I have been writing a few stories based on fairy tales. I’ve completed two. They aren’t exactly retellings, but stories inspired by them.
I thought you might like to read one of them. It’s too long for a single post, so I’m serialising it. I hope you enjoy it.
This story is inspired by the Tale of Goldilocks and the three bears.
But first, a brief reminder of the story.
You will remember that Goldilocks was walking in the forest and entered a cottage.
It belonged to three bears, mother, father and baby. She tried all their chairs, and only baby bear’s fit. She ate their porridge, but one was too hot, one too sweet and the last just right. She went upstairs and tried their beds. One too hard, one too soft and baby’s just right. Here she fell asleep.
When the bears came home, they found someone had been sitting in their chairs and eating their porridge. When they went upstairs, they found Goldilocks asleep in baby bear’s bed.
In the story, Goldilocks jumped out of the window, landed on a passing hay cart and was taken home.
Image created with Bing Image Creator
I’ve set the story inspired by this fairy tale in Victorian England.
Now read on.
The little girl woke as a loud voice called, “Come on, you lazy bunch of layabouts. Time to be working.”
She struggled to a sitting position stiff from sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor.
A lad of about twelve thrust a piece of stale bread into her hand. “Get your water from yon bucket.” He passed on to the next child.
Yesterday, a woman who called herself Annie, brought her here, but where ‘here’ was, she had no idea. Annie found her crying and shivering in the street. She had been nice to her, told her she would take her somewhere where she would have a roof over her head and something to eat.
There were five other mattresses on the floor, and children were slowly getting up from them. The boy with the bread was handing a slice to each child.
She took a bite from her slice. It was hard and tasted slightly mouldy, but she was hungry, so she swallowed it. She rose and wandered to the bucket. There were some chipped cups next to it and she dipped one to fill it, gulping the drink down.
She gazed around the room. The ceiling sloped and had wooden beams. The floor was bare wood and apart from the mattresses, there was nothing else.
The man who had shouted at the children stood next to a door. He pointed at the little girl. “You. Come here. What’s your name?”
She looked around to make sure it was her the man was talking to, then tiptoed towards him.” M-m-my n-n-na…” She burst into tears.
“Stop that.” The man scowled. “I’m Mr Smith. You will call me ‘Sir’. Got that? If you can’t tell me your name, I’ll call you Goldie. Now Goldie, how old are you? Do you know? You look about five.”
Goldie nodded.
Mr Smith looked down his long nose. “When Annie found you on the street yesterday, you were alone. Do you have any family?”
Goldie shook her head, still snuffling.
Mr Smith nodded and smiled. He looked at Goldie out of the corner of his eye. ” I’m going to help you, Goldie, and you’ll help me. You’ll get shelter and food from me, and in return you’ll work for me.”
The door opened at that moment and a woman entered. “Oh, I see you have a new child.”
She strolled up to Goldie and lifted a lock of her hair. “What a lovely colour. Like spun gold. She’ll make a good candidate as one of my girls.”
“Not until she’s much older, Mary.” Mr Smith laughed. “Undesirable as many of your clients are, I don’t think babies are on their list.”
Mary shook her head, smiling. “You’d be surprised what some of my clients want. I can supply most things, but even I draw the line at very young children.”
“Most noble of you. But you aren’t getting Goldie. She’s much too valuable to me.”
“Begging? Yes, I can see such a pretty child would make the punters feel guilty and then they’ll give more.” She gave a short laugh. “But bear me in mind when she gets old enough to join my establishment.”
“What do you want? You wouldn’t come up here for nothing.”
“Oh, I heard about your new acquisition and wanted to see if she is as pretty as rumour has it.”
Mr Smith shook his head. “Annie only found her yesterday, and already everyone knows about her.”
“Well, you know what it’s like round here. I’m off now I’ve seen her. Remember me when she’s grown up enough.” She flitted through the door, leaving Mr Smith scowling.
He turned to Goldie. “You’re to go with Jack. He’ll teach you what to do. Now get out of my sight.”
A boy of about ten with scruffy dark hair stood and came across to her. “I’m Jack.” He pulled Goldie towards the door as Mr Smith reached for a cane standing next to the bucket of water.
“Come over here, Peter,” she heard him say. He swished the cane, and it made a buzzing sound as it passed through the air. “I’ll teach you to keep money back. You need to hand over all you get.”
A snuffling boy of about eight years old dragged his feet as he walked across the room.
To be continued.
Did you enjoy this? Comments in the comments box, please.
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Dragons Rule OK. V.M.Sang (author) 