The problem was reach: Andi, the older of the superintendent’s two children, was too heavy, and Jane, though light and athletic, was too short to reach the magical decree. Moreover, Boston’s sanitation plant, while enormous, contained only steel bars and platforms running on multiple levels, criss-crossing above vats of liquid garbage. The two children had devised a clever plan and burst from their father’s office and rattled down the stairs, across the platform and to the very belly of the plant. The pool below was the evil witch’s brew—boiling brown, with unspeakable objects thrown into the concoction: frog intestines, bird’s eyes, parsnip roots, spinach. Jane took the contraption they had made—a series of straws taped together, with a small rubber band attached at the end—and hooked her knees over the railing. Andi held her younger sister’s legs as Jane lowered herself down. Her head was even with her stomach, then she was vertical with her blonde hair falling below her. She reached the contraption toward the paper—she was nearly there, the rubber band lifting a metal pin attached to the paper, when Andi whispered, “She’s coming, Jane! The witch is coming!” The vat below churned, as if a heavy hand were stirring it, waiting for its new ingredient to be dropped into the stew. “Pull me up!” screamed Jane. “Get the decree!” Andi hissed, for anyone who successfully obtained the magical decree was named royalty and married to a most handsome princes of the land. “I can’t!” Jane cried. “Pull me up!” But Andi could not let go of her sister’s legs. “You need to do a sit up, Jane! I can’t pull you up from here!” The stairs above them rattled, and there was shouting. “The witch is coming!” yelled Andi. “She’s coming! Hurry up!” And Jane, with a burst of energy, reached for the railing and pulled herself safely to the platform. “Run!” they yelled, the footsteps of their superintendent father drawing closer. “The witch is coming! The witch is coming!” they laughed.