Once upon a time there was an old grey cottage in the woods, at the corner by the Elm tree and the High tree. In the cottage lived a wood-cutter, christened Fentel, his sister Gertrudel, and his two sons, Frankel and Joetel. Forest legend had it that his wife, Laurtel, lived there too, but she hadn't been seen for several years.

There came a time when the family, although not poor, could no longer afford to pay for Frankel & Joetel's car insurance, which had soared through the roof when they drove their suped-up wagon off a cliff for the seventeenth time in a row. Aunt Gertrudel, who got ideas from the old mystery movies she watched on the one TV channel they picked up in the woods, made a suggestion to Fentel. "Why don't we ditch the boys in the forest?"

Fentel, having been hit over the head one too many times by falling trees, agreed to the plan. Little did he know that Gertrudel planned to use the saved insurance money to have cable television run to the cottage.

The next morning they led the boys out into the deepest part of the woods, saying that their chums would be arriving shortly for a picnic. Frankel & Joetel waited until it became very dark, but finally decided that their chums must have gotten lost. Using a sophisticated tracking device designed by their friend Philtel, the boys made their way back to the cottage in time for dessert, surprising the adults.

The next day Fentel came up with a better plan. Leading the boys even further away from home (after first having them leave all electronic equipment behind), he took them to the edge of the woods. There stood an old Victorian style house, apparently deserted.

"I'm leaving you on a stake-out here, boys," Fentel explained. The boys had solved several "cases" in the past, including the Mystery of the Missing Pine Cone, and considered themselves amateur sleuths. "You are not to stop watching the house until I tell you to - no matter what!"

With that he left them lying on their stomachs in the bushes across from the house, their binoculars trained on the front door. He went home to find a Best Buy donkey cart delivering a 52" TV & a satellite dish to the cottage.

Meanwhile, back in the woods, Frankel and Joetel were still watching the front door. After several hours, it suddenly swung open, and a rotund figure in lederhosen and a little green cap emerged. Jumping up, the figure grabbed a piece of the decorative roof trim, broke it off, and took a huge bite!

"Hey! Chetel! It's Chetel, Frankel!" exclaimed Joetel, jumping up impetuously and running towards the cottage. "Hey, Chetel, it's us!"

Frankel, after carefully scanning the surrounding trees, followed. "Hi Chetel, what are you doing at this suspicious cottage?"

"Suspicious?" asked Chetel, his mouth full of roof trim. "Are you kidding me? Don't you know who lives here?"

Turning the knob, which looked suspiciously like a cupcake, he threw the cottage door open and lead them inside. With a sticky, icing-covered hand he gestured toward the person leaning over a large iron oven. The person turned around, shocking the boys into shouting, "Mom!"

"Momel," asked Joetel, using their pet name for Laurtel, "What are you doing here?"

"Didn't you know? I got a job out here keeping house for your friend Chetel! His latest hobby is building life-sized gingerbread houses, and he needed some help," she explained.

"Yeah," chimed in Chetel, spitting crumbs as he talked. "And you're just in time too, because we need help! I've decided it's time to change hobbies and we have to eat the whole house now."

After around a week they had eaten enough of the house so that they could carry the leftovers home in Laurtel's Tupperwarel. They set of for their cottage, where they found that Aunt Gertrudel had run off with the donkey cart driver, and Fentel had been hit on the head with a tree again, remembering that he had a family and wanted them back.

And Chetel? He very happily began his new hobby teaching the seven children of a Navy Captain to sing...

The End