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“What do you want?” she snapped.
The wolf was taken aback. He was not used to that sort of greeting. “Augh!” he got a lot. “Oh no!” was quite common. “Watch out for the arghhguggleunghhhhh” was one of his favorites. But “What do you want?” was not something he had a ready answer for.
“That isn’t how a little girl says hello, now, is it?” the wolf asked in his friendliest voice. It was about as friendly as a chain saw, but he did try.
“Well, I’m a little girl, and it’s how I said hello, so I guess it is exactly how a little girl says hello.” She crossed her arms and glared at the wolf. He was long and lean, with a great bushy tail and large yellow eyes.
He laughed. It sounded like the garbage disposal catching on a spoon. And when he finished laughing, he licked his big, sharp teeth. They were nearly as yellow as his eyes. “I suppose you are right. What’s your name?”
The little girl did not want to tell him her name. She didn’t even particularly like her name. The only thing her mother had ever given her that she liked was her cloak. So she said, “My name is Red Riding Hood.”
The wolf laughed again. It was not meant to be a joke, and Red Riding Hood was indignant. Also, her stomach was beginning to hurt.
“Well, Little Red Riding Hood, where are you off to on this fine day?”
“I’m going to visit my grandmother.”
The wolf’s eyes widened and his tongue lolled out, long and delicately pink. He was a very lean wolf, as I had mentioned. And he was hungry. Very, very hungry. For some reason all the little animals in the forest had been missing lately. And he kept finding odd tracks on the ground, like something … slithering around. He had never eaten people before, but he was getting desperate. One little girl would make a fine meal, but one little girl and one grandmother would make a better one, don’t you think?
Well, I hope you don’t think so. You shouldn’t be eating little girls or grandmothers. It was a rhetorical question the wolf was asking himself, so you shouldn’t answer it. But he definitely did think so.
“And where does your grandmother live?” he asked.
Red Riding Hood gestured irritably down the path. “That way.” Her stomach felt very bad now, and it was starting to radiate outward. She thought she might throw up, but she didn’t want to do it with an audience. Especially a wolf audience.
“Listen,” she said, annoyed and in pain. “Are you going to eat me? Because I think I’m going to be sick and I don’t want to sit around chatting.” She took out the glass lemonade bottle and smashed the bottom off against the rock. It left a jagged edge, and she held it between herself and the wolf’s teeth. Her mother would have said it was too aggressive.
The wolf considered it. He could almost certainly still win. He was a monster, after all, and she was just a little girl.
But it wasn’t ideal. If he ate Little Red Riding Hood now, he’d have a very full stomach. That would make the run to her grandmother’s house decidedly uncomfortable. And she might succeed in injuring him, which was something predators avoid at all costs. He really wished she were just a little girl like she was supposed to be, instead of too much more.
But the old woman was in a nice, comfy house, and she was expecting a visitor. So she would be very likely to open the door without a fuss. He could eat her at his leisure, and then have a cushy resting place while he awaited Little Red Riding Hood.
And Little Red Riding Hood certainly wouldn’t be armed when she went into her beloved grandmother’s house.
The wolf sat on his haunches and scratched innocently at his ear with his back paw. “Oh, no, I would never eat such an ill-mannered little girl. You’re much too feisty for me.”
“I like being too,” Red Riding Hood grumbled.
“Have a lovely day.” The wolf swept his head low like he was bowing to her, and then trotted off into the trees. As soon as Little Red Riding Hood could no longer see him, he changed direction.
You know where he’s going and what he’ll do when he gets there, so let’s stay to keep poor, sick Red Riding Hood company.
Red Riding Hood leaned over and threw up, splattering the stone that had been such a charming picnic table.
Well, gross. On second thought, let’s skip forward a bit.
Hmm. She’s still throwing up.
Still … wait, no, I think she’s done now!
Oh dear, I spoke too soon.
Skipping forward a bit more, Little Red Riding Hood was back on the path where she should have been all along. She stumbled instead of skipped now. Her sour stomach had turned to a sort of icy numbness that was spreading through her whole body. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead beneath her cloak, and she shivered.
It was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other. She had even forgotten the picnic basket, left behind in the clearing. Her thoughts were sluggish and unfocused. Grandma’s house, she repeated to herself over and over. She knew she needed to get to Grandma’s house, and then things would be okay.
She was too tired, and too sick, and too woozy to think of anything else. She didn’t like these toos at all.
