Misty Holiday Special

Once Per Year

Parent:Misty

A Weird Wedding Party: Baron forces his daughter to marry although she is in love with an outlaw who attacks the wedding hunting party, but it goes wrong and she is killed too, Baron sees ghosts of them all
Curse Of The Roman Sword (Storyteller): Moira finds an old sword and cuts self on it, then things start to go wrong for village (supermarket, new road) and she thinks it must be cursed. There’s a big flood and then she discovers it has been sent away - and that the flood will mean no new road and supermarket due to damage caused. ‘Moira is still sure about the sword putting a curse on the village. And how many of you would say she was wrong, I wonder?’
Green Fizz: First-person story by Harriet whose Gran runs a corner shop in village. Her Green Fizz drink makes people contented and happy. Gran slips on ice and Harriet’s family come to take over shop, Gran tells Harriet she is a witch and has been keeping village happy for years with spells and been injecting this into the milk that everyone gets. ‘But the supermarket has put a stop to all hopes of that […] It’s taken my trade, dear.’ So ‘the milk of human kindness’ no longer able to get to everyone. Harriet burns Gran’s witching stuff as she asked and she goes to nursing home, although seems still has some spells as matron there becomes much nicer.
In Black And White...: Mean, shoplifting Jenny finds camera makes people disappear and uses it to get revenge on lots of people, but then cops ask questions and when camera at station jams they decide to use hers ‘oh no…no!’ bad ending
Melody From The Past: Jane is a concert pianist but has accident and believes her hands are damaged, until she saves her mother from drowning after being roused by ghostly music from a piano belonging to composer whose wife drowned. Happy ending. Misty raises Qs ‘did she hear a piano playing that stormy night – or was it merely ‘dream’ music?’
Miss T: Comedy misadventures of a hapless witch
Night Train To Nowhere!: Deidre and family move into old railway station (‘lots of people are buying old railway stations to live in these days’) but on first night she is pushed onto a train full of skeletons and then finds herself in a warzone – they find her wandering in the marshes next day and it is revealed that WW1 trains did go through there; family decide not to buy the place.
Old Ethna's House: Joy and friend conned into entering her house to help her, she asks them to look into her eyes – it is revealed they have vanished and cops find nothing – final reveal that Ethna is descended from medusa and has turned them to stone (not deserved! – they were only there because she asked for help)
The Call Through The Clouds: Claire sees Sophie von Becker flying old plane besides her jumbo jet, as they cross the date line she appears in Sophie’s plane and discovers where it crashed and promises to tell so that Sophie’s round the world trip can be completed
The Crazy House!: Marie tries to enliven experience of crazy house for her young cousins but it ends up too convincing – not sure if it was her imagination or real
The Fair Fiend Of Dunstanburgh (True Ghost): Sir Guy vows to rescue a ghostly woman but fails and now haunts the castle
The Garden: Jessie has recurring dream of self in a peaceful, quiet garden – sent to camp and finds one like it, friend warns her against entering it and tries to stop her by hailing car, but it runs her over and Jessie realises the garden is haunted by her. Bad ending! Humour ref Bob Geldof LP and ‘it’s to do with her age’ adage of parents.
The Green Children: Tale written by monk Gervase – Family find green children in the fields and believe they come from Merlin’s Land [Misty stresses fact/fiction problematic in intro ‘It’s not easy to tell where fact ends and fiction begins’ raises questions in epilogue ‘Where did those children come from, I wonder? Was it from under the ground?... Who knows?’ double framing tale]
The House That Waited...: Anonymous narrator, finds cat (Grumblestiltskin) and turns out he is familiar to a 300 year old witch in house who wants to trade places with her – cat attacks her but she gets away and next day he is dead, but story ends ‘But one thing worries me. They do say cats have nine lives, don’t they? I know Grumblestiltskin is dead and buried, but I am just a bit afraid that one day he’ll come for me again.’
The Magic Paintbrush: Bookended by Misty – Teresa gives up at everything and blames everyone else until she finds a magic paintbrush and takes all the credit, but it ultimately makes a mess and flies away during an art school interview – she gets a chance there anyway and agrees to try hard. Misty wraps up tale conclusively and positively although still leaves some questions open ‘Teresa didn’t give up either. She’s now a well-known painter and a much nicer person. What happened to the brush? Teresa never could find it – but then she no longer needed it, did she?’
The Pipe Dream Of Marty Scuttle: Thief Marty steals pipes alleged to belong to pied piper and steals all the children from town for ransom, in night they try and get the pipes but he wakes up and attempts to kill them by playing, instead though summons rats who push him over cliff and the children throw the pipes over as well
The Prize!: Perri enters essay comp for disabled children and wins, gets people to help her get there, not as nice as she seems when meets runner up Alan (‘I’m glad you won, Perri. At least I can still get about a bit’) versus her (‘Ha, ha! I pulled it off! All that hearts and flowers stuff in my essay … they fell for it hook, line and sinker! / Am I going to have fun spending my prize! That kid I beat wants to wise up. He’s got to learn to use his crutches to get what he wants!’) and then revealed she has pretended when she gets out of chair to pick up apple she was given and is hit by car, landing her in wheelchair ‘Perri, Perri! Oh, why did you cheat? Now you really will need to use gran’s old wheelchair … for the rest of your life!’
The Sea Maid: Bookended by Misty - Anne and mother on holiday in Cornwall, warned of legend of the sea maid who attracted sailors onto rocks, one night Anne hears cries from nearby island and investigates, finds and saves two girls who are dumb – Misty epilogue raises only questions and suggests sea maid has been ‘proving her innocence by saving two lives’
The Swan-Song: Bookended by Misty – Wanda and friend Danny rescue a swan on her father’s nature reserve and are sure it will not die as ‘her ain’t sung her song’ (swan song), Danny disappears and swan struggles to fly away, then beautiful swan song leads them to him. He recovers and they tell him swan is fine, but Misty reveal that ‘But as Wanda walked home there were tears in her eyes, because in her heart she believed Snow Queen had died to save little Danny, and the haunting melody she had heard was its last lovely song.’
The Takeover: Popular Miranda agrees to help Louise with sports but is forced to drop her by teachers so everyone turns against her. Louise gets stronger and better while Miranda fades away until she finally dies and it is revealed this was Louise’s plan all along, using her ‘Envy, hatred and resentment […] for her own evil plans’) and at which point Louise drops dead instead (having ‘taken over just one characteristic too many’) and Miranda makes full recovery
Wendy the Witch: Comedy escapades of a young witch
What A Catch: Bookended by Misty – Jenny bets her dad she can catch a bigger fish than him, ends up saving a pirate party’s stuff from being stolen and they reward her with a giant stuffed whale to win her bet with – dad addresses audience in penultimate panel ‘better pay up or she’ll be thinking up some other nightmare scheme’ [misty casts doubt on tale at start and end - ‘Fishermen are famed for their tall stories so you never quite know whether to believe them or not’ ‘Ever heard a taller fishing story than that’]
Who's There?: Sandra is walking home alone and gets lost in fog, begins to follow lady with glowing ring, but then realises she is a skeleton in a cloak – finds a cottage and two ladies there help her, and tell her they used to tell each other stories of the Witch-wife who lured travellers off moors with a magic glowing ring. Good (ish) end.
Wrong Number: Uncle Ernie gives Tina mysterious calculator she deduces it is predicting school bus will crash so delays the trip, and their route is indeed bombed, but he says he only programmed it to spell her name