The Cookie Twins
© 2007 Gail Nobles. All rights reserved
It was a year of war and things were very hard. The cost of labor was going down, angry mobs were in the streets, people were stealing and killing, people were sleeping in cardboard boxes, some sat by cooking fires covered with heavy blankets and quilts,
people were out of jobs, and even rich people were not getting paid enough. Dreams were turned into nightmares. Many women were crying over their sons because some of them were drafted to fight in the war. Preachers preached and thoughts of Jesus gave some people a little faith. Many people were praying, but some people stopped praying. Some died because their hearts were broken. Some felt that they had nothing to live for because the world had nothing to offer. It was a great depression.
It was a changing time and nobody knew two black teenage sisters named Martha and Mary. Together they were called the Cookie Twins because they both loved cookies. Martha had a loud crunch whenever she ate her cookies. She ate very fast and would often bite her tongue. Mary just crammed her cookies in her mouth greedily. The problem was their grandmother. She never fed them much. Whenever they ate a cookie, they ate every crumb. Martha and Mary’s favorite cookie was chocolate chip cookies.
 The hungry cookie girls had a stingy grandmother. There grandmother had plenty for them to eat, but the girls were always starving. She fed them oatmeal with no sugar because sugar was very scarce. Their lemonade was always bitter. The stingy grandmother kept bags of sugar piled up in storage room. She fed them hard, stale, and old as Methuselah homemade cookies out of a cookie jar. The Cookie Twins called them jawbreakers. Martha almost broke her tooth trying to eat them. Mary just gave hers to her dog named Sniffles that sat under the kitchen table.
Whenever Sniffles went out to hunt for food, he would bring it home to the girls. The hound dog was a very good dog to the girls. He looked out for them. Sometimes he would leave the girls and would go to the city to steal food off of the streets. Sometimes Sniffles would hunt for birds in the woods. Whenever he brought food home, granny would end up getting the best of it. Because of her, the girls were not always lucky.
The best food was cooked for a fat and jolly old man that came over to visit their grandmother. The two sisters were always sent to their room whenever there was company. They were not treated like granddaughters. Whenever the girls were sent to their room, they would sneak around in their grandmother’s storage room instead. It was full of homemade, soft, fresh, and sweet cookies. The Cookie Twins would sit down on the floor and eat some of them. Martha and Mary never got caught. But Martha had a loud crunch that could give her away. Mary always crammed her cookies in a hurry whenever she thought her grandmother was coming.
Later on that day, the Cookie Twins sneaked into their room while their grandmother was still sitting and talking in the kitchen.
Martha and Mary thought that it was time for bigger and better things in life. They sat up late at night reading a story from the Bible. They read about a land flowing with milk and honey. The Cookie Twins would visualize and fantasize about it every day and night. Then they decided that they would run away from home to find that good land, but that is another story.
|
Cookie Mountain
The Cookie Twins began to grow tired, depressed, and skinny because they were not being fed right by their grandmother. “I’m tired of Grandma feeding us stale cookies and left over slop. We need some real food. I can’t take it much longer,” said Mary holding her stomach.
Martha nibbled on fresh cookies. “I just wish we could go to a land like that land in the Bible. It was flowing with milk and honey. Rev. Johnson said that the same God that’s up there in heaven today is the same God in heaven now. All we have to do is pray and believe that we will have a better life somewhere else, and he will answer our prayers.”
“Yea,” said Mary, “I’m tired of that fat and sloppy man coming here taking the best food out of our mouths. Grandma is always feeding a stranger. She won’t even feed her own granddaughters. Even though Mama couldn’t take care of us, she would feed us if she could.”
Martha began to crunch very loud. She was never quite sure of anything until she tried something and made something happen. “If we leave home, Grandma wouldn’t miss us. She doesn’t love us anyway. If she loved us, she would take care of us. We should leave. If we make one step, God will make two. We just can’t stay here and starve.”
Mary had high hopes and big dreams. Her mind was always thinking, and she was always planning. Mary was also cautious and slow about jumping out into the world. She said, “If only we had a good grandma. She has good talent. Grandma can cook all kinds of stuff. She could make money off of her cooking.”
“But Grandma,” said Martha, whispering down low and listening out for her grandmother, “is not gonna do nothing’. She’s so satisfied with the way she’s living. It wouldn’t do us any good no how. She’s too selfish and stingy.”
“Yep,” replied Mary, “and people are too poor to buy anything around here. So we have got to go.”
The next day, Martha and Mary went to church with their grandmother. They couldn’t wait for church to be over because they were hungry. The cookie twins had plans to sneak to Mr. Hermon’s house that had a big old plum tree. They were stealing his plums. When church was over, they wanted to ask their grandmother could they visit their friends. Their grandmother was so busy talking to three old ladies. The cookie twins were not allowed to interrupt when they saw grown ups talking. They stood around for a few minuets waiting for the right time to ask. It seemed that it took their grandmother forever to stop talking. So Martha and Mary took off to be with the rest of their friends.
When they got to Mr. Hermon’s house, they ate a lot of plums from the ground and off of his tree. The cookie twins did not stay long like their friends did. Mr. Hermon was in church, and they knew he would return to his home soon. He did not live far from the church. So Martha and Mary went back to the church to find their grandmother.
That night, the cookie twins ate a big plate of food before they went to bed. Their grandmother brought some plates home from the church. It was the best real meal that Martha and Mary had for a long time. They went to bed with full stomachs and happy thanking God. Sniffles, their dog was happy too. He jumped on the bed and slept at the foot of the bed between the twins. Martha and Mary fell asleep holding hands praying that God would send them off to a land of milk and honey. They fell asleep and began to dream a long dream.
The Cookie girls and their dog had set off on an adventure journey to a strange land. They were on a small ship. Mary and her sister took turns steering the ship. Sniffles, the lazy-eyed dog just enjoyed the ride. The ship rocked and dipped side ways into the deep blue sea. The white sails shook as the wind blew and sung. The grey clouds glided across the sky. The sea gulls cried as they flew by. It looked as if a storm was coming. The girls were hungry and feeling sea sick. They ate some cookies that they had on the ship, but they wanted some real food.
When the cookie twins got on land, they were in a strange land. They were in a land they called Cookie Mountain. It had volcanic cookie features but not all of the land. When the twins walked around to search the land, they began to run away from chocolate chip cookie volcano explosions. It was too much for them. The dream that they were having began to seem crazy. The dream led them right in the middle of an army of strange warriors called Gobblers.
The Gobblers were in the image of men, but their faces varied in turkey features. The twins had no time for questions. “Look! Edibles!” cried one of the Gobblers, “After them!”
Another Gobbler went after Sniffles. The dog ran as fast as he could, but Sniffles was a basset hound and was not a fast runner. He had never seen such strange looking humans in his life. The Gobblers captured the twins and their dog.
|
The Gobblers
Run Sniffles!” shouted the Cookie Twins. The Gobblers grabbed the cookie girls and the cookie girls tried to break loose. They fought hard to get away. The Cookie Twins were very rough. They fought hard to get away. There were three Gobblers fighting against them. The Cookie Twins were always wise in their fight against three men. It took more Gobblers to hold them down. About fifty of them leaped upon the cookie girls. The girls were striking, clawing, kicking, and punching. They fought as they had learned to fight in school. The Cookie Twins fought like wild animals. Slowly the Gobblers were overpowering the girls as they became tired.
“They are strong edibles,” said one of the Gobblers, standing around watching. The Gobblers took the Cookie girls to their king. The king looked at them up and down. He saw a medallion around Mary’s neck, and he snatched it off.
You give that back!” exclaimed Mary.
“What is this thing?” asked the Gobbler king, “Is it some type of symbol? What does it represent?”
“It’s just a fake cookie made out of wood,” replied Mary.
“What is a cookie?” asked the Gobbler king.
Mary asked, “You mean, you don’t know what a cookie is? It’s something you eat.”
King Gobbler tried to bite the medallion. “It’s hard! It has no taste, and it is not good!” He handed back the medallion.
When Mary took it, she wiped it off with her shirt. Then she smelled the medallion. Then she put it back around her neck. Mary looked at Martha. Martha looked at Mary. They thought King Gobbler was stupid.
“What kind of creatures are you?” asked the king.
“We are human beings,” replied Martha.
King Gobbler shouted, “And if you are not Gobblers, that means you are edibles!”
“What in the world are edibles?” asked the Cookie Twins.
The king shouted, “Food! Take them to the cook!”
“No!” exclaimed the Cookie Twins.
The Gobblers took the cookie girls outside to tie them to a big post. They smelled frying meat and their stomachs began to growl.
The Cookie Twins thought that they would not live to get back home. They prayed to escape.
|
