Once upon a time…

There was a girl who was little. And she had a red hoodie that her grandma made her. She always wore the red hoodie, and never talked to anyone, so no one knew her real name. They just called her “Little Red Riding Hoodie”. I guess she was always on a bike, too, if she was always riding. Or maybe it was a horse, but I don’t remember a horse in this story.

Anyways, one day her mom asked her to take a pie to her grandma, who was sick. Grandma lived way out in the woods, so the mom didn’t have time to go, but Red Riding Hoodie was done with all her homework so she could take the pie. Because nothing says responsible parenting like sending a shy child into the forest alone. So Red Riding Hoodie… I’m just gonna call her Red from now on… Red took the basket with a pie in it and went to see her grandma. 

She got into the forest, whistling a merry tune, and was instantly spotted by a big magical wolf. I mean, nowhere does the original story say he’s a magical wolf, but it stands to reason. I know wolves, and none of them act like this. This wolf saw Red and decided she’d make an amazing lunch. Which, ok yeah that’s a fairly wolf-like thing to think. But nothing else is.

Red didn’t see the wolf, mostly because she wasn’t paying attention. She was looking around at all the pretty trees and flowers, and maybe she saw a bunny or two! The forest is a really cool place, full of neat things. The wolf watched her for a while, then decided to make his presence known.

He stepped out of the forest into the road and asked her where she was going.

Red was like “Oh, a talking wolf! Wolves aren’t nearly as scary as humans, and are much fluffier!” And she told him she was taking a pie to her grandma’s house.

The wolf was like “Neat!” But he was still thinking of how to eat her.

There’s a little bit of a plot hole here. Why didn’t the wolf just eat her then and there? I mean, she was alone in the forest… And Grandma was sick, so she wasn’t going to get up and go looking for her. And if the wolf’s plan was to eat Grandma and the pie too, why not just eat the small defenseless child who was right in front of him, and then later go to eat Grandma?

Buuuut that’s not how the story goes. And I’m pretty sure the wolf was a metaphor for something, but even then my point remains.

Anyways, the wolf was like “If your grandma’s sick, why not take her a bouquet of flowers? Flowers always make sick people better!”

Red thought that was a great idea, and the wolf showed her to a field full of beautiful flowers. Red immediately went to work finding the prettiest and best flowers for her grandma. The wolf, meanwhile, took off running for grandma’s house.

He got there and knocked on the door. Grandma, presuming it was Red, called out that the door was open. So the wolf turned the doorknob, since he’s magical, and walked in. Grandma was pretty blind, besides being sick, so she didn’t notice that the wolf was, in fact, a wolf until he unhinged his jaw and swallowed her whole. Which sounds a lot more like a snake than a wolf, but hey. Magic.

A couple hours later, Red had the best bouquet of flowers in the history of bouquets. Or at least she thought so. She picked up her basket full of pie, and continued on her way to Grandma’s house. When she got there, she knocked on the door.

The wolf, after swallowing the old lady, had put on her sleeping hat (people in old times had specific hats for sleeping in, I guess) and climbed into the bed and under the covers. He made his voice sound like an old lady, and called out for her to come in.

Maybe Red was shy because she had all the vision of a naked mole-rat. She walked in and saw nothing odd.

The wolf was like “Oh, have you brought me a pie? How nice. Come, put it on the table here.”

Red did so, but she asked “Grandma, what’s up with your voice?”

The wolf coughed. “I’m sick. A magical voice-changing sickness. That happens to old people.”

Red got closer and squinted. “Grandma, you’ve got big eyes.”

“Uhh… All the better to see you with!”

“You’ve got pretty big hands, too.”

“All the better to… pet you with?”

“And you’ve got big teeth.”

At this point the wolf was done playing. “All the better to eat you with!” And he lept out from under the covers and ate her in one gulp.

Red screamed as she was being eaten. The scream got through the walls of the cottage, and out in the forest a wood cutter heard it.

The wood cutter was like “Huh, I wonder where that sound came from.” He knew the only house in the area belonged to an old lady, and he decided to check on her. He was a nice guy, and people who live in a magical forest have to look out for each other, y’no?

So he went to the old lady’s house, where he found the door open. He held up his ax, and snuck in. The wolf, after eating an old lady and a small child, had laid down and gone into a legit food coma.

…Ok, are we sure this “wolf” wasn’t a boa constrictor? Like seriously, some of the stuff he does is way closer to how a snake acts than how a wolf acts. And trust me, I’ve been eaten by both, I know how they act.

Anyways, the wolf was dead to the world. He was so totally dead to the world that he didn’t notice the wood cutter come in and poke his belly. Red and her grandma were still alive (this is why you should always chew your food, kids), and when the wood cutter poked the wolf they started screaming. The wood cutter freaked out, and used his ax to slice open the wolf’s belly.

Red and her grandma popped out, only slightly digested. They were traumatized for life, and it took them a while to calm down.

The wolf was still in his food coma.

The wood cutter was like “Well, time to decapitate a wolf.”

But Red was like “Nooo all life is precious! We can’t murder anyone!”

And Grandma was like “Oh yeah, absolutely, there will be no killing in my home. I’ve got a better idea.”

So they went outside and found a whole bunch of big rocks. They stuffed the rocks through the hole in the wolf’s stomach, filling it completely. And then Grandma took a needle and thread and sewed up the hole.

Magic.

Then the wood cutter helped them back to Red’s house, where they probably took like four consecutive baths to get all the wolf’s stomach juices off.

That night, the wolf finally woke up. He had a stomach ache, but didn’t think anything of it. He got up and went outside, and he wasn’t hungry. He didn’t think anything of his not being hungry, and just went about his life. But the rocks in his stomach were too big to pass out of his system. So he never felt hungry again, and after a week or so he died of malnutrition.

Yep.

…I think that’s about it.