Little Red Driving Hood

“Little Red Driving Hood,” Mrs Hood said one day, “go to your granny’s and give her this nice basket of mushroom stew.”

“But I don’t want to go to granny,” Little Red Driving Hood whined. “She’s always on at me about cleaning behind my ears and under my nails, and she never even gives me a biscuit. Besides, I’m reading this nice book, and –“

“Go now,” her mother snapped. “Or I’ll check behind your ears and under your nails, and I won’t give you a biscuit either. And I’ll take the book away as well.”

So little Red Driving Hood put on her hood and took the basket and stalked off through the forest, grumbling to herself.

“I wish I never had to go to grandma’s again,” Little Red Driving Hood muttered aloud. “I wish she’d just die,” she added, and kicked viciously at the ground with her shiny new shoes. “I wish I could kill her.”

No sooner had this thought come to her mind than she saw a bunch of fungi growing under an old tree. “Those look poisonous,” she said. “I’ll take them and mix them into the mushroom stew. Then granny will eat them and she’ll die, and I’ll never have to go to her again.”

Now, it so happened that Big Bad Wolf happened to be passing by at that precise moment, and he heard what Little Red Driving Hood was muttering to herself. And, of course, he was appalled.

“What a murderous little twerp,” he thought to himself. “I must rush off at once to her grandmother, and warn the poor old lady.” And, without waiting an instant, he ran off through the forest, as fast as he could go. Arriving at Little Red Driving Hood’s grandmother’s cottage, he began banging on the door.

“Why, BB Wolf,” Granny said, surprised. “What brings you here?”

“I must warn you,” BB Wolf told her, “that your life is in deadly danger. Little Red Driving Hood is on her way to you with a basket of mushroom stew.”

“Mushroom stew?” Granny licked her lips. “Yummy. I love mushroom stew.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said your life is in deadly danger. Little Red Driving Hood hates you and has decided to kill you.” Quickly, BB Wolf reported what he’d seen. “If you eat the stew it’ll kill you.”

Granny went a nasty shade of green, as though the stew was already working through her system. “I can’t believe it!” she gasped.

“You don’t have to believe it. Just let me prove it to you.”

“How?”

“Give me your nightclothes..."

“My nightclothes? You pervert.”

"...and I’ll get into bed and pretend to be you. You hide in the cupboard and watch what happens.”

When Little Red Driving Hood came to her grandmother’s cottage, already gloating about killing off the old lady, she found the door slightly ajar. “Come in,” a muffled voice called from inside when she knocked. “I’m in bed. I have a cold.”

So Little Red Driving Hood entered the house and went to her grandmother’s bedroom. “Granny,” she said, “Mum sent a basket of delicious mushroom soup for you.”

“That’s nice, child,” the figure in the bed said from under old Mrs Hood’s huge nightcap. “Could you hand me a soup spoon and the basket, please?”

Little Red Driving Hood fetched the spoon from the kitchen. “My,” she said. “What bright eyes you have, Granny!”

“All the better to see the doings of nasty little girls with,” BB Wolf said, trying not to sneeze at the lint on the old lady’s bedclothes. “Luckily you aren’t a nasty little girl.”

“What sharp ears you have, Granny!” Little Red Driving Hood said, handing BB Wolf the spoon.

“All the better to hear the plans nasty little girls make,” BB Wolf said. “Of course, you aren’t a nasty little girl.”

“What great big teeth you have, Granny!” Little Red Driving Hood said, as she watched BB Wolf raise the first spoonful to his lips.

“All the better to eat this mush...” BB Wolf groaned theatrically and lay back, the spoon falling dramatically from his hand.

“Granny?” Little Red Driving Hood said, coming closer to the bed. “Are you –”

Now all this time old Mrs Hood, who had been jammed inside the cupboard, had been trying desperately to hear what was happening. Trying to push her ear against the door, she suddenly fell out, with a tremendous clatter.

“Granny!” Little Red Driving Hood gasped. “What are you doing in the cupboard? Then who –“

Now, unbeknownst to all of them, the murderous psychopath Willy Woodcutter had been stalking Little Red Driving Hood through the forest, intending to catch her and cut off her head. She had entered the cottage in the nick of time to avoid falling into his clutches, but Willy was a persistent sort. He chose that very moment to break into the house, waving his axe around.

“Kill!” Willy Woodcutter screamed, at the top of his voice. “Blood! Death massacre!”

Little Red Driving Hood jumped. Granny, in the act of picking herself off the floor, also jumped. Even BB Wolf, trying to look as dead as possible in the bed, also jumped, and the basket of mushroom stew went all over the sheets.

“My clean sheets!” Granny wailed. “Look what you’ve done!”

“Your sheets were as dirty as sin!” BB Wolf protested.

“Granny!” Little Red Driving Hood shouted. “Save me!”

“Kill kill kill!” Willy Woodcutter howled, and brought down his axe on the exact centre of old Mrs Hood’s bed. With a splintering crash, it disintegrated.

“My bed!” Old Mrs Hood shrieked.

“It was all his fault!” Little Red Driving Hood shouted, pointing at BB Wolf, who was struggling out of the old lady’s nightclothes as fast as he could. “If he hadn’t been hiding in the bed none of this would’ve happened!” She turned to Willy Woodcutter. “Kill him!”

“I’m out of here,” BB Wolf said. “Take care of your own mess as best you can. See if I ever help you again.” Dropping the clothes to the floor – except the nightcap, which was still tied around his head – he dodged round the psycho and rushed out of the cottage.

“Kill Blood Murder!” Willy Woodcutter snarled. Pulling his axe out of the wreckage of the bed, he went lumbering out after BB, who was fortunately already a safe distance away.

“Granny!” Little Red Driving Hood said. “I was so worried about you!”

“That wicked wolf was telling me tales about you,” Granny replied. “Do you know, he said you were planning to murder me!”

“That’s just silly,” Little Red Driving Hood said, taking a quick look at the mushroom stew to make sure it was all spilled. “What did he say, that I had poisoned the stew? He just wanted to eat me.”

“Well, the woodcutter has chased him away.” Granny looked thoughtful. “It strikes me that this story is marketable, Little Red Driving Hood, darling.”

“Marketable? How do you mean?” Little Red Driving Hood covertly picked up a fruit knife from a table and got ready to stab Granny with it.

“Just suppose,” Granny said, oblivious, “that we contacted someone about this.”

“Someone? Who?” Little Red Driving Hood raised the knife.

“We could contact professional storytellers,” Granny went on. “They’d probably demand some changes, of course, to make it more marketable.”

“Changes?” Little Red Driving Hood’s hand paused. “What kind of changes?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The wolf might be made evil, and you into a good little girl. The woodcutter might become a hero instead of a deranged psycho. But, you bet, we’d be famous.”

“And you know such a professional storyteller?” Little Red Driving Hood asked.

“You bet I do,” Granny replied.

“Tell me more,” Little Red Driving Hood said. “I find myself strangely interested.”

“It has to be good,” Granny told her. “Hundreds of years from now, they’re still gong to be retelling the story, after all.”

“I have ideas about what we’ll tell them,”  Little Red Driving Hood replied. "We could turn it into a sexual metaphor, and..."

Slowly, making no noise, she put the knife back on the table. 

Copyright B Purkayastha 2014