Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Little Red Riding Hood.
Once upon the same time lived three sibling pigs that were insufferable, even to each other, which is why they lived separately.
Now, Little Red Riding Hood lived in a small shepherding village in the hills. This village had for long been plagued by one specific wolf. This lean, angular and muscular figure cut a sharp silhouette in the moonlight, and into the herds of sheep belonging to the farmers that lived there. He had an unintentional ally in the form of a foolish boy named Mordecai.
Mordecai was sent to the grazing fields every day by his father to herd the sheep, make sure they were fed well, and to warn the villagers of the infamous wolf. He loved to cry out falsely that the wolf had come to hunt and prey on the sheep. Sometimes he did it out of boredom, other times out of curiosity, and sometimes even for attention. The entirety of the village came out with pitchforks and torches the first time he falsely cried wolf. And the second, and the third. The fourth time he happened to cry Wolf, he was genuine about it. Of course, nobody believed him, and the big, bad wolf had a field day devouring the hordes of sheep running about the field.
When the villagers learnt of the incident, they were blinded with rage at the loss of their sheep. The population of the herd had halved, and to rub salt in the wound, most of the killed sheep lay there in the fields. The wolf had no need of most of the sheep he had killed, he couldn’t eat more than a handful at a time; it was clear that the wolf had killed most of the sheep for sport, or from sheer malice. The villagers were nearly ready to kill the boy outright, “He should join the sheep he commanded,” they said. However, his father managed to save him by negotiating for a less harsh punishment. For the villagers, a more pressing issue was the imminent famine from the slaughtering of the village’s primary food source.
For one resident, Little Red Riding Hood, the solution was clear. She would go weather the winters at her grandmother’s house in the next town over. She packed up posthaste; winter was just a week away. She bid farewell to her father and went on her way, wading through the forest. On her journey, she often heard strange noises in the bushes, far away howls in the middle of the night, and the rustling of leaves as a strange form darted about. She kept a fire around her at all times to ward off the wolf.
When she finally reached her grandmother’s home, she found that it looked exactly as it used to. There was light smoke billowing out of the chimney and the smell of scrumptious porridge wafted out of the windows. However, when she entered, she realised that her grandma did not look exactly how she used to.
“What great big ears you have, Grandma!”
“All the better to hear you with.”
“What great big eyes you have, Grandma!”
“All the better to see you with.”
The wolf thought to himself, ‘I’m gonna eat this child, and these great big teeth are going to be all the better to eat her with.’ Red jumped up into the air with swiftness that surprised even the wolf. She drew a fistful of flour from the basket of food she had brought and tossed it in the wolf’s eyes, making a quick escape and locking the hut’s door on her way out. She went to the nearby village and recited her story, gaining their sympathies and a place to spend the winter. Meanwhile, it didn’t take the mean wolf long to break down the door and retreat to the forest.
He went running through the forest looking for more to eat, and came across a bright straw house in a clearing. Looking through the gaps in the wall, he spied a pig scurrying about in there. He called out to the pig, saying “Hey little piggy, come out and talk to me for a second, would you?”
“Not a chance! I know who you are, you rabid wolf.”
And so the wolf resolved to blow the house down, and he huffed and he puffed and blew at the house. The house shook to its core, and strands of hay fell from the roof. The walls thinned until the outline of a petrified pig was made clear to the wolf. The wall finally de-materialized and a great looming shadow broke through. The squeals and howls of a dying piglet echoed through the forest.
Soon after, the wolf prowled through the forest again until he chanced across another house similar to the first pig’s. This one was made of twigs. The wolf entirely skipped the pleasantries and began to break down the walls. Another pig squealed out from inside in surprise, and the wolf howled to him, “I ate your brother, and now I’m going to eat you too.”
He did not lie. This pig too, shared his brother’s grim fate. With his last breaths he proclaimed that his eldest brother would make sure to avenge him. The wolf just laughed a delirious laugh, euphoric to learn that there was another brother.
Later, when the wolf went hunting for the third and last pig, he encountered a brick house. He figured that this was the place he was looking for, and called out tauntingly to the pig. “Your brothers are dead! And I killed them. I blew down their homes and I’ll blow yours up too.”
The pig waited for the wolf to leave and swiftly rode to the village where he had heard Red Riding Hood was living. He told her about the infamous wolf and presented her a chance to end the wretched wolf for once and for all.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Dhruv Golchha, A2-A
Another Level Higher 