Little Red Riding Cloak

Disclaimer: Am i even using this right? Anyway, I would just like to say the format of my story is heavily based on the original story and that some sentences may be heavily based from the original ones in Little Red Riding Hood because I was basically trying to write the same story, just with a twist.





Little Red Riding Cloak

Once upon a time there was a sweet little boy who was loved by all, but none more so than by his grandmother. There was nothing his grandmother would not have given to her grandson. So that was how the story of the (once) little boy who wore a red cloak had come about. You see, when the boy was young, his grandmother had given him a red leather cloak, which he liked so much that he would wear it wherever he went, rain or shine. Even when riding through the countryside with his favorite horse. And that was why he was always called ‘Little Red Riding Cloak,’ even when he had outgrown his childhood. That and the poor boy had never grown tall enough to warrant being called ‘Big’.
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One day his mother said to him: “Little Red Riding Cloak, my child, here is a piece of mother’s award-winning-cheesecake and wine. Take this to your grandmother, who is ill and in need of company. Leave before it gets hot, you know how leather retains heat, and whatever you do, do not wander off the path. We do not want you tripping over a branch or two, what with your clumsiness, and breaking the bottle and crushing the cake. Because then you will have to go to you grandmother shamefaced (in the knowledge of what you have let befall her fare) and empty-handed.”
And he said unto his mother: “Mother, please, is it necessary to call me that embarrassing nickname! I am no longer a boy, but a young man! Will you not treat me with the respect and dignity I deserve? But, very well, I will do as you ask.”
And yet he put on his red leather cloak, doing little to refute, but more to encourage, the ‘embarrassing’ nickname, as he headed out the door.
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Before long such visits to Little Red Riding Cloak’s dearest grandmother had become routine, even though, as the days passed and the sky brightened with summer his elderly grandmother’s sickness had befallen and she was well with health.
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And that was how this day had come about.
Little Red Riding Cloak, who was once a sweet little boy, had grown up to be a pretty lad. With eyes as blue as the sky and deep as the ocean, spun-gold hair and skin so pale as to make the beauties of the day a terror with envy.
Anyhow, on this day the beautiful young man was packing foodstuffs and other items into a wicker basket.
“Mother, I will be going! Grandmother must be eager to see me so I should be on my way now. Is their anything you may need my assistance in, before I venture off?” said Little Red Riding Cloak, after he was done.
Let it be known he was a rather theatrical boy.
His mother said, with pride shining in her sloe-eyes: “No dear, I will make do with myself. You run along now. It will be getting hot soon!”
And so Little Red Riding Cloak ventured off into the woods. His cloak billowing out behind him and a large hood obscuring his face from curious eyes.
As his mother gazed at his departing cloaked-form, her eyes couldn’t help but shine like marbles and she said with pride: “What a thoughtful boy I have raised! When boys his age are off laying with women and getting drunk left and right, the so-called passages into manhood, he still spares time for his elderly grandmother! I could have never wished for more in a son!”
As Little Red Riding Cloak walked along the path that would take him to his grandmother’s house, which was a half a league from the village, he met a wolf. Little Red was not afraid. He stared into the wolf’s eyes with defiance!
“Good day, Little Red Riding Cloak,” said he.
“Thank you kindly, wolf.”
“What is it that you are doing out so early, Little Red Riding Cloak?”
What importance is of this? mused the boy.
“I am on my way to my grandmother’s cottage.”
“Ahhh,” breathed the wolf, in understanding, his hot breath blowing on Red Riding Cloak’s face.
“So what is it that you have got in your basket?”
Little Red Riding Cloak naively went on.
“Oh, foodstuffs and wine and other…ahh…items.”
The wolf smirked. This was too easy.
“Where does your grandmother live, Little Cloak?”
Crinkling his golden brows in confusion, Little Red Riding Cloak, wondered as to why the wolf would want to know such a thing, but he answered all the same.
“A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands under the three large oak-trees and the nut-trees are just below; you surely must know it,” replied Little Red Riding Cloak.
The wolf thought to himself: “What a tender young creature! What a nice mouthful –he will taste delicious. I must act craftily, so as to get there before him.”
So he walked for a short time by the side of Little Red Riding Cloak, and then he said: “See, Little Red Riding Cloak, how pretty the flowers are about here - why do you not look around? I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing; you walk gravely along as if you were going to someone’s deathbed, while everything else out here in the woods is merry.”
Little Red Riding Cloak raised his sky- blue eyes, and when he saw the golden sunbeams dancing here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere, he thought: “Suppose I take grandmother a fresh bloom or few, that would please her, and if I may take a short rest while at it… It is so early in the day that I shall still get there in good time.”
So he ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers, while the wolf creeped away. Giving one last hungry gaze to Little Red Riding Cloak’s turned back he wholly left. As for Little Red, whenever he had picked a flower, he fancied that he saw a still prettier one farther on, and went to it, and so got deeper and deeper into the woods.
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Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother's house and knocked at the door.
Adopting a higher pitched voice he asked, “Is anyone in there? It is Little Red Riding Cloak and I have brought delicious foods and wine!”
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The wolf smirked, taking his place upon grandmother’s bed. Nothing more was left for him to do then to lie in wait for Little Red Riding Cloak. What a frightening surprise would the boy be sure to uncover.
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Little Red Riding Cloak, however, had been running about picking flowers, and when he had gathered so many that he could carry no more, he remembered where he ought to be, pondered as to the disappearance of the wolf, and set out to his grandmother’s middling cottage.
He was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open, and when he went into the room, he had such a strange feeling that he said to himself: “Oh dear! How uneasy I feel today, and at other times I would be filled with so much joy.”
He put his laden wicker basket on a nearby stool before looking about.
Then, he called out: “Good morning!” as he put the lovely blossoms he had found into a vase, their aroma seeping into the crinkling wallpaper and chipped floor boards, but he received no answer.
So he went to the bed and drew back the thick curtains with a swish. There lay… his eyes widened, dark, arched brows rising.
“Oh! Grandmother,” he said, his fragile hands grasping his face in shock, “what big ears you have!”
“All the better to hear your voice with, my darling,” was the reply.
“But, grandmother, what big eyes you have!” he said.
Grandmother’s eyes were slits in a broad face, sagging eyelids keeping her blind to the outside world. Sadly her beauty had gone the way of the wind.
“All the better to see you with, my dear.”
“But, grandmother, what large hands you have!”
“All the better to hug you with.”
“Oh! But, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!'
“All the better to eat you with!”
And scarcely had the wolf said this, then with one bound he was out of bed and a prone Red Riding Cloak was on the floor, his hood having fallen off his head, revealing golden tresses that had spilled about like liquid gold and a face worthy of an angel.
“Cut the theatrics, beloved. Though, a terrible big mouth? Hmmm? What say you I use this terrible big mouth to eat you raw and make you shake and scream as though the devil is on your heels? Does that entice you, lover,” purred the wolf.
The boy’s face flushed rose, as he heard the naughty words and beheld his lover’s naked state and the ropes and leathers and chains that were flung over the headboard of the bed the wolf had formerly occupied.
Gulping, he squeaked, “So this was the meaning behind your trickery, in the woods?”
He only got a chuckle in return and was quickly placed upon the bed.
“You sly wolf,” he murmured shakily as the wolf bound his hands to the headboard.

The wolf ate him (and more), as promised. Only after the wolf had appeased his appetite, did he lay down again in the bed, with his uncloaked Little Red Riding Cloak sprawled atop his frame.

Grandmother was sure to get a fright when she returned from her ‘girls’ night out.

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The End