My A-muse-ing Life

Quote from page 9 of The Wishing Spell.  “Your story will forever be romanticized,” she told Snow White.  “No one will ever think twice about mine.  I will continue to be degraded into nothing but a grotesque villain until the end of time.  But what the world fails to realize is that a villain is just a victim whose story hasn’t been told.”  

• Colfer, Chris (2012) Land of Stories; The Wishing Spell. Little Brown Young Readers.  New York, NY

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“The better to see you with my dear!”  Those lines made my father famous despite the fact he was the sweetest old wolf you could ever meet.  I wish he could tell you this story himself, but he is dead.  Not by his own hands of course.  He was murdered by that good for nothing girl they call Red Riding Hood.  She is queen now, but if you ask me, she deserves to be in prison.  You can blame the woodsmen all you want to but the story isn’t true.  If you’ve heard the tale like I’ve heard it hundreds of times, you have come to believe that the woodsmen who just happen to be in the woods killed the Big Bad Wolf.  You have been told he killed the wolf because the wolf had eaten Red Riding Hood and her grandmother, so the woodsmen cut him open and put rocks in him instead.  According to legend, the Big Bad Wolf collapses and dies shortly after.  You have heard this story because Queen Red Riding Hood wants you to believe it, but the story is full of lies my friends. 

                My name is Malumclaw.  My father was the Big Bad Wolf and this is the true story of what happened.  One day a few years back, my father was wandering about the Northern Kingdom.  The Northern Kingdom he was in is now called Red Riding Hood Kingdom after Red Riding Hood told the lies she did and destroyed what was once a great land.  Anyways, as he wandered the Northern Kingdom, he came across a little girl with a red hood on.  I know all of this because I was with him.  I was a young pup then and I followed my dad everywhere. 

            This little girl was carrying a wooden picnic basket and seemed to be lost.  She was crying and asked us for directions.  Apparently, she had gone off the pathway her grandmother had told her stay on and gotten lost.  The pathway she wandered on was the dirt pathway running through our home.  You see, back then we wolves were allowed in the Northern Kingdom.  In fact, we were heroes and the entire land was ours to roam as we pleased.  We protected the kingdom and the kingdom made sure our pack was protected and happy in return.

            Little Red Riding Hood went on to tell us how she was supposed to be on a stone pathway.  We knew it well, it was the pathway into the Southern Kingdom where we were hated.  The Three Little Pigs, I’m sure you’ve heard about them, told a bunch of lies about my uncle Garrett and got all wolves thrown out of the kingdom because of it.  We took refuge in the North Kingdom which protected us for many years until this run in with Riding Hood.  Hood showed my father the directions she had written down and he seemed to know exactly where she needed to be.  There was a time when both kingdoms at been at peace, but that was long ago and the days are long and hard now.

            My father, being the kind-hearted soul that he was, agreed to lead her back to the south kingdom to help her find her grandmother’s home.  It was so risky at it was with wolves not allowed to cross the border, let alone with a young girl.  My father felt sorry for the young girl though, so he agreed to help her find her way back.  I was hoping we would just lead her to the border and let her go alone but my dad wouldn’t hear of it.  We led her through the Northern Kingdom, down the dirt path for a few miles and on to the stone path in the Southern Kingdom.  From there, we kept walking following a stone path that led us deep into a forest.  I grew nervous for my mother had warned me many times about the woodsmen in the deep forest who hated wolves but my father still refused to leave her. 

            Deeper into the woods we finally came upon a cabin.  My father knocked on the door as Little Red Riding stood in front of him waiting for the door to open.  I remember my father muttering how he hoped we had the right cabin as we waited for the door to open.  When the door finally opened, an old lady stood in front of us.  She screamed at the sight of us and pulled Red Riding Hood into the house quickly.  We could hear her screaming at Red Riding Hood and my father knocked on the door again, attempting to explain what we were doing so Red Riding Hood would not be in trouble.   The screaming stopped, and we heard a voice say “Go away!  We don’t want any trouble.”

            “We don’t mean any trouble, just trying to help a friend.”  I didn’t know it then, but these were some of the last words I would ever hear my dad say.

            “Friend?  You’re no friend of ours!  Now go away.”

            My father seemed to give up and started to walk away but more screaming came from inside the cabin.  This time, he didn’t even bother knocking but slowly opened the door, turned to tell me to wait outside and stepped into the house.  It was the last I saw of him.  I remember hearing a lot of noise and screaming from inside of the house and when the door finally opened again the woodsmen stood there.  He took one look at me and said “Get out of here, pup, before I take the axe to you too.”  Then he took off into the forest with the bloodied axe he carried in his hand.  Cautiously I made my way into the cabin.

I found Red Riding Hood in a corner of the living room in the cabin sobbing and could hear her grandmother yelling at her from another room. “I told you to stay on the stone path!  This is what you get!”

“He forced me to go off the path!  I didn’t want to, but the wolf made me.”  Little Red Riding Hood could barely talk between sobs.

“Haven’t you ever heard of the Big Bad Wolf?  Wolves are dangerous, you foolish girl.  We are lucky the woodsmen was here.  You should have run at the first sight of him.”

            Red Riding Hoods lies about my father made me very angry but first I needed to find my father and find out what had happened.  A few steps past the living room allowed me to see into the kitchen where I found my father lying in a pool of blood.  It was awful.  I went up to him but he wouldn’t wake up and I knew he was gone.  Red Riding Hood’s grandmother found me crying over my father and I fled for my life.  It didn’t take long for Red Riding Hood and her grandmother to spread rumors throughout both kingdoms making us hated by everyone.  So you see my friend, not everything you hear is the truth.