The last time I worked on this story was May 11th, 2014. I had written a few other "Real" fairy tales around that time, and I had planned for this one to be a sequel to my Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. You can find that HERE if you're curious. But after writing the first act, I kind of got lost. I always planned to get back to it, but I'd never found the right way to continue the story.
Last semester I took another fiction writing class. I needed to write a story approximately twenty pages long in order to pass the class, and I had no idea what to write about. A few other people were talking about finally finishing stories they'd worked on a long time ago, and then I remembered this one. I thought about revisiting it, but didn't make my mind up until some of the other finished stories started coming in.
No one else in the class had anything like this story. Almost every story that was turned in was some kind of a romantic tragedy or story about suicide. They were all mostly dark, violent, and depressing. There were a few exceptions here and there, and some people did actually have some great stuff, but no one else was writing any comedy. After a while I really wanted some levity in that class, so eventually I decided, that the way that was going to happen, was for me to open this story back up.
I procrastinated, like I usually do, until about three weeks before it was due. I really had no idea how to pick it back up. I loved my first act, but I didn't know where to take it after that. When I finally had an idea, I worked on it straight for hours. Every day I spent at least a minimum of two hours, sometimes far longer, writing and rewriting the story until I was finally happy with it.
When I finally turned it in, it was a huge hit. Everyone loved it, multiple people told me it was their favorite story of the semester, and one guy, on the day of the critique, walked into class, dropped all of his stuff dramatically, spun around, pointed at me and exclaimed, "You! Thank you! You turned my whole f$@#!%g day around!!!" It was the nicest expletive that's ever been directed at me. :p
There were still issues with it of course, but after the critique day, I had a ton of pointers from the class, so I knew how it needed to be improved. By the end of the semester I had finished it, and it was probably the longest peice of fiction I'd done so far. It's probably not perfect, but I am still quite happy with it. I hope you'll enjoy it too. :)
Sirens screamed and spotlights scoured the edge of the woods as Goldilocks ran into the darkness. She had been a prisoner at Emerald City Juvenile Corrections for a year and a half on multiple charges, breaking and entering, destruction of property, assault; and those were just the charges in the Three Bears’ case. Who knows what else she might have done that she was never charged with.
By the time she’d come up with a plan of escape, she could not take one more day in this hellish green prison. She was sick of the food, she was sick of the emerald jumpsuits, she was sick of this hideous prison haircut that made her look like a Munchkin, but most of all, she was sick of being told what to do.
Goldilocks was used to being able to do pretty much whatever she wanted. She was only twelve, but for all intents and purposes, she was on her own. She had never known her father, and her mother was always off somewhere drinking, or gambling, or doing yoga with her girlfriends. Sometimes all three at once.
A few months ago Goldilocks had made friends with one of the wardens, a wolf who was sympathetic to her story. He too had had a rough childhood, and told her he saw a lot of himself in her. He’d purposely looked the other way as she made her escape, and made sure to give her a head start before pulling the alarm.
Goldilocks was not heading home. Her mother had been out betting on the gnome fights, gambling away her last unemployment check the day Goldilocks was arrested, so they got her on charges of child neglect. She’d been in prison for as long as Goldilocks had, so going home wasn’t even an option, even if she’d wanted to.
The only member of her family that Goldilocks could ever count on, and the only one she even liked, was her grandmother. Her grandmother was her idol. She’d been an assassin in her day, going by the name "The Red Shawl," she had done plenty of things that would make the most hardened criminals whimper in fear, crying and sucking their thumbs.
A few years earlier, a number of particularly nasty jobs had taken their toll on her, and The Red Shawl had decided to retire. She had emerged from those final battles victorious of course, that pack of wolves, Biff the Giant, the two-headed dragon of Gelth, not to mention that ogress and her seven husbands, they were all deader than doornails. But that had been such a stressful day that she’d had to stay in bed recovering for almost a week, and she just hated having to miss her Zumba and water aerobics classes. So at the age of 72, she’d decided it was time to hang up her shawl, and she moved into a little cabin in the forest.
Goldilocks fled over the river and through the woods until she could no longer hear the sirens behind her. She had no idea how far it was to her grandmother’s house, so when she came upon an old shack that seemed to have no one home, she broke the door in, climbed into the bed, and immediately fell asleep.
The next morning, she awoke to the glorious smell of gingerbread wafting through the entire house. She sat up in the bed and saw a little old lady hunched over a fancy new Maytag brand cauldron.
"Who are you?" Goldilocks asked nervously, not sure whether or not the old woman would be upset about the door she had broken, or the fact that she had spent the night in her bed.
"Well, my name is Grunhildabeth, but I think a better question is, who are you?" the old lady asked, a slight smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Why are you here?"
"My name is... Pollyanna..." Goldilocks lied, thinking it would be best to keep her identity a secret. Pollyanna had been this extremely annoying little girl that Goldilocks had met in Emerald City. The girl would NOT shut up about how glad, Glad, GLAD! she had been that she had been caught in the middle of her candy spree because this would give her a chance to turn her life around.
"Oh, really?" Grunhildabeth asked, hobbling over to her on a gnarled looking walking stick. "THE Pollyanna? The infamous tri-county candy thief?"
"Um... Yes?"
"Because I’ve met Pollyanna." the old woman continued, shaking her stick in Goldilocks’ direction. "I caught her tearing the shingles off my garage last year. I forgave her and offered her a place to stay while she hid from the police, but after a couple of days she just up and bashed me over the head with a lamp and fled! For no reason!” She shook her head sadly. “I have no idea why; I'm such a sweet little old lady.”
Suddenly she perked up. “Care for a doorknob?” she asked cheerfully. “It's dark chocolate coconut truffle!" She bent over and pulled the knob off the door that Goldilocks had broken down. "It's ok, I'm baking up a fresh door right now."
"Your door is edible?" Asked Goldilocks, taking a bite from the doorknob.
"Oh, yes." Grunhildabeth replied. "My whole house is. I just love children so much; my house is specially made for any who might happen to wander by. Help yourself to any furniture or appliances if you like. I can always make more. Care for a hunk of ceiling fan?”
The old woman reached up with her walking stick and knocked down a large slab of chocolate. Unfortunately, the fan was still on, and the missing blade set it off balance. The whole thing rocked back and forth a few times before it snapped off the ceiling, flew across the room, and took out a huge plate glass window.
"Whoops!” Grunhildabeth said cheerfully, handing the fan blade to Goldilocks. “Oh well, I’ll just add sugar glass to my to-do list! So, anyway, who are you really? And why exactly are you wearing that green jumpsuit?"
Goldilocks looked at the old woman like she was insane, but took a bite of the fan blade anyway. It was actually pretty amazing. "Okay, fine. I'm not Pollyanna," she admitted, taking another bite of the fan blade. "But I can't tell you who I am. Other than your awesome candy skills, I have no reason to trust you."
"Well, those green jumpsuits aren't exactly haute couture you know. It's obvious you’re here because you need a place to hide. But I really don’t mind, you can stay here with me. My home is your home. I LOVE children, and I really don’t care what you did. This is a 100% judgement free home. Judgement free, not sugar free!" She cackled to herself.
"I’m really sorry, but I can't stay," Goldilocks said, handing the fan blade back to the old woman. "As delicious as this place is, I really need to get to my grandmother's house. By now she’ll probably have heard what happened to me, and she’ll be worried."
"Please, at least just stay for a couple of days." the old woman pleaded. "I'll make you a cherry chocolate cheesecake filled marshmallow fondant throw pillow with licorice cross-stitch and fringe!"
"Sorry, I really need to go."
"No,” the old woman said, suddenly deadly serious. "You can never leave."
"What?"
"You heard me. You aren't leaving. Ever." Grunhildabeth pointed her walking stick at the oven which flew open, shooting out the new door which fixed itself in the doorway and locked into place. She turned and pointed her stick at Goldilocks, causing a huge cage made of thick candy canes to materialize around her. “You’re going to stay here, and you are going to eat my house, and you are going to get nice and fat, because I am sick of eating my own appliances, and I am starving for a fresh, juicy child!”
"Forget this, you frickin’ cannibal!" Goldilocks yelled, and grabbed the bars of the cage with all her might. She had spent the last year and a half doing almost nothing other than working out in the prison yard, and summoning all her strength, she snapped out two of the oversized peppermint sticks, and leapt out of the cage. "Take this, you witch!" she screamed, and cracked the old woman upside the head, knocking her backwards into the cauldron. She kicked open the freshly baked door, and ran for her life.
Ignoring the old woman’s shrieks and wails, Goldilocks ran back into the woods, and kept running until she could no longer hear the angry cursing in the distance.
Goldilocks walked in silence for a while until she eventually found the path again. At least she hoped it was the right path, they all look the same when you’re this deep in the forest. She followed the path until she came to an intersection, marked by a sign with a bunch of arrows, all pointing in different directions. One of them was pointing back in the direction of ‘Grunhildabeth’s Candy Cottage,’ and another arrow, pointing down an overgrown path, was marked ‘Mother Melgrid’s Tower Salon: We Don’t Do Haircuts!’ There were seven small signs underneath those, all pointing in the same direction, marked with the names, Happy, Sappy, Grumpy, Dumpy, Sneezy, Wheezy, and Kevin, and below that was a small, obviously newer sign that simply read ‘Grandmother’s House.’
“Well, that’s convenient,” she said to herself, looking at the arrow that seemed to be pointing her toward her grandmother. “I hope it’s actually MY Grandmother, and not some random old lady.” She figured it probably was her grandmother. What other grandmother would want to live out in the middle of the forest? Besides that old witch of course. And the witch probably wasn’t even a grandmother. Who would have ever wanted to marry that ugly sack of wrinkles?
Just then, she got the distinct feeling that she was being watched. Afraid that Grunhildabeth might have followed her, she decided to go back through the forest and try to keep going in the general direction of the arrow, staying close enough to the path that she wouldn’t get lost, but far enough in that she could remain hidden.
As she was about to go back into the forest, two little children burst out of the trees and crashed into her, sending one of them, a little boy, tumbling to the ground. "Owie, mister!" he exclaimed, rubbing his rear end.
"I'm not a mister." Goldilocks sneered, "What’s wrong with you?”
"Well, you're wearing pants," the little boy said. "And you have short hair. Only boys wear pants and have short hair."
"Someone needs to let go of their antiquated gender stereotypes, little girl," Goldilocks glared at him.
"I’m not a little girl!”
“I’m the girl!” his sister exclaimed.
“See?” Goldilocks replied. “It doesn’t feel very nice to be misgendered, now does it?”
“What?” the little boy asked, totally confused.
"Can you help us?" The little girl interrupted. "We're lost and we need food."
"Yeah! We're starving!" the boy agreed loudly.
"Oh, hey, yeah!" Goldilocks exclaimed, feigning excitement. "You kids should go that way." She pointed to the sign and motioned behind her, back in the direction she’d come from. "There's a huge house all made of candy and gingerbread and chocolate and junk!”
“Junk? It’s made of garbage?” the little boy asked.
“Not literal junk, geez!” she said, reverting back to annoyance. “It’s a figure of speech! The house is made of candy! You can eat it!” She switched back to faux enthusiasm. “Plus, there’s a nice lady who lives there who will give you all the food you want! And I think she’s magic!”
"Really? Awesome! Thanks mister!" the little boy exclaimed, and the children ran off in the direction of the witch’s cottage.
"Yay! Run! Go get that sugar!" she hollered after them. "Good riddance," she said to herself, and continued on her way, no longer worried that Grunhildabeth would come looking for her.
Goldilocks followed the path for a few more hours. Around three in the afternoon she found a small apple orchard and decided to stop to get something to eat. A sign on the fence around the orchard read, ‘Queen Grimillian’s Totally Not Poisoned Apples!’ “Hmm,” Goldilocks said to herself. “Sounds legit,” and she helped herself to a few of the biggest apples she could find.
As she ate, she thought she heard someone walking up the path outside the orchard, and instinctively she reached for the taser in her pocket. Unfortunately, it had been confiscated when she was arrested, so she shimmied up a tree and out of sight. She really needed to get a new weapon ASAP. As she watched from the branches, a wolf appeared around the corner and sniffed the air. Suddenly it looked directly up at her.
“My, my, my… What have we here?” asked the wolf, in a deep, powerful voice that sounded like a rich fusion of Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones. “A little girl like yourself should not be alone out here! What would your mother say?”
“Steppen?” Goldilocks asked. “Is that you? What are you doing out here?”
“I could ask you the same thing!” the wolf replied. It was the same wolf who’d helped her escape the Emerald. “Why are you out here? I thought you were going to your grandmother’s as soon as I’d gotten you out!”
“I’m on my way,” Goldilocks said, climbing down from the tree. “My grandmother lives out here somewhere, but I have no idea how far away she is.”
“Well, lucky for you, I was the one who found you, and not one of the other wardens. There have been people combing the woods for you since last night, you know.”
“Oh,” Goldilocks said. In all the excitement with the witch, she’d kind of forgotten that there might be a manhunt out looking for her.
“I have an idea on how to get them to call off the search,” the wolf told her, “But you’re going to need to change your clothes.”
“Oh, believe me, I’d love nothing more, but if you haven’t noticed, these woods seem to be rather lacking in Walmarts.”
“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’m pretty sure there’s a house not far from here, I can smell smoke from a wood burning stove. We’ll stop there and get you some clothes. Then you give me your jumpsuit, and I’ll tear it up, and take it back to Emerald. They’ll just assume you got eaten by a bear or something, and give up looking.”
“A bear, really? You realize I took down three of those on my own, they’ll never believe I let one get the drop on me!”
“Okay, fine, we’ll set it on fire and tell them a dragon got you!”
“Now that’s more like it!” Goldilocks exclaimed gleefully. “I’d never stand a chance against a dragon!”
“You’re a very odd little girl,” the wolf told her. “You know that, right?”
“I have been told that before,” she said, smiling.
“Okay, let’s get going,” he said. “We’ve got a death to fake.”
They set out on their way and after a while they came upon a small, brick house. Goldilocks knocked on the door and a moment later it opened a crack. A little pig poked its head out, but it took one look at the wolf and squealed, “Not again!” and slammed the door in their faces. From behind the door they heard several deadbolts click, and shortly they heard the sound of an engine roaring to life. They looked around to the back of the house and saw the pig fly out of the garage on a motorcycle as fast as it could go.
“Nice!” exclaimed Goldilocks, and picked up a rock, chucking it through a huge plate glass window.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” the wolf said. “Or we could have just gone through the garage.”
“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” Goldilocks asked, carefully climbing over the glass.
Inside the house, they found some clothes that fit her. The pig was about her height, but he was much rounder, so she had to use a belt to keep the pants up.
“Well, this’ll have to do,” Goldilocks said, stepping out of the bathroom and handing the jumpsuit to Steppen. “Not sure about the smell though.” The clothes smelled like mud and old ham, with a hint of… taco seasoning? Whatever it was, it was gross.
“You’ll just have to put up with it I’m afraid,” the wolf said. “This is the only way to get them off your scent.”
Goldilocks gave him a look, and he laughed.
“Thanks so much for that,” she said sarcastically.
“Don’t mention it,” The wolf said, ripping a leg off the jumpsuit with his teeth.
“Wait!” Goldilocks exclaimed. “I thought we were going to set it on fire!”
“Oh, right.” The wolf spit out the leg and found a lighter next to the pig’s stove.
Outside, they burned away about half the material, but made sure that the prisoner ID number was left intact.
“Why don’t you stay the night here,” the wolf said. “It’ll be getting dark soon, and I doubt that pig’ll be back. I’ll take the jumpsuit back to Emerald, hopefully they’ll call back the search party right away, and you should be good to go in the morning.”
“Thank you so much, Steppen,” Goldilocks said. “If I was that kind of person, I would hug you right now.”
“Please don’t,” the wolf said, smiling slightly. “Goodbye now. Good luck.”
“Thank you! I hope I’ll see you again someday!”
“Definitely!”
The next day, Goldilocks set out again. She walked for a few hours before she finally spotted a small house off in the distance. Grandmother’s cottage! She’d finally made it! She knocked on the door, but no one answered, and the door creaked open slightly as it had not been latched. She pushed it open and found the whole place was a mess. Chairs upside down, the bedclothes were everywhere, the nightstand and mirror were both overturned and broken, and there were gouges in the floors and walls, like someone had gone crazy with an axe. An axe which was now lying in pieces on the ground outside, next to the back door, which had been broken out of its frame. Upon closer inspection, Goldilocks realized the the axe looked like it had been bitten in half, bitten in half by something with very sharp teeth. There was no blood though, so maybe her grandmother was still okay? She was a trained assassin after all.
Goldilocks ran out the back door. “Grandmother?” she called. “Grandmother!?” There was no answer. “GRANDMOTHER!?” This was pointless. If her grandmother was still alive she was going to have to find her herself. But first she would need a change of clothes and a weapon. The little pig’s clothes were rank, and she was even more eager to get rid of them than she had been the jumpsuit.
She went back inside and opened the closet, glad that she and her grandmother were roughly the same size. She pulled out a dark colored dress, and then she saw it. There, inside the closet, was her grandmother’s infamous red cloak. “Perfect,” she said to herself, and put it on over the dress. If her grandmother was dead, she was sure she would have wanted her to take it, and if she was alive, she could return it when she found her.
Glad to finally be out of the smelly clothes, Goldilocks began searching the house for a weapon. Obviously the axe was out, but there had to be something else around here. Her grandmother would not have become one of the most feared assassins without a collection of weapons.
She looked in all the kitchen cupboards, under the bed, even in the bathroom. Finally she began pulling books off the bookshelf, hoping to find a hollowed-out book hiding a gun, but when she pulled out the Encyclopedia of Cupcakes, the bookshelf shuddered. Creaking and groaning, it pulled away from the wall and slid to the side, revealing a staircase leading down to an armory, almost the same size as the main room of the house!
The armory was absolutely FULL of weapons. There were swords and daggers, guns and crossbows, maces and mace, there was even a large selection of tasers! Her favorite! Goldilocks grabbed a taser that looked a lot like the one she’d used to take down the Papa Bear, and a can of mace, like the one she’d used on the Mamma Bear. Knowing that her grandmother was probably unarmed, she grabbed a huge sword, her grandmother’s weapon of choice. She thought about grabbing a gun too, just in case, but none of them were loaded, and she didn’t know how to load them. Oh well, three weapons should be plenty. Goldilocks found a sheath and strapped the sword to her side, and set out with the cloak covering her and the weapon completely.
Goldilocks followed the trail as best as she could for about a half mile before she came to a clearing with a pond and cave on its shore. She thought she heard noises coming from the cave, so she crept closer.
“I’ll never give up, you murderer!” a familiar deep voice shouted. “I know you killed my parents! You will pay!”
“Steppen?” Goldilocks asked aloud.
“Well it’s a good thing I’m a patient woman!” she heard her grandmother yell. “As soon as I can get my hand on one of those cave spikes, you’ll be dead in a second!”
“Well, why don’t you let me go, so you can grab one?”
“Nice try, you smelly bathmat! I’m not going anywhere! As soon as I’ve finished with you, I’m going to dye you pink and turn you into a toilet seat cover!”
“You won’t live long enough to try!”
Goldilocks crept into the cave and saw something that was, quite frankly, pretty hilarious. Her grandmother, a woman in her 70’s, still in her nightgown, had apparently wrestled the wolf to the floor of the cave, and was sitting on his back, pulling his front paws up over his head so he couldn’t move.
“Grandmother!” she shouted.
“Goldilocks!” her grandmother cried in surprise.
“Steppen!?” Goldilocks shouted. “What are you doing!?”
“Wait,” Goldilocks’ grandmother said, “You two know each other!?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing!?” Steppen continued, ignoring her. “I’m getting my revenge! Your grandmother killed my parents!”
“What!?” Goldilocks exclaimed, thoroughly confused. “What do you mean? How do you know?”
“When I was just a pup, my parents disappeared without a trace. There were rumors that they had been slaughtered by an ancient evil, cloaked in crimson! When you told me all about your grandmother’s “amazing exploits,” I knew she was the one who’d killed them! That cloak you’re wearing is proof enough! The Red Shawl!”
“You don’t know that! How could you know that?”
“Come on dear,” Goldilocks’ grandmother said, “Let’s be real. If his parents were wolves, I probably did kill them. Now will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“He was one of the wardens at Emerald.” Goldilocks explained. “He helped me escape! I thought he was my friend!”
“We could never be friends after what your grandmother did to my parents! I was just a puppy! She murdered them!” He turned to her grandmother, “You murdered them!”
“I was hired to do a job,” Goldilocks’ grandmother said. “It wasn’t personal.”
“Yeah, well it is now!” The wolf thrashed with all his might and threw her across the room. She rolled into a row of stalagmites, breaking several of them off, and was still.
“Stop it!” Goldilocks shouted drawing the sword. “I don’t want to hurt you, but if you’ve hurt my grandmother I will! Why did you help me? If we weren’t friends, why would you go through all that trouble to help me escape?”
“I did like you at first, I wasn’t lying when I said you reminded me of myself, but once I figured out who your grandmother was, it didn’t matter. I helped you escape so you would lead me to her. I’ve been looking for her for years, I couldn’t let this opportunity to finally get my revenge pass me by. I’m sorry, Goldilocks, this was never about you. I wish you weren’t here to have to see this.”
The wolf leapt toward her grandmother with his teeth bared, but with one swift motion, Goldilocks’ grandmother leapt up, throwing one of the stalagmites with all her might, stabbing the wolf in the chest.
“Well, it seems like luck is on your side, old woman,” gasped the wolf, staggering backwards.
“Yes, it would seem so.”
Goldilocks ran toward them.
“You know I’m not giving up, right?” he said weakly. “You’re just going to have to kill me.”
“Why, Steppen?” Goldilocks asked. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Oh, but it does,’ the wolf replied. “All my life has been leading me to this moment. From the moment my parents died, I made it my mission to seek justice on their behalf. I can’t let their murders go unavenged.”
“Hand me my sword, dear,” her grandmother said, and Goldilocks passed her the blade.
The wolf looked at her pointedly. “I’m sorry, but if you’re going to stand in my way, you’re going to have to go too.”
Summoning the last of his strength, the wolf leapt towards Goldilocks, but she was prepared, and before his teeth could even brush her skin, he was on the ground, writhing with 50,000 volts. As he lay twitching on the floor of the cave, Goldilocks’ grandmother plunged her sword into the wolf, and he was dead.
“Grandmother!” Goldilocks cried, dropping the taser and running forward.
“Oh, Goldilocks,” she replied, as they fell into an embrace.
“I’m so sorry,” Goldilocks said. “I never should have told him about you!”
“Don’t worry about it dear, you didn’t know. Besides, I’ve been needing new carpets anyway. He’ll make some fine mats for the bathroom.”
Goldilocks laughed quietly.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” her grandmother asked, pulling the sword out of the wolf. Last I knew they’d sent you up the river!”
“Well, that’s kind of the problem,” Goldilocks said. “I sort of need a place to stay. I may or may not have just escaped from prison and faked my own death.”
“Oh, that’s my little girl!” her grandmother exclaimed happily, putting an arm around her as they left the cave. “Of course you can stay with me! After what happened this morning, I’m pretty sure I’ll be needing help fixing my house anyway!”
“Thank you, grandmother! Oh, and I’m assuming you’ll be wanting this back.” Goldilocks began to take off the red cloak, but her grandmother stopped her.
“No dear, you keep it. After your amazing performance today, I think you deserve to keep it. Who knows. Maybe one day you can follow in my footsteps. Perhaps you could be the next Red Shawl.”
“Really? I know how much this cloak means to you.”
“Think nothing of it,” her grandmother said, stopping at the pond outside the cave to clean her sword. “I’ve lost count of how many of those things that I’ve owned. You really think that I’ve had the same cloak for 50 years of assassining? Those things wear out way too easily, especially when you fight things with claws!”
Goldilocks handed her the sheath.
“I can make myself another cloak,” her grandmother said, strapping the sword to her side. “You keep this one.”
“Thank you, Grandmother. I’ll wear it always.”
Her grandmother laughed. “Well, at least until it gets shredded in a bear fight or something.”
“Hey, I came out of that fight without a scratch! And there were three of them!”
“Of course, but I meant wild bears. Oatmeal eating, chair sitting, bed using, domesticated bears don’t count. Plus, one of those was a baby!” her grandmother said with a mischievous smile.
“Grandmother…” Goldilocks said, laughing.
“Goldilocks…” she replied, playfully mocking her tone, then stopped. “Goldilocks. Hmm… How would you like a nickname? If you’re going to follow in my footstep, you need an alias.”
“Really?” Goldilocks asked.
“Of course!” her grandmother exclaimed. “Goldilocks sounds too sweet. Too innocent. Why do you think I called myself The Red Shawl? I couldn’t go around killing monsters with a name like Rosemary, could I?”
“Well, I guess not,” Goldilocks replied. “But what do you think I should be called?”
“I think that cloak really suits you,” her grandmother said. “Let’s call you, Red.”
Red & Gold
(The REAL Story of Little Red Riding Hood)
Jonathan North
Sirens screamed and spotlights scoured the edge of the woods as Goldilocks ran into the darkness. She had been a prisoner at Emerald City Juvenile Corrections for a year and a half on multiple charges, breaking and entering, destruction of property, assault; and those were just the charges in the Three Bears’ case. Who knows what else she might have done that she was never charged with.
By the time she’d come up with a plan of escape, she could not take one more day in this hellish green prison. She was sick of the food, she was sick of the emerald jumpsuits, she was sick of this hideous prison haircut that made her look like a Munchkin, but most of all, she was sick of being told what to do.
Goldilocks was used to being able to do pretty much whatever she wanted. She was only twelve, but for all intents and purposes, she was on her own. She had never known her father, and her mother was always off somewhere drinking, or gambling, or doing yoga with her girlfriends. Sometimes all three at once.
A few months ago Goldilocks had made friends with one of the wardens, a wolf who was sympathetic to her story. He too had had a rough childhood, and told her he saw a lot of himself in her. He’d purposely looked the other way as she made her escape, and made sure to give her a head start before pulling the alarm.
Goldilocks was not heading home. Her mother had been out betting on the gnome fights, gambling away her last unemployment check the day Goldilocks was arrested, so they got her on charges of child neglect. She’d been in prison for as long as Goldilocks had, so going home wasn’t even an option, even if she’d wanted to.
~
A few years earlier, a number of particularly nasty jobs had taken their toll on her, and The Red Shawl had decided to retire. She had emerged from those final battles victorious of course, that pack of wolves, Biff the Giant, the two-headed dragon of Gelth, not to mention that ogress and her seven husbands, they were all deader than doornails. But that had been such a stressful day that she’d had to stay in bed recovering for almost a week, and she just hated having to miss her Zumba and water aerobics classes. So at the age of 72, she’d decided it was time to hang up her shawl, and she moved into a little cabin in the forest.
~
~
"Who are you?" Goldilocks asked nervously, not sure whether or not the old woman would be upset about the door she had broken, or the fact that she had spent the night in her bed.
"Well, my name is Grunhildabeth, but I think a better question is, who are you?" the old lady asked, a slight smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Why are you here?"
"My name is... Pollyanna..." Goldilocks lied, thinking it would be best to keep her identity a secret. Pollyanna had been this extremely annoying little girl that Goldilocks had met in Emerald City. The girl would NOT shut up about how glad, Glad, GLAD! she had been that she had been caught in the middle of her candy spree because this would give her a chance to turn her life around.
"Oh, really?" Grunhildabeth asked, hobbling over to her on a gnarled looking walking stick. "THE Pollyanna? The infamous tri-county candy thief?"
"Um... Yes?"
"Because I’ve met Pollyanna." the old woman continued, shaking her stick in Goldilocks’ direction. "I caught her tearing the shingles off my garage last year. I forgave her and offered her a place to stay while she hid from the police, but after a couple of days she just up and bashed me over the head with a lamp and fled! For no reason!” She shook her head sadly. “I have no idea why; I'm such a sweet little old lady.”
Suddenly she perked up. “Care for a doorknob?” she asked cheerfully. “It's dark chocolate coconut truffle!" She bent over and pulled the knob off the door that Goldilocks had broken down. "It's ok, I'm baking up a fresh door right now."
"Your door is edible?" Asked Goldilocks, taking a bite from the doorknob.
"Oh, yes." Grunhildabeth replied. "My whole house is. I just love children so much; my house is specially made for any who might happen to wander by. Help yourself to any furniture or appliances if you like. I can always make more. Care for a hunk of ceiling fan?”
The old woman reached up with her walking stick and knocked down a large slab of chocolate. Unfortunately, the fan was still on, and the missing blade set it off balance. The whole thing rocked back and forth a few times before it snapped off the ceiling, flew across the room, and took out a huge plate glass window.
"Whoops!” Grunhildabeth said cheerfully, handing the fan blade to Goldilocks. “Oh well, I’ll just add sugar glass to my to-do list! So, anyway, who are you really? And why exactly are you wearing that green jumpsuit?"
Goldilocks looked at the old woman like she was insane, but took a bite of the fan blade anyway. It was actually pretty amazing. "Okay, fine. I'm not Pollyanna," she admitted, taking another bite of the fan blade. "But I can't tell you who I am. Other than your awesome candy skills, I have no reason to trust you."
"Well, those green jumpsuits aren't exactly haute couture you know. It's obvious you’re here because you need a place to hide. But I really don’t mind, you can stay here with me. My home is your home. I LOVE children, and I really don’t care what you did. This is a 100% judgement free home. Judgement free, not sugar free!" She cackled to herself.
"I’m really sorry, but I can't stay," Goldilocks said, handing the fan blade back to the old woman. "As delicious as this place is, I really need to get to my grandmother's house. By now she’ll probably have heard what happened to me, and she’ll be worried."
"Please, at least just stay for a couple of days." the old woman pleaded. "I'll make you a cherry chocolate cheesecake filled marshmallow fondant throw pillow with licorice cross-stitch and fringe!"
"Sorry, I really need to go."
"No,” the old woman said, suddenly deadly serious. "You can never leave."
"What?"
"You heard me. You aren't leaving. Ever." Grunhildabeth pointed her walking stick at the oven which flew open, shooting out the new door which fixed itself in the doorway and locked into place. She turned and pointed her stick at Goldilocks, causing a huge cage made of thick candy canes to materialize around her. “You’re going to stay here, and you are going to eat my house, and you are going to get nice and fat, because I am sick of eating my own appliances, and I am starving for a fresh, juicy child!”
"Forget this, you frickin’ cannibal!" Goldilocks yelled, and grabbed the bars of the cage with all her might. She had spent the last year and a half doing almost nothing other than working out in the prison yard, and summoning all her strength, she snapped out two of the oversized peppermint sticks, and leapt out of the cage. "Take this, you witch!" she screamed, and cracked the old woman upside the head, knocking her backwards into the cauldron. She kicked open the freshly baked door, and ran for her life.
Ignoring the old woman’s shrieks and wails, Goldilocks ran back into the woods, and kept running until she could no longer hear the angry cursing in the distance.
~
“Well, that’s convenient,” she said to herself, looking at the arrow that seemed to be pointing her toward her grandmother. “I hope it’s actually MY Grandmother, and not some random old lady.” She figured it probably was her grandmother. What other grandmother would want to live out in the middle of the forest? Besides that old witch of course. And the witch probably wasn’t even a grandmother. Who would have ever wanted to marry that ugly sack of wrinkles?
Just then, she got the distinct feeling that she was being watched. Afraid that Grunhildabeth might have followed her, she decided to go back through the forest and try to keep going in the general direction of the arrow, staying close enough to the path that she wouldn’t get lost, but far enough in that she could remain hidden.
As she was about to go back into the forest, two little children burst out of the trees and crashed into her, sending one of them, a little boy, tumbling to the ground. "Owie, mister!" he exclaimed, rubbing his rear end.
"I'm not a mister." Goldilocks sneered, "What’s wrong with you?”
"Well, you're wearing pants," the little boy said. "And you have short hair. Only boys wear pants and have short hair."
"Someone needs to let go of their antiquated gender stereotypes, little girl," Goldilocks glared at him.
"I’m not a little girl!”
“I’m the girl!” his sister exclaimed.
“See?” Goldilocks replied. “It doesn’t feel very nice to be misgendered, now does it?”
“What?” the little boy asked, totally confused.
"Can you help us?" The little girl interrupted. "We're lost and we need food."
"Yeah! We're starving!" the boy agreed loudly.
"Oh, hey, yeah!" Goldilocks exclaimed, feigning excitement. "You kids should go that way." She pointed to the sign and motioned behind her, back in the direction she’d come from. "There's a huge house all made of candy and gingerbread and chocolate and junk!”
“Junk? It’s made of garbage?” the little boy asked.
“Not literal junk, geez!” she said, reverting back to annoyance. “It’s a figure of speech! The house is made of candy! You can eat it!” She switched back to faux enthusiasm. “Plus, there’s a nice lady who lives there who will give you all the food you want! And I think she’s magic!”
"Really? Awesome! Thanks mister!" the little boy exclaimed, and the children ran off in the direction of the witch’s cottage.
"Yay! Run! Go get that sugar!" she hollered after them. "Good riddance," she said to herself, and continued on her way, no longer worried that Grunhildabeth would come looking for her.
~
As she ate, she thought she heard someone walking up the path outside the orchard, and instinctively she reached for the taser in her pocket. Unfortunately, it had been confiscated when she was arrested, so she shimmied up a tree and out of sight. She really needed to get a new weapon ASAP. As she watched from the branches, a wolf appeared around the corner and sniffed the air. Suddenly it looked directly up at her.
“My, my, my… What have we here?” asked the wolf, in a deep, powerful voice that sounded like a rich fusion of Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones. “A little girl like yourself should not be alone out here! What would your mother say?”
“Steppen?” Goldilocks asked. “Is that you? What are you doing out here?”
“I could ask you the same thing!” the wolf replied. It was the same wolf who’d helped her escape the Emerald. “Why are you out here? I thought you were going to your grandmother’s as soon as I’d gotten you out!”
“I’m on my way,” Goldilocks said, climbing down from the tree. “My grandmother lives out here somewhere, but I have no idea how far away she is.”
“Well, lucky for you, I was the one who found you, and not one of the other wardens. There have been people combing the woods for you since last night, you know.”
“Oh,” Goldilocks said. In all the excitement with the witch, she’d kind of forgotten that there might be a manhunt out looking for her.
“I have an idea on how to get them to call off the search,” the wolf told her, “But you’re going to need to change your clothes.”
“Oh, believe me, I’d love nothing more, but if you haven’t noticed, these woods seem to be rather lacking in Walmarts.”
“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’m pretty sure there’s a house not far from here, I can smell smoke from a wood burning stove. We’ll stop there and get you some clothes. Then you give me your jumpsuit, and I’ll tear it up, and take it back to Emerald. They’ll just assume you got eaten by a bear or something, and give up looking.”
“A bear, really? You realize I took down three of those on my own, they’ll never believe I let one get the drop on me!”
“Okay, fine, we’ll set it on fire and tell them a dragon got you!”
“Now that’s more like it!” Goldilocks exclaimed gleefully. “I’d never stand a chance against a dragon!”
“You’re a very odd little girl,” the wolf told her. “You know that, right?”
“I have been told that before,” she said, smiling.
“Okay, let’s get going,” he said. “We’ve got a death to fake.”
~
“Nice!” exclaimed Goldilocks, and picked up a rock, chucking it through a huge plate glass window.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” the wolf said. “Or we could have just gone through the garage.”
“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” Goldilocks asked, carefully climbing over the glass.
Inside the house, they found some clothes that fit her. The pig was about her height, but he was much rounder, so she had to use a belt to keep the pants up.
“Well, this’ll have to do,” Goldilocks said, stepping out of the bathroom and handing the jumpsuit to Steppen. “Not sure about the smell though.” The clothes smelled like mud and old ham, with a hint of… taco seasoning? Whatever it was, it was gross.
“You’ll just have to put up with it I’m afraid,” the wolf said. “This is the only way to get them off your scent.”
Goldilocks gave him a look, and he laughed.
“Thanks so much for that,” she said sarcastically.
“Don’t mention it,” The wolf said, ripping a leg off the jumpsuit with his teeth.
“Wait!” Goldilocks exclaimed. “I thought we were going to set it on fire!”
“Oh, right.” The wolf spit out the leg and found a lighter next to the pig’s stove.
Outside, they burned away about half the material, but made sure that the prisoner ID number was left intact.
“Why don’t you stay the night here,” the wolf said. “It’ll be getting dark soon, and I doubt that pig’ll be back. I’ll take the jumpsuit back to Emerald, hopefully they’ll call back the search party right away, and you should be good to go in the morning.”
“Thank you so much, Steppen,” Goldilocks said. “If I was that kind of person, I would hug you right now.”
“Please don’t,” the wolf said, smiling slightly. “Goodbye now. Good luck.”
“Thank you! I hope I’ll see you again someday!”
“Definitely!”
~
The next day, Goldilocks set out again. She walked for a few hours before she finally spotted a small house off in the distance. Grandmother’s cottage! She’d finally made it! She knocked on the door, but no one answered, and the door creaked open slightly as it had not been latched. She pushed it open and found the whole place was a mess. Chairs upside down, the bedclothes were everywhere, the nightstand and mirror were both overturned and broken, and there were gouges in the floors and walls, like someone had gone crazy with an axe. An axe which was now lying in pieces on the ground outside, next to the back door, which had been broken out of its frame. Upon closer inspection, Goldilocks realized the the axe looked like it had been bitten in half, bitten in half by something with very sharp teeth. There was no blood though, so maybe her grandmother was still okay? She was a trained assassin after all.
Goldilocks ran out the back door. “Grandmother?” she called. “Grandmother!?” There was no answer. “GRANDMOTHER!?” This was pointless. If her grandmother was still alive she was going to have to find her herself. But first she would need a change of clothes and a weapon. The little pig’s clothes were rank, and she was even more eager to get rid of them than she had been the jumpsuit.
She went back inside and opened the closet, glad that she and her grandmother were roughly the same size. She pulled out a dark colored dress, and then she saw it. There, inside the closet, was her grandmother’s infamous red cloak. “Perfect,” she said to herself, and put it on over the dress. If her grandmother was dead, she was sure she would have wanted her to take it, and if she was alive, she could return it when she found her.
Glad to finally be out of the smelly clothes, Goldilocks began searching the house for a weapon. Obviously the axe was out, but there had to be something else around here. Her grandmother would not have become one of the most feared assassins without a collection of weapons.
She looked in all the kitchen cupboards, under the bed, even in the bathroom. Finally she began pulling books off the bookshelf, hoping to find a hollowed-out book hiding a gun, but when she pulled out the Encyclopedia of Cupcakes, the bookshelf shuddered. Creaking and groaning, it pulled away from the wall and slid to the side, revealing a staircase leading down to an armory, almost the same size as the main room of the house!
The armory was absolutely FULL of weapons. There were swords and daggers, guns and crossbows, maces and mace, there was even a large selection of tasers! Her favorite! Goldilocks grabbed a taser that looked a lot like the one she’d used to take down the Papa Bear, and a can of mace, like the one she’d used on the Mamma Bear. Knowing that her grandmother was probably unarmed, she grabbed a huge sword, her grandmother’s weapon of choice. She thought about grabbing a gun too, just in case, but none of them were loaded, and she didn’t know how to load them. Oh well, three weapons should be plenty. Goldilocks found a sheath and strapped the sword to her side, and set out with the cloak covering her and the weapon completely.
~
“I’ll never give up, you murderer!” a familiar deep voice shouted. “I know you killed my parents! You will pay!”
“Steppen?” Goldilocks asked aloud.
“Well it’s a good thing I’m a patient woman!” she heard her grandmother yell. “As soon as I can get my hand on one of those cave spikes, you’ll be dead in a second!”
“Well, why don’t you let me go, so you can grab one?”
“Nice try, you smelly bathmat! I’m not going anywhere! As soon as I’ve finished with you, I’m going to dye you pink and turn you into a toilet seat cover!”
“You won’t live long enough to try!”
Goldilocks crept into the cave and saw something that was, quite frankly, pretty hilarious. Her grandmother, a woman in her 70’s, still in her nightgown, had apparently wrestled the wolf to the floor of the cave, and was sitting on his back, pulling his front paws up over his head so he couldn’t move.
“Grandmother!” she shouted.
“Goldilocks!” her grandmother cried in surprise.
“Steppen!?” Goldilocks shouted. “What are you doing!?”
“Wait,” Goldilocks’ grandmother said, “You two know each other!?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing!?” Steppen continued, ignoring her. “I’m getting my revenge! Your grandmother killed my parents!”
“What!?” Goldilocks exclaimed, thoroughly confused. “What do you mean? How do you know?”
“When I was just a pup, my parents disappeared without a trace. There were rumors that they had been slaughtered by an ancient evil, cloaked in crimson! When you told me all about your grandmother’s “amazing exploits,” I knew she was the one who’d killed them! That cloak you’re wearing is proof enough! The Red Shawl!”
“You don’t know that! How could you know that?”
“Come on dear,” Goldilocks’ grandmother said, “Let’s be real. If his parents were wolves, I probably did kill them. Now will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“He was one of the wardens at Emerald.” Goldilocks explained. “He helped me escape! I thought he was my friend!”
“We could never be friends after what your grandmother did to my parents! I was just a puppy! She murdered them!” He turned to her grandmother, “You murdered them!”
“I was hired to do a job,” Goldilocks’ grandmother said. “It wasn’t personal.”
“Yeah, well it is now!” The wolf thrashed with all his might and threw her across the room. She rolled into a row of stalagmites, breaking several of them off, and was still.
“Stop it!” Goldilocks shouted drawing the sword. “I don’t want to hurt you, but if you’ve hurt my grandmother I will! Why did you help me? If we weren’t friends, why would you go through all that trouble to help me escape?”
“I did like you at first, I wasn’t lying when I said you reminded me of myself, but once I figured out who your grandmother was, it didn’t matter. I helped you escape so you would lead me to her. I’ve been looking for her for years, I couldn’t let this opportunity to finally get my revenge pass me by. I’m sorry, Goldilocks, this was never about you. I wish you weren’t here to have to see this.”
The wolf leapt toward her grandmother with his teeth bared, but with one swift motion, Goldilocks’ grandmother leapt up, throwing one of the stalagmites with all her might, stabbing the wolf in the chest.
“Well, it seems like luck is on your side, old woman,” gasped the wolf, staggering backwards.
“Yes, it would seem so.”
Goldilocks ran toward them.
“You know I’m not giving up, right?” he said weakly. “You’re just going to have to kill me.”
“Why, Steppen?” Goldilocks asked. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Oh, but it does,’ the wolf replied. “All my life has been leading me to this moment. From the moment my parents died, I made it my mission to seek justice on their behalf. I can’t let their murders go unavenged.”
“Hand me my sword, dear,” her grandmother said, and Goldilocks passed her the blade.
The wolf looked at her pointedly. “I’m sorry, but if you’re going to stand in my way, you’re going to have to go too.”
Summoning the last of his strength, the wolf leapt towards Goldilocks, but she was prepared, and before his teeth could even brush her skin, he was on the ground, writhing with 50,000 volts. As he lay twitching on the floor of the cave, Goldilocks’ grandmother plunged her sword into the wolf, and he was dead.
“Grandmother!” Goldilocks cried, dropping the taser and running forward.
“Oh, Goldilocks,” she replied, as they fell into an embrace.
“I’m so sorry,” Goldilocks said. “I never should have told him about you!”
“Don’t worry about it dear, you didn’t know. Besides, I’ve been needing new carpets anyway. He’ll make some fine mats for the bathroom.”
Goldilocks laughed quietly.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” her grandmother asked, pulling the sword out of the wolf. Last I knew they’d sent you up the river!”
“Well, that’s kind of the problem,” Goldilocks said. “I sort of need a place to stay. I may or may not have just escaped from prison and faked my own death.”
“Oh, that’s my little girl!” her grandmother exclaimed happily, putting an arm around her as they left the cave. “Of course you can stay with me! After what happened this morning, I’m pretty sure I’ll be needing help fixing my house anyway!”
“Thank you, grandmother! Oh, and I’m assuming you’ll be wanting this back.” Goldilocks began to take off the red cloak, but her grandmother stopped her.
“No dear, you keep it. After your amazing performance today, I think you deserve to keep it. Who knows. Maybe one day you can follow in my footsteps. Perhaps you could be the next Red Shawl.”
“Really? I know how much this cloak means to you.”
“Think nothing of it,” her grandmother said, stopping at the pond outside the cave to clean her sword. “I’ve lost count of how many of those things that I’ve owned. You really think that I’ve had the same cloak for 50 years of assassining? Those things wear out way too easily, especially when you fight things with claws!”
Goldilocks handed her the sheath.
“I can make myself another cloak,” her grandmother said, strapping the sword to her side. “You keep this one.”
“Thank you, Grandmother. I’ll wear it always.”
Her grandmother laughed. “Well, at least until it gets shredded in a bear fight or something.”
“Hey, I came out of that fight without a scratch! And there were three of them!”
“Of course, but I meant wild bears. Oatmeal eating, chair sitting, bed using, domesticated bears don’t count. Plus, one of those was a baby!” her grandmother said with a mischievous smile.
“Grandmother…” Goldilocks said, laughing.
“Goldilocks…” she replied, playfully mocking her tone, then stopped. “Goldilocks. Hmm… How would you like a nickname? If you’re going to follow in my footstep, you need an alias.”
“Really?” Goldilocks asked.
“Of course!” her grandmother exclaimed. “Goldilocks sounds too sweet. Too innocent. Why do you think I called myself The Red Shawl? I couldn’t go around killing monsters with a name like Rosemary, could I?”
“Well, I guess not,” Goldilocks replied. “But what do you think I should be called?”
“I think that cloak really suits you,” her grandmother said. “Let’s call you, Red.”
