Fairly Tolled

there was a young shepherd boy named Little Bo Blue Hood.   Like all children in these fables, Bo lived at the edge of a large forest. One day his mother told him to bring one of their lambs to grandma’s house on the other side of the woods.  Not wanting to delay the story line any further, Bo skipped merrily along his way.

After an hour of continuous skipping, Bo was exhausted.  As luck (and plot requirements) would have it, he came upon a little house with three doors.  He tried the door made of brick, but it was too heavy. Then he tried the door made of twigs, but it was too splintery.  Finally he rested against the door made of straw, which collapsed.  His appearance shocked the family of pigs who lived there, and they nervously asked why he didn’t just knock. 

“Little kids always break into empty houses in fairy tales,” explained Bo, “You shouldn’t be here.” 

The pigs could not argue with this logic, and admitted that the three little kittens had canceled their ski weekend plans at the last minute, because of missing equipment. After sorting out all this confusion about who should be where, Bo was even more tired.  The three pigs let Bo take a nap, while they fixed the straw door…again.  Having learned something from his trials with the doors, he ignored the painful looking brick and twig beds, and plopped happily into the straw.

Later, the screams of the pigs woke Bo from a deep sleep.  He looked out the window, and saw a terrifyingly big wolf, right on schedule. 

Bo said, “My, what a great deal of hair on your chinny chin chin.”

“The better to look really bad with, daddy-o,” snarled the terminally hip wolf.

Then, urged on by the smell of the lamb, pigs and child, the wolf bypassed the entire threats portion of the script, and went directly to huffing and puffing to blow the house in. In only a few minutes, the wolf was sucking wind. As he collapsed against the unscathed wall, he heard cackling coming from the candy house down the road.  Once she finished ridiculing the breathless wolf, the witch who lived there finally offered to help him get into the puff proof house if he’d share his supper with her. He happily agreed and she joined him outside the pig’s home. 

Because it took all of her magic to keep her abode from spoiling, the witch picked the lock with a bobby pin. The two hungry villains quickly rounded up Bo, the lamb, and the pigs, carried them all off to the confectionary cottage, and locked everyone up. 

At this point, since the situation appeared truly hopeless; the entire house began to violently rumble, breaking the cages containing the captured group.  In the confusion, the soon to be devoured stars of this story all pushed through a cotton candy wall and escaped.

As they emerged, sticky yet uneaten, Bo saw GoldyJack running toward him with a huge, oddly shaped container.  “Hey! You’re in the wrong story!” Bo exclaimed.

“Yes, but it’s standard in these tales to be rescued in the nick of time by an unknown character,” Jack smartly replied, “Besides I had to lead THEM here.” 

He pointed to the source of the shaking; a family of three giant bears was chasing GoldyJack.

Big Poppa bear’s voice boomed over the forest, “Feeny, Finey, Phoney, Funny, Get back here with our pot of honey!”

But as they came closer, the furry giants were captivated by the bright colors and fruity smells of the witch’s dessert domicile. The bears were so thankful for being brought to this bounty; they let GoldyJack keep their golden egg shaped pot of honey.

They also stepped on the witch, and put the not so big bad wolf on a leash, adding a pink fluffy collar and renaming him Pookie.

GoldyJack and the pigs walked Little Bo Blue Hood to his Grandma’s house where she made a grand and hearty dinner for everyone.

And they all lived happily ever after…

except the lamb, which Grandma broiled and served with a nice mint sauce.

This is dedicated to the first person to laugh at my stories...my sister.  Despite my telling her fairy tales like this throughout our childhoods, we’re still good friends.  Thanx for the laughs, kiddo.