“Where does it lead them?” Jonah asks.

“To a house in the woods,” I say. “Made of cake!”

“What? There are no houses made of cake,” Jonah insists.

“This one is,” I say. “It’s made of cake and candy and gingerbread. You can eat the house!”

Jonah licks his lips. “I would totally eat that house.”

My stomach growls. I would totally eat that house, too. Not that it would be safe to do so.

“Hansel and Gretel are so happy to see the cake house,” I continue, “that they gobble up pieces of the roof and windowpanes. But then a woman comes out.”

“Is it the stepmother?”

“No. Another woman.”

“A stranger?”

“Yes. And the stranger invites them inside for a proper meal. Hansel and Gretel are thrilled. But the woman is just pretending to be nice. She’s really a witch! And she made her house out of cake to lure in kids.”

“Because she doesn’t have any?” Jonah asks.

“Because she wants to eat one for dinner!” I say.

Jonah gasps. “That’s gross!”

“Yup. And now Hansel and Gretel are trapped in her house. The witch throws Hansel in a cage. And she tells Gretel to cook for him — to fatten him up so he’ll be tasty to eat for her dinner.”

“Poor Hansel!” Jonah says. “Poor Gretel!”

I nod. “Well, Gretel cooks and cooks, and soon her brother is gaining a lot of weight. But the witch can’t see that for herself. She has really bad eyesight. So she asks Hansel to stick his finger through the bars of the cage so she can feel if he’s fat enough to eat yet.”

“And is he?” Jonah asks.

“Well, he is,” I say. “But Gretel doesn’t want to let the witch know that. So she comes up with a great idea. She gives Hansel a chicken bone and tells him to stick that through the cage instead of his finger.”

“I get it,” Jonah says. “So when Hansel sticks out the chicken bone, the witch thinks that’s his finger. His very skinny finger. His too-skinny-to-eat finger.”

I nod. “But the witch is getting impatient. She wants Hansel fattened up fast. So the next day, the witch tells Gretel it’s time to bake dough for kid pie.”

“Kid pie?” Jonah shrieks. His eyes bug out.

“Yes,” I say. “The witch plans to trap Gretel in the oven. But Gretel manages to trap the witch in the oven instead. Gretel frees her brother from the cage, and they take some jewels from the witch’s house and run as far away as they can.”

“Do they go straight home?” Jonah asks.

“No,” I say. “There’s this pond, and a duck has to carry them across. But then they finally get to their father’s house. And he’s happy to see them.”

“Yeah!” Jonah pumps another fist into the air. “I’ll bet their stepmother wasn’t, though.”

“Well, in the time Hansel and Gretel were gone, the stepmother died.”

“Huh? She did? From what?”