and quite obsessive, fixated on perfecting their environment, and once it is perfect, they very much like it to stay that way. Their strength is comparable to that of ants with their ability to lift things many times their size, though that is where the resemblance stops.

Brownies look much like people in appearance but with oversized heads, enlarged facial features and feet that look slightly too big for their bodies. Their ears pointed and clothes are a little scraggly, made from old scraps of miss-matched fabric sewn neatly together. They have never been known to wear shoes.

They are, however, invisible to the naked eye unless they choose to be seen, which is not something that happens very often.

A large boot slammed heavily into the window frame, glass crunching under the weight as a tall man with broad shoulders forced his body through.

The Brownies watched curiously and slightly cross, as the hulking figure walked around the room, touching things that shouldn’t ought to be touched and trailing dirt behind him.

This would not do. Not one bit. This intruder was far too messy, and his coat had too many holes in. How dare he break things? He does not belong here. And look at the state of the carpet. The cheek of it, what kind of heathen doesn’t know how to use a door? Their blood began to simmer as they watched the brute inspect the room. The glass in the carpet irked them and the sight of muddy footprints made their skin itch uncomfortably.

So, to work they went.

As the man started to roughly stuff things into his bag, the Brownies just as quickly took them out, smoking at the ears. With every mighty step he took they scrubbed the mud from the carpet with a damp cloth and an old brush. As he entered the kitchen, some hurriedly swept up the shards of glass and ventured under the sofa to retrieve the hidden fragments while the others followed him.

The man’s giant filthy hand reached toward the still warm brownies, and that is when they reached their limit. The tea towel came off the oven door.

Thwack.

Rude!

‘ah, wha…’

Thwack.

Inconsiderate.

‘Oww,’

Thwack.

Downright beastly.

‘Ahh,’

The tea towel repeatedly flicked across the back of the man’s hood clad head. Didn’t anyone ever teach him to wash his hands before eating?

And that damned coat may as well be used as a strainer. The dirty hole filled fabric was suddenly dragged up over his head and off, the jacket flew across the room.

Panic seized the man and he tripped over his feet as he lunged through the kitchen door, shocked to find the living room spotless once more. Trinkets from his bag back in their places on the shelves and glass and dirt gone from the carpet.

He froze in place, not a breath escaped his lips as he stood in shock. The loud shucking hum of the sewing machine in the next room startled him out of his stupor. He attempted forward again only to fall headfirst, forehead colliding with the sharp edge of the old veneer coffee table. They hated that table; it was so ugly and the wood was not even real.

The man’s mind was full of fog, eyes watering as he dizzily struggled to his knees. Reaching for his throbbing head, fingers coming back wet with blood. Unsteadily moving to stand he felt something tug on his shoes, looking down he found his shoelaces tied together. The laughter of his unseen tormentors filled his ears, cruel and taunting, reverberating around in his aching head.

He kicked his shoes off, scrambling on his hands and knees toward the window. Clambering to his feet, darkness encompassed him as the well mended jacket landed on his head. He screamed rushing to throw his large body out the empty window frame, only to fall out as the muddy boots collided hard with his back.

The Brownies definitely did not want those dirty things left on the carpet.

Words by Rebecca Penfold

Edited by Emily Gough