Once upon a time, while I was still alive, I lived with my six older brothers and my stepmother.  In point of fact, my brothers were my stepbrothers, as their mother had married my father after my mother had died.  Soon after that, my father died as well.  My stepmother and stepbrothers had never really liked me, so when my father finally passed away they could be as mean to me as they wanted.  There was no one there to stop them.

        	They constantly teased me, and forced me to do everything.  They treated me as nothing more than a slave, no pay and just scraps of food.  Many times I felt that running away would be good. I would always stop that thought before it grew too developed.  A thought like that could be problematic.  If I ran away I would have no shelter or food.  It might be dark and damp.  I could catch a cold or starve to death.  There were so many things that could go wrong that it was just be better to stay at home.  Maybe I would be able to find a place that my relatives could not get at me and where I would live in luxury. I could always dream.
  
        	Well, it was not long after I had one of these thoughts that I received a letter.  It was a letter that would change my afterlife.  It was a letter, but on closer inspection you could tell it was different from a normal letter.  It was heavier, the paper was better quality and the royal seal was on stamped on it.  That was rather strange; we were not the type of people who would get a letter from the royal family.  I proceeded to open the letter as fast as I could.
 
Dear Sir or Madam,
     	The royal family would be pleased to have your presence at our Grand Feast, accompanied by a Grand Hunt.  Since the royal twins, Perbola and Potenuse, have reached a marriageable age, we have come to the agreement that the female and the male who catch the most animals (in pounds) at the hunt shall receive each of the twins’ hands in marriage.
Hi Perbola, Hi Potenuse,
The King and Queen
	
        	I was surprised and instantly knew who would win.  It would be my eldest brother (he was an exceptionally good hunter).  That is, unless someone could catch a human or two.  That, however, was highly unlikely.  Humans had things that went bang and could kill you, instantly.  They also had those things that would snap on your leg.  Not very many people were going to risk that.  I realized that that going and winning the contest would allow me to escape from my stepbrothers’ harassment.  I decided that I would win the contest or die trying.  As I would later find, the second choice was to be my fate.
 
The day of the hunt I caught a terrible cold.  I still felt the need to go so I decided to go to my best friend, Pancetta’s, house.  She was, after all, a great doctor.  Unlike her, I was the youngest, and therefore picked on.  She, however, was the eldest and always had to let her little sisters do whatever they wanted to do.  I think that that is what drew us together, the unfairness of our lives.  Of her sisters one other was also a doctor, not by choice of course, after all, her youngest sister, Gammon, had wanted to be an architect.  Their parents, however, had high hopes for her, and would disown her if she even thought about such a risky, low-paying job.  There was only money in it if you became famous, and that never happened until after you’d been dead for years, and then you still you had no money because you were dead.  Instead she was forced to become a doctor, as that paid very well.  But you can never stop a dreamer. Gammon designed a big, expensive looking house made of bricks.  Many people went to Gammon instead of Pancetta.  After all people look better in a big house of bricks.  Pancetta, however, was a much better doctor.
  
        	Her sister would receive all of the fame when she grew up, since she stole her sister’s secret cure for some big and great disease that killed people, perhaps the plague.  It’s been such a long time since I was alive, so long that I seem to be losing my memory.  Anyway, I went to her house to get some cold medicine.  She may be my friend but it was always rather hard for her to tell my brothers and me apart.  We weren’t related but to her we looked exactly the same.  Also, because my brothers were great hunters, she had a reason to not want them in her nice house made of straw.  So we had made a little code. This code is famous, but you probably never thought of it as a code.
 
        	So I got to her door and knocked.  Three times, since, of course, three is a magic number.  Then I continued on with the code.
“Little pig, sniff little pig, let sniff me in!”
“Not by the hairs on my chiney, chiney, chin.”
“Then I’ll huff sniff and I’ll puff sniff and I’ll blow sniff your house sniff down! Sniff”
Then I sneezed.  It was the largest sneeze that I had ever sneezed, one that would let me blow a house down.  In fact, it did.  Without warning, the whole house came tumbling down.  Pancetta, being rather soft, did not survive the collapse of the roof.  Since I was in a hunting contest, fresh killed meat, well, it meant a higher chance of winning.  You may think that that’s cruel, but I’m an optimist, I try to see the good in, uh, most things.

        	I do know a bit about law.  If I did not get a lawyer fast Pancetta’s family could sue me.  That could cost my family quite a bit.  I never wanted to trouble my family, since it meant more chores for me.  Thankfully, I knew a good lawyer, Pancetta’s middle sister.  So I went down and went to her house.  Then, because I knew that she knew the code between Pancetta and me, I said it.  With the sniffs and all.  I sneezed and the same falling down occurred at her house.  I guess sticks aren’t that strong, either.  Again I collected the carcass and left.
  
        	I still had my cold, so I thought that I would at least get some cold medicine.  I only knew one more doctor that was close by: Gammon.  I felt strange going to a house that looked as if it came from a magazine for houses.  It made me feel awkward.  But it was something I had to do.  I went and knocked on the door.  She looked through those peeking things that they have on hotel doors.  It made me feel rather uncomfortable.  This is the thing that made me so mad.  She went to the window and changed the WE ARE OPEN sign to SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED right in front of my snout.  I would have felt happy if I had sneezed her house down, as she most certainly deserved it.  Then, of course, a sneeze come on.  I sneezed three times, three huge sneezes.  But her house still stood. Stupid architects.
 
        	Since I couldn’t get my cold medicine, I thought that I might as well go to the forest to catch what ever I could.  I entered the forest, determinded to do my best.  But soon after I walked in, I smelled the most delicious scents.  Meat and meat and more meat, of every variety I could wish.  Bread, wine and more delicacies that the human race had learned to make.  My family was always strictly raw meat.  Stinking evolution!  Following my nose I traced it to a young human girl, wearing bright red, probably past infancy, though not yet completely grown.

       “Where are you going, little girl?” I asked her.
      
      “To my grandma’s house,” she replied.
      
      Could she mean that grouchy old lady down the street?  Still, what a dear, bringing food to her grandma.  Well, I was in a competition.  Humans weigh a lot.  I decided to take a shortcut to her grandma’s house so that I could have two humans instead of none.  I quickly went to her grandmother’s house.  When I got there, I captured the old granny, tied her up and threw her in a closet.  Then I took some of her clothes and lay down in her bed.

When the girl came, she looked a tad confused, but went on, “What large ears you have,”
      
      “The better to hear you with, my dear,” I said in my best old lady voice.

      “What large eyes you have,” she said.
      
      “The better to see you with, my dear,” I replied. Truly, this girl was a bit tedious, and certainly not the sharpest tooth in the mouth.

      “What sharp teeth you have,” she went on.
      
      “Thank you, I sharpened them just yesterday.” I’d always been proud of my teeth, lovely, white and sharp as they were.
 
        	That seemed to be the end of me.  As soon as she heard that, she whipped out her ugly, bright pink cell phone to call her boyfriend, the hunter.  The hunter arrived in under five seconds.  Devoted, isn’t he?  Once there, before I even had time to scream, he shot me.  Instantly, I was dead.  Dead as a doornail.  They followed that up by cutting open my stomach, to see if I had eaten poor Red Riding Hood’s grandma.  Apparently not.  They found her in the closet mere seconds later.  And what do you think they did next?  They go and they throw me into the river with my stomach sewed up full of rocks.  I was not amused.  Forever I shall haunt their family, their pale pink babies.  Never will they live in peace.

Now, whose story will you believe, theirs or mine?

        	In case you were wondering, my eldest brother did win the contest.  As for the girl who won, it was Gammon.  She had taken her sister’s carcasses and used those.  A lot of people were mad at the crossbreeding, but soon most people learned to accept it.  The prince had already liked Gammon, and had made her go into the contest.  I am now a ghost, and I spend my time haunting Riding Hood and the hunter’s descendents as well as playing with Pancetta.  She had become a ghost as well.  My editor said that I must say that this is where the stories of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Three little pigs came from.  As you can tell, they were changed quite a lot.  Making me into a human girl, such impudence!  Let me tell you a joke.  My editor said that I must tell you that I’m a wolf.  Isn’t it obvious?  Wouldn’t it be strange if a human were writing a book?  Why would I have to mention that?  I wonder why she said it?
A Wolf’s Tail, 6-8, p.1