Task two. Write a fanfiction - Being a wolf

It is not easy being a wolf in the land of make believe.

We are always typecast as vindictive, sneaky villains who go out of our way to hurt, destroy or even kill poor woodland creatures – or worse- defenseless little children.

There is not one story where you will find a tale of a naïve young wolf being led astray by another creature, nor will you hear of a wolf that is too shy to intimidate another being. Well folks, I am here to tell you my story and let you find out what really has been happening out there in the deep dark forest.

The obvious place to start is by telling you about my encounter with that little liar, Red Riding Hood.

It is a story that has been told for many years in a biased, unfair manner.

It was a lovely summer morning and I was wandering through the forest looking for someone to play with. It was quite a warm day out so I wasn’t looking for anything too strenuous. Perhaps a game of tag or hide and seek – though I find that people tend to just run away rather than hide when I suggest that particular game.

Anyhow, as I was saying, I was wandering around looking for someone to play with when little Miss Perfect herself, came flouncing through the trees, swinging a picnic basket. Now, there is something about wolves that very few people know. We love picnics. How could we not? Little sandwiches, cold tea, a blanket on the grass… it just screams fabulous!

I approached this little girl, and I asked her in my sweetest voice where she was going.

She wouldn’t answer mea t first so I tried another more upfront tactic. I asked her if she was going to have a picnic. She said no, she was going to visit her grandma’s house.

Disappointed, I was about to leave her on her way, when all of a sudden she fell over a stone and dropped the basket she was carrying. Naturally, I went to help her up when out tumbled a flask of tea, some sweet cakes and cucumber sandwiches.

I was rather upset to tell you the truth. It is never nice to learn that you’ve been lied to so I confronted the girl and asked her why she lied.

The answer she gave was shocking. She called me all kinds of terrible names and the language she used was most definitely lupusist.  So I decided to teach her a lesson.

I followed her to her grandmother’s house, with the intention of telling her grandmother exactly what the little runt had spouted, only to be met with a cranky old woman screaming canine-phobic insults in my direction. Worse still, she blamed my for the cuts on her granddaughter that resulted from her fall over the stone. Next thing I know, a woodcutter appears, threatens to castrate me and I fled back into the forest.

The next morning, I received a phone call from the head of our local pack. The local newspaper ran a story about the previous day’s incident only it cited that I had eaten both the girl and her grandmother and had to be killed by the woodcutter. Realising that I was very much alive the pack took the matter to the courts who then forced the paper to apologise and retract their story. Alas, the damage had been done, and the story became a lesson told to children about the perils of walking alone in the forest. 

Naturally this meant that children stopped coming to play in the forest so we wolves had fewer and fewer chances to play with them. We started to play with other animals. I started to hang around with three little pigs.

It turned out that the pigs were pros at insurance fraud and blamed me for destroying two of their houses so they could claim ridiculous amounts of money for them. Because of my past record with Red Riding Hood, I was given a warning by the courts and put on a good behavior bond and the three pigs got away with their crime.

The head of my pack was quite irate about this. He accused me of giving wolves everywhere a bad name. I was banned from socializing with anyone from outside my pack and was forbidden from ever leaving the forest.

After about six months of sheer boredom I found a place where I could leave the forest undetected. It was up the side of a little mountain. Unfortunately the mountain was a favourite with shepherds so there were always many young boys hanging around up there.

 One springtime, I managed to get my hands on some sheep wool and I made myself a very cunning disguise. Nobody noticed an extra sheep running around the place with all the other sheep. It was so liberating! Thankfully sheep are rather idiotic animals so they didn’t notice either. My plan worked for a few months and would have worked for many more if young boy named Peter hadn’t taken over from his brother as shepherd.

He spotted me straight away. Three times he called me to the others attention. Three times nobody believed him. How could they possibly have missed a wolf in sheep's clothing? I couldn’t take any chances with being caught outside the forest so after the third time I crept up on him while he slept. I only meant to startle him but I ended up biting quite a chunk out of his arm. His screaming brought the other shepherds running and my disguise was discovered.

The courts didn’t take too kindly to the attack. Neither did my pack.

I was sentenced to three years hard labour and now that I’m out I just wander the road looking for somewhere to go or someone to play with.

As I said earlier, it is not easy being a wolf. Not easy at all.