Goldilocks skipped through the woods, humming happily. Her locks of hair bounced in cascades of golden ringlets around her. You might think, “Ah ha! No wonder her name is Goldilocks!” She’s glad you think that.
As she skipped, Goldilocks kept her eyes fixed on the forest path. Not because she was afraid of tripping—she was very coordinated—but because there were strange tracks there. Not the snake tracks she sometimes saw. These were different. Like someone had forgotten how to walk. Like they were shambling, feet dragging slowly. Here and there, scraps of red cloth had caught on branches. They decorated the path like streaks of …
Well, not blood! Blood would be scary and gross. Like streaks of a bright red thing that wasn’t blood!
Up ahead, she saw a house, shaded and half-hidden among the looming trees. (Is it Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s house? No! I wouldn’t do that to you. We don’t want to go in there again.) Goldilocks looked up and down the path, but the forest was silent. Eerily silent. You might even say dead silent.
Still humming, Goldilocks climbed the steps to the front door. There were deep scratch marks gouged into the wood. Shards of shattered glass crunched under her feet. A window to her left had been broken, and a sad blue curtain waved mournfully from inside, caught on the wind. Goldilocks, you really shouldn’t be here!
But she didn’t listen to us. The door was locked, so she pulled a small bag out of her dress pocket. Inside, gleaming as golden as her hair, were several lock picks. She crouched in front of the door and carefully worked on the lock.
It’s almost like she’s not some silly, stupid kid skipping aimlessly through the woods. Goldilocks looked up and winked, holding a finger in front of her lips like she was trying to shush me. The door swung open. Goldilocks went inside.
The first room was a kitchen. It was a cheerful yellow, like fresh butter. A bunch of hydrangeas in a clumsily painted vase sat on the table next to three bowls of porridge. Pease porridge, it looked like. (Oh no.) The first bowl steamed. “This porridge is too hot!” Goldilocks exclaimed, looking warily around. If it was still hot, it couldn’t be that old. Goldilocks certainly notices a lot of details!
She put a finger on the side of the second bowl. “This porridge is too cold.” If it was still cold, it couldn’t have been out for that long, either. Goldilocks knew that hot porridge and cold porridge both turn into room temperature porridge eventually. She paused and listened, but the house was silent. Except there—a small groan. Well, this was an old house. It could have been simply the house settling on its foundation, or the wind, or some ghastly fate awaiting this poor, innocent girl.
Probably just the wind, though.
Goldilocks leaned over the third bowl. She picked up the spoon next to it and dipped it into the porridge. “But this one is just …” Her nose wrinkled. “Just the most awful thing I have ever smelled in my life.” Gagging, she dropped the spoon. The porridge spilled out. There was another splatter on the table, as if someone had already done the exact same thing.
Goldilocks left the kitchen. The next room was a family room. Fishing magazines open to centerfold spreads of salmon were left out on a coffee table. There was a well-loved picture book called The Kidenstain Kids. A “Three Is a Magic Number” cross-stitch was lying half-finished on the floor. There were also three chairs.
The first was a humongous chair, with stiff, dark hairs that looked like fur all over the wood. “This chair is too hard,” she said.
The second chair was decorated with a floral pattern. The cushion was worn thin, sinking so low it almost touched the floor. Whoever regularly sat in this chair was much, much larger than Goldilocks. And, judging by the way the armrests were shredded, had much sharper claws. I mean, fingernails. “This chair is too soft,” Goldilocks said.
She turned to the third chair in the room. It was made of solid wood. Small, as if for a child, but sturdy. “This chair is …” I see where this is going. Goldilocks, you shouldn’t break into strange houses and sit in their chairs!
She glared, then leaned over and picked up a piece of wooden chair leg, shaking it up at me. “This chair is just smashed to pieces.” She hefted the splintered chair leg, wondering what could have broken such a well-made chair.
Goldilocks yawned. She hadn’t slept well in so long. Those strange tracks kept her up at night. So much to do. Down the hall she could see a bedroom. The thought of a nice, warm, safe bed called to her. Keeping the chair leg in her hand, she walked silently into the bedroom.
The wall was covered with children’s art. But the kid wasn’t a very good artist! All the people had ears on top of their heads and long noses more like snouts. Their hands were clumsily painted to look like massive paws. Goldilocks considered them thoughtfully, feeling for whether the paint was dry. I’m getting so nervous. I wish she’d just hurry up.
With an exasperated huff, she looked at the rest of the long room. There were three beds. The first bed had the mattress ripped clean off. It had been thrown against the wall, where it drooped brokenly. Goldilocks put a hand on the wooden slats of the bed frame. “This bed is too hard,” she said.
The second bed was a feather mattress. Goldilocks knew this because feathers were still floating lazily in the air, freed from the mattress by several deep gouges that had been clawed in it. One feather brushed her nose and she sneezed. “This bed is too soft.”
The third bed was smaller than the first two, a perfect size for a large child or perhaps a small bear. (I always measure my furniture in terms of bear sizes. For example, the couch I am sitting on is medium bear–size. My bed is large bear–size. My bathroom is no bear–size, because bears don’t use indoor plumbing, except in horrible toilet paper commercials.) Though the quilts on this bed had been ripped up, there were a lot of them.
“This bed is just right,” Goldilocks declared, and she crawled under the blankets, covering herself up.
Wake up, Goldilocks! I whisper desperately. You really shouldn’t sleep here. But she doesn’t move. If you didn’t know she was there, you wouldn’t ever guess. She’s so still. So silent.
Not silent was the front door as it slowly creaked open. Three shapes—one hulking, one slightly less hulking, and one that would be hulking in the future but for now was more cuddly-adorable—came into the kitchen.
I know how this part goes! First, Papa Bear will say, “Someone has been eating my porridge.”
Papa Bear stumbled into the table, knocking it over. The three bowls of porridge crashed to the ground. “Braaaaaiiiiins,” he growled.
Oh. That is—well, that is not what I thought he would say. But look! Now they are going into the room with the chairs. “Someone has been sitting in my chair!” is the line you are looking for, Mama Bear.
Mama Bear dragged her feet across the floor, powerful arms held out in front of her as she passed her chair without even noticing it. “Braaaaaaiiiiiiins,” she growled.
This isn’t going at all how I expected. I’m confused, and even more worried for poor little Goldilocks than I was before. She has no idea what’s coming!
The three bears groaned and shambled slowly toward the bedroom. Papa Bear dragged his long claws along the end of his bed. Someone hasn’t been sleeping in his bed!
Mama Bear snuffed slowly, her red eyes unblinking. Someone hasn’t been sleeping in her bed, either!
Baby Bear stopped in front of his bed. His adorable little bear snout under his genuinely terrifying red eyes sniffed and sniffed. “Braaaaaaaiiiiiiiins?” he groaned. Someone had been sleeping in his bed, and there she was!
Goldilocks jumped up, whacking Baby Bear across his sensitive nose with her chair leg club. “Come and get me, zombears!” she screamed. Ducking under Mama Bear’s powerful paw as it swiped through the air, Goldilocks rolled. She dove between Papa Bear’s legs. His jaws snapped around where her head had been mere seconds before.
She threw the chair leg through the nearest window, shattering it. Then she jumped out, catching a tree branch and h
anging in the air. She turned around, facing the window. The three bears were still inside, groaning for brains, thick saliva matting their fur.
“I’ve got your brains right here!” Goldilocks shouted. (No, sweet little girl, run! Run for your life!)
The bears roared. First, Papa Bear climbed out the window. But Goldilocks was too high, and he fell down. Right through a screen of branches and into a cage.
Next, Mama Bear climbed out the window. But Goldilocks was too high, and Mama Bear fell down into the cage.
Finally, Baby Bear climbed out the window. He stood on the sill and reached for Goldilocks, his sharp claws catching on her boots. She wrapped her feet around his neck and tugged back, pulling him out the window and straight down into the trap.
She dropped down and slammed the lid shut, pulling a set of golden locks out of her bag.
The first lock was too big.
The second lock was too small.
But the third lock was just right.
Oh! I get it! GOLDILOCKS.
Goldilocks sighed, flipping her hair back and glaring up at me. “Do you mind?” she asked. “I’m kind of trying to hunt zombies here, and your commentary isn’t exactly helping.”
Right. Sorry. We’ll leave her to her work, then, and move right along to another part of the forest. Preferably one with fewer zombears.
When Jack finally found his stepmother, she smelled like fire and exhaustion. They met on the edge of a town. In the distance, smoke curled lazily from the ruins of the castle. His stepmother held a gleaming red apple.
“Can I have that?” Jack asked.
“No!” She slapped his hand away. “I thought you were with Jill and her family!”
“Didn’t work out,” Jack muttered. He was still bitter about being pushed into the well. Which is a perfectly reasonable reaction to being pushed into a well.
“Did you find a job in a castle, then?”
“Didn’t work out.” This time Jack had the decency to blush, because that one had been entirely his fault. Think of how much trouble could have been avoided if Jack had been willing to eat vegetables! Then he would have known that pea and pee are very different things. Peas really aren’t so bad, you know. Unless you stick them up your nose as a joke to make your parents laugh, and then one gets stuck, and you have to go to the doctor and have it removed with a long, terrifying tool, and you can’t eat peas for years afterward because you were so traumatized. I’m, umm, not speaking from personal experience or anything. Seriously: DON’T STICK PEAS UP YOUR NOSE. And let’s get back to Jack.
“Can’t I come live with you again?” Jack asked.
His stepmother pursed her lips. That doesn’t mean she turned her lips into a purse, though that would be very impressive. It means she pushed them tightly together in a sign that Jack was not going to get what he hoped for. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I have too many other things going on right now. I still haven’t heard back from that idiot huntsman.” She looked with worry at the apple, then tucked it into her cloak. “Cinderella and her husband are liable to burn down the whole kingdom. I haven’t seen Rapunzel in weeks. I think her fair Herr might have eaten her.”
Jack did not understand how anyone could be eaten by her own fair hair! We should introduce him to the prince so they can teach each other some spelling.
But his stepmother was still talking. “And that’s to say nothing of all the stepsisters I’m in charge of. No, Jack, what you need is another job.”
Jack didn’t think that was fair. He wasn’t very old. But back then they didn’t have any nice child labor laws. If you said, “But I’m a kid!” they’d agree that was a very useful thing to be. They’d then send you up a chimney or down a mine, like a pea in a nose.
“Here,” his stepmother said, handing him the reins to a cow. (Did I mention she had a cow with her? I must have forgotten in my distraction over remembering that horrible tool the doctor had to use to get that pea out.) “I was going to train this cow to jump over the moon, but I guess I don’t ever get the time to do what I want to. You’ll have to lead the cow to good pastures and water, and milk her three times a day. You can sell the milk in markets, or make it into butter or cheese and sell that.”
Jack wrinkled his nose. The cow didn’t smell very good. (But it did smell very well, which meant it was yet another female that wouldn’t marry the pigpen cleaner. Poor guy.) And all that leading the cow around, milking her, and making butter seemed like an awful lot of work. “Isn’t there something else I can do, instead? Can I sell the cow for quick cash?”
“You’ve got to stop thinking short-term, Jack. That cow will provide a solid living, which is worth more than a onetime bag full of coins.” She sighed, regretfully looking up at the moon, barely visible in the blue sky. “Next time,” she whispered. “Then all I need is a cat and a fiddle …”
“What?” Jack asked.
“Nothing! You should get to work.”
Kicking moodily at the dirt, Jack tugged on the reins. And tugged. And tugged. It turns out cows are very large, and also are not super fond of being dragged around by grouchy little boys. I can’t really blame her for that. Finally, mooing reproachfully, the cow followed him.
Jack took a path through the forest, looking for a promising meadow. But he didn’t see anything that looked comfortable enough to nap in. He was about to turn around and head back toward civilization when he stopped in amazement.
Rising up from the ground in an impassable wall was a tangle of vines. The wall stretched as far as he could see in either direction. There was no way around it, and no way through it.
Well, almost no way through it. Light shone from a narrow gap. Behind it, he could see a man kneeling on the ground. He was dressed like a gardener. Which is less interesting than being dressed like a garden, but also less likely to have thorns in your underpants. Underplants? See, this is why no one dresses like a garden.
“Hey!” Jack said.
The man looked up, startled. “What are you doing here?”
“What is this doing here?” Jack pointed at the plant wall.
The gardener leaned back, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Leftover from an enchanted castle. Our princess bought it and hired me. Your kingdom is grounded.”
“We’re—what?”
“She put you all in time-out.”
Jack frowned, until he remembered that horrible princess. The last one that had visited the castle. He supposed this was, in a way, his fault. If only he had known the queen meant a pea rather than a pee!
The gardener was leaning through the hole. “That’s a very nice cow you have. It looks like she smells great.”
“Do you mean she smells good, or she smells well? It’s a very confusing distinction.”
“I’ve been looking for a cow. I want to get out of the magic plant wall business, become a sculptor instead.”
“How would a cow help with that?” Jack asked.
“I want to be a butter sculptor. People will come from far and wide to see the wonders I could make out of creamy white butter! I’ll be the most famous butter sculptor in the world!”
“There probably isn’t a lot of competition for that title,” Jack said, trying not to laugh. But Jack was wrong. The art of butter sculpting has a long and illustrious history. Most of the famous sculptures you know are actually stone replicas of far more amazing butter sculptures. Even the Leaning Tower of Pisa was modeled after a glorious butter tower. (That’s why it’s leaning—the butter had started melting, because butter isn’t known for its structural integrity. But the architect who was copying the sculpture didn’t realize it wasn’t supposed to be that way.) This gardener would go on to a streak of second-place finishes in local butter sculpting contests. The cow, on the other hand, would be renowned among all her kind for her excellent sense of smell. Cows know the difference between smelling good and smelling well, and they appreciate it.
“Can I buy the cow?” the gardener asked.
Jack rememb
ered what his stepmother had said. “It’s worth more than a bag of coins.”
“Of course it is! I would never give you money for the cow. I have these instead.” He stuck his hand through the hole in the vines, holding out three small beans. Please remember that our friend Jack is utterly clueless when it comes to any sort of vegetable. And while beans are actually legumes, not vegetables, Jack didn’t know that, either.
The gardener whispered in his most dramatic voice, “These are magic beans.”
“Magic?” Jack asked. Magic was more valuable than money! Jack had had money before, but he’d never had magic.
“Magic!” the gardener repeated.
Just then the cow passed a tremendous amount of gas. It did not smell good, and Jack smelled well, so he got the full power of the cow-pow. “Take it!” he said, grabbing the beans and passing the reins (but not reigns or rains) to the gardener.
After a great struggle, the gardener finally managed to coax the cow through the small gap in the vines. “Thanks, kid!” he said. Then he dropped a seed smaller than the beans into the gap. Plants immediately grew, filling it in. Jack was staring at a now totally impassable wall of green.
For a moment, he wondered if he had made a mistake. But beans were light and much easier to drag around a forest than the cow had been. He skipped along, thinking how proud his stepmother would be when he showed her that he had traded a plain old cow for magic.
You and I, of course, know better than Jack. Obviously you should never trade something real for something “magic.” Until the magic has been clearly demonstrated, the mechanics of how everything works thoroughly explained, and you’ve been given a detailed receipt with a return policy. After that, by all means, trade your phone for that carpet or lamp or handful of beans! Your parents will be so pleased.
But all that happy-forest skipping had made Jack tired. He found a small meadow nestled into the trees. It wasn’t good for a cow, but it was perfect for a Jack. Yawning, he curled up with the beans in his fist and fell asleep.