1. Fractured Fairytales
Characters:
Damsel in distress:
- Mummy bear
Villain:
- Goldilocks
Hero:
- Troll from billy goats gruff.
Story:
Have you ever been locked in a small confined space before, 20 stories high? Not a
closet or trunk type of small, but a small meaning a damp, dark, with mushrooms
growing in the corner kind of room? If you have, reader, you will know exactly
how I feel, if you haven’t, settle down and listen to my story.
“Great Prince, I thank you from the deepest of my heart! From this day on, I hope
we will never leave each other’s side. Our hearts will be locked together until that of
the day we die,”
No no, I can’t say that to him, that’s WAY too corny. Ugh, I’ve read far too many
romance novels.
In case you haven’t worked it out yet, that’s me. I’m trying to work out what to say
when my saviour, I’m hoping like mad it will be a prince, comes to my rescue. This
must all sound quite confusing to you, so I’ll start from the very beginning.
I was a happy bear. I had a lovely house and a beautiful garden. I had a husband,
named Alfred, a cub and the best recipe for porridge ever made for bear kind.
But, five years after the birth of my dear cub Frankie, everything went downhill.
One early morning, and I mean EARLY, I went for a run as I needed to train for
the upcoming Iron Bear. I asked my dear husband if he would mind getting
Frankie ready for school as well as cooking some porridge, timed for my arrival.
Have you ever smelt trouble, I mean, literally smelt it? Like smoke kind of trouble?
As I rounded the corner of our bending driveway after my run around town, I
noticed that our beautiful white, pristine house (apart from Frankie’s room) was the
colour of soot. It was up in flames, actually on FIRE. I couldn’t believe it, I trusted
my husband to do something as simple as getting our child ready for school and to
make breakfast and he goes and burns the house down.
By now I was angry, fuming in fact. So angry, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
In my frustrated and extremely depressed state, I turned around and stormed off. I

2. could only think of running, so that is exactly what I did. In fact, anyone passing by
would have thought I was SERIOUSLY emotionally challenged. But, if you look
on the bright side, at least I was doing some training for the Iron Bear Tryathlon.
2 months later...
By now I had been staying with my dear Mother in Porridge Ville for two months.
Alfred and I had confirmed a divorce and Frankie decided that he wanted to live
with Alfred instead of me. Grrr. Alfred then remarried to Goldilocks Miller (boy
that made me angry) and everyone lived happily ever after. Well not exactly.
Everyone except ME.
Anyway, one day I was doing the grocery shopping for mother and I. I bought
some lovely bright red apples that were being sold by Goldilocks. Not wanting to be
rude, I congratulated her on her marriage to Alfred and wished them the best for
their future together. Under my duress, I bought a couple of the apples just to
please her. I bit into one, regardless of the fact that Goldilock’s eyes were twinkling
menacingly.
I woke up in a small room. It was rather plain with a door on one wall, just a little
bed in the corner, a desk in the other, withered flowers on the window ledge and a
bucket to replace a toilet. The one thing I noticed the most as I tried to get up from
the ground, was that my claws were exceptionally long, so long, I couldn’t see the
end of them, because they were trailing out the window. I wonder what happened
to my weekly manicure appointments?
Once I finally got my feet underneath myself, I positioned my toes so my long claws
were stretched out across the room.
I heard a sudden knock on the door, keys turning in a rusty lock and an old
woman, slightly crippled appeared in front of me. I recognised her at once, yes, she
was Goldilocks, but how did she manage to get so old all of a sudden?
“Ahh, hello dearie, I see you have awoken. 50 years you have been asleep. Oh my,
look at those talons of yours, probably long enough to reach at least 20 stories
down! Now, let me have your 1st prize porridge recipe or you’ll never get out of
this tower!” Goldilocks cackled, my ears piercing.
20 stories down! WHAT? I shuffled over to the window with my long nails and
looked down. Sure enough, I was high in the air, just like Rapunzel in the fairytale.
Except with long claws, not hair. And the reason I was here in the first place was

3. because Goldilocks wanted my porridge recipe. What I couldn’t understand was
why she didn’t make me go to sleep for only 25 years, why 50? I mean, by now I’d
be at least 70! What a waste of life! I couldn’t help wondering if I had yet got
wrinkles. Pity their wasn’t a mirror handy.
So there you go. Now you know how and why I got locked up in this dreaded place,
how I divorced my husband over a porridge disaster and left my only child. If you
were me, let me tell you that you would feel the same way. But the thing is, you’re
not me, you’re not a depressed old bear and you’re not a complete wreck. Most of
all ,your life isn’t drawing to a bitter end.
Oh and sorry about the last bit, it’s just I needed it to sound a little dramatic.
So, now I’m here, just sitting at the little desk counting all the mushrooms growing
from the corners of the room, trying to think of something to say to my prince
when he comes to rescue me that isn’t corny. I feel a sudden tug from the end of
my nails which made me crane my neck to see if I could see through the window.
Could it be? Could it be my prince? There, I could just make out the shape of a
figure trying to climb up my nails, which made me wince in pain. As the shape got
closer, I started to see the form more clearly. I could see a mass of hair on the head,
long leg muscles working hard to scale up the wall, and the rather dirty shirt,
( probably from sweat, ew), drenching the man’s arms and forehead. Perfect, he
looked muscly and victorious. Just my type.
At last, my prince had come to save me from this dreadful place. I then
remembered the speech I had made up just before. It was the only thing I had
thought of, corny or not, that’s all I had to say. I ran it through in my mind and
then I tried my hardest to pose myself on the bed, finding it hard as my nails were
getting pulled out the window. I raked my hands through my straggly of hair
(remember it hadn’t been cut for at least 50 years) and tried to look even just the
slightest bit presentable.
I heard my prince use his last effort to heave himself into the room, that was my
cue to start the speech... ‘Great Prince, I thank you from the deepest of my heart!
From this day on, I hope... AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!’
I had hoped that this moment in the tower would be the best day of life, but it
turned out to be the worst.
What I hadn’t realised as I was peering out the window was that the prince was not
my idea of a prince. He was uglier than Alfred even, and that’s saying something!
Instead of gorgeous locks of blonde, silky hair, they were more like chunks of oily,
dirty hay. His legs were not muscular but in fact flabby, and the worst of all was his

4. ghastly smell. He smelt like some one had put rotten fish heads, huge piles of horse
dung and bad case of B.O into a big pot of rubbish and boiled it up. It even smelt
worse than changing Freddie’s nappies when he was little. Yech.
The troll leapt across the room and planted a great big, smelly, wet kiss on my
cheek. He picked me up and swirled me around the room happily. I couldn’t help
but laugh, my misfortune or not. Even though this troll (looking suspiciously like
the one from under the bridge in the billy goats gruff) was not what I had hoped, he
was the one for me, I could feel it in my claws. I loved him, despite his smell.
During the next week we escaped the tower, bought my true love (He’s called
Bobby) new clothes, purchased some pimple cream for his face, I told him how to
shower and he clipped my nails. We purchased a lovely house with a lovely garden.
Freddie moved in with Bobby and I and we all lived happily ever after. Except for
Goldilocks, we locked her in the tower so she could have a taste of her own
medicine. So I’ll change the last bit.
SOME of us lived happily ever after! Oh and in case you were wondering, I
finished presenting my corny speech to Bobby and he liked it very much.
The End
By Rosie and Ella.