We arrived at the house about noon and I was captured by the grandchildren, aged four and five. “Will you play with us?” The big eyes look so appealing. How could I say no?
It gave my wife and her daughter some time to catch up with each other, adult to adult (without constant interruptions from the kids and me!).
So there I was sat on the settee in the playroom, a room filled with toys, figurines, Lego, cars, plastic kitchenware and a wall of books, activity material, DVDs and a TV/DVD player.
For the boy, his hero has been Fireman Sam for the first two years of his short life followed by WWE Wrestler action figures and now this past year Spiderman. A Batman figurine also gets playtime but for too many reasons to go into right now, he’s a secondary figure to Spiderman.
The five year old is a girl and is so different even now to the boy in many ways. Her hero figures are female and fly round with magical wings. Early year figurines were lots upon lots of My Little Ponies, each unique, some with light up pink hearts, some with pink tails.
But you know, both still enjoy the things that I enjoyed when I was their ages, stories. “Will you tell us a story?” I was asked and as I always felt I had a voice for radio and was flattered to be asked, I said: “of course but can you find me a book of stories?”
The girl returned a short time later with a massive tomb which I recognized as a Christmas present we had bought FOR them one year. As I opened the book of fairy stories I noticed it had been first published back in 1812 by brothers Wilhelm Grimm and Jacob Grimm. Though it was a book we’d bought I had never read it myself so I began to look forward to the stories we’d be reading. I let the pair of them flick through the pages until they found a story they wanted to hear and off we went.
First up was the story of The Three Little Pigs who run away from home. No reason was given but you could assume a degree of social deprivation existed in pigsties back in the 19th century. Well each pig sought to build a stronger house than the previous pigs to live in and seek protection from the hungry wolf who, in this book, ate the two pigs that had built houses that failed to comply with NHBW (National House Building Wolf resistant) standards and those pigs paid the ultimate price, death by wolf attack. I managed to gloss over the more lucid details in the book but it was total carnage. The surviving pig was in therapy for years.
Next up was the story of the Gingerbread Boy who escaped from the oven having been baked by an elderly woman and her husband. Apparently not sufficiently pleased with his timely escape he proceeded to bait and abuse the slow running pair and anyone else that crossed his path which, by the time he reached a river bank was quite a horde of angry people, all now in hot pursuit of Mr “Big Mouth” Gingerbread.
Caught between a wet river and certain death at the hands of the mob he takes the offer of assistance from a passing fox who places him on his tail and keeps him dry while they cross the river together. At least the fox did that initially but as the tail sinks lower in the water the Gingerbread Boy has to move onto the fox’s back to remain dry. Then soon he’s forced to move again, this time onto the tip of the fox’s nose. The moment they reached the land on the other side of the river the fox tossed his head back and the gingerbread boy flew briefly into the air before falling in the open mouth of the fox! Granted, it was death again but I felt the biscuit did n’t suffer long and I’m partial to the odd one myself.
I felt increasingly uneasy about the ending of these stories and hoped I was on firmer ground with the last story chosen Little Red Riding Hood which I recalled had a happy ending. While we three ploughed our way through the story I really got into it and threw in a few silly voices while asking the kids questions so I got them thinking.
Why did the little girl go into the woods on her own?
Where were her Mum and Dad?
How easy is it to get lost in the wood?
Why did Granny need her lunch brought over to her?
I suppose I really got into it and failed to spot my wife and stepdaughter slip into the room to listen to the story. They arrived just as it took some gruesome turns with the wolf deceiving and eating the grandmother and then taking her place in the bed, then subsequently eating the little girl too!
Holy Shit! I wasn’t expecting that! I couldn’t think of an alternative story line and so stuck with the book to see how it manufactured the happy ever after ending I was now so desperate to find. I felt a small blob of sweat develop under my shirt collar and a stream of water ran from behind my ear. I turned the page to find the end was in sight! However, my joy was short lived as the happy ending was achieved by a passing huntsman who entered Granny’s house, spotted the sleeping wolf in Granny’s clothing and produced his very long sharp sword. He then killed the wolf and slit open its stomach to reveal a still alive Granny and Little Red Riding Hood who hopped out and lived, well,……. happily ever after.
Now I am the first to acknowledge that the bedroom must have been a blood splattered mess but you know the kids seemed to enjoy the story and I think most of the gore and violence just passed over their heads. At least I hope it did.
The look on my stepdaughters face as I finished a story was priceless and never to be repeated. It’ll teach me to pick up and read a load of stories I haven’t read before. Kids back in the 19th century were obviously made of sterner stuff.
We all met up again a few days later and strangely no one mentioned my story telling so maybe it’s been parked, forever, period.
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