Flash Contest #69, November 2024: Write a short story, poem, or create an artwork that tells a fairytale from the perspective of a secondary character—Our Winners and Their Work

It’s a chilly morning in the forest. The birds nestle up together in the shadows of the trees. The squirrels tuck away in the tree hollows, their tails shielding them from the cold.

Meanwhile, us big ones don’t get any warmth, no matter how much we call.

We’re silenced. Expected to thrive off of a few prey. Categorized as big, bad, and cunning meanies. All when we wolves are simply trying to live, just like the others.

But I know I can’t just stay in one spot. I have to get moving.

Hunger gnaws at me as I wander the woods. I desperately need somewhere to stay and something to eat.

After a long while, I stumble upon a little pig’s house made of straw. When I catch sight of a welcoming fire burning inside, hope flickers in my chest.

I knock gently.

“Please,” I beg. “I’m cold, and I haven’t eaten in days. Could you spare a place by your fire?”

After a few seconds, the door creaks open, just enough for the pig’s snout to peek through. He narrows his eyes.

“You must be lying,” he says with a sneer. “I’m no fool. So just stop already, you scary wolf!”

Suddenly, a gust of wind rushes through the air, carrying dust from the straw to my nose. I sneeze, causing the walls to immediately collapse and the fire to die away. The pig squeals and bolts, leaving me with the wreckage at my feet. Guilt forms up inside me, and it outweighs my hunger.

I decide to follow the pig’s tracks and do my best to apologize. To my surprise, the path leads to another pig’s house built of sticks. It’s eerily getting darker, so I try speaking again to hopefully find a place to stay for the night.

“Please,” I say, my voice hoarse. “I don’t mean harm. I just need rest.”

The second pig appears in his doorway, looking me up and down. “Sorry, but I can’t trust you. My brother told me everything. Everyone knows what wolves are like.” He shuts his door before I get the chance to say otherwise.

Then, another sneeze overtakes me. I can’t resist; the smell of the sticks is too strong. The sticks topple to the ground and the pig runs off, screaming. I follow him, yearning for sympathy.

By the time I arrive at the third pig’s house, I’m practically hopeless. If snow starts to fall soon, I’d be doomed.

The house is made of bricks, sturdy and well-constructed. Maybe here, someone would listen. I needed someone to listen.

“Please,” I beg, scratching at the door. “I’m not the monster you think I am. I just need help!”

The third pig laughs from inside. “Go on formulating your little schemes. My house is so robust, I literally have trouble hearing you right now.”

I huff—not in anger, but in frustration, trying to explain myself. The pigs had falsely assumed my intentions. Their laughter rang from the safety of the bricks, and I knew by that point I was alone. Every single animal was cozied up in a loving home, while I appeared as an enigmatic outcast.

Us wolves are always portrayed as evil creatures. Not a single story casts us as heroes. Not one.

They say I’m the big, bad wolf, but they never asked who I really was. If they had, they might have seen the truth.

I was just a creature in need of a little to eat, while being indicated as an intimidating predator.

I was just a creature in need of warmth, while being described as a deliberate destroyer of many homes.

I was just a creature in need, while being depicted as a malevolent monster in their tale.

I was just a creature in need.

13 January 1852, 6 pm.

That Cinderella forgot to dust under the cabinet again. I already warned that scatterbrained lass not to forget, but she is simply indolent. I have done so much for her, taking her into this grand mansion, giving her the charity of two small meals a day and a straw bed. And yet she is too kind— so kind she makes Charmaine and Gertrude, my two dear daughters, seem dreadfully unkind as a result, though they only punish her if she forgets to do something on the six-yard list of chores, or touch their things.

She also dresses too fancy. She wears a good, serviceable grey dress with only thirteen large patches — to think she had the nerve to ask me for a new one yesterday— and a pinafore. Why, if I were her— though of course I would never be so dreadfully indolent— I would be contented with a shabby frock. She wants a warm woolen dress; she says it’s awfully cold up in the attic, with no heater, and it’s the cold of January— I say she ought to be grateful for a straw bed to rest her head on. Ha, ha!

Anyway, this Cinderella has a job to do. Yesterday Charmaine— my dear daughter, seventeen years of age, a marriageable age indeed— got a letter inviting her and her younger sister, Gertrude, to the palace for a ball. So Cinderella will press and iron their silken dresses, help them with their dressing-up, do their make-up, do their hair up, and wait on them.

“May I please go to the ball with you?” She had the nerve to ask Charmaine that this morning. What an impertinent lass!

Charmaine replied, “You impertinent girl! Servants don’t go to balls.” She’s my good girl. And of course Charmaine punished her— she deserved it, she did— by taking her bed away for the night.

The girls are ready now. We will take the gilded carriage to the ball and be back at one in the morning— the journey takes an hour one way. Cinderella is under strict orders not to go to bed until we do— that is proper for a servant, of course— and to prepare a twenty-course supper for us when we come back.
The foolish girl, she is weeping herself sick over not being able to go. She’ll have a cold in the head next morning. Oh no, it’s not I’m worried about her health and well-being— who would be so silly? — but she’ll keep us awake with her sneezes.

13 January 1852, 7.56 pm.

We’ve arrived at the ball. The hall’s gorgeous. Simply ravishing. But Charmaine, despite having impeccable hair and dress, has not danced even once with the prince. He’s absorbed in this beautiful young lady, with dainty feet enclosed in shimmery glass slippers, a lovely dress of deep purple velvet, and an amethyst brooch at her throat. Strange how her figure seems just like Cinderella’s. But of course Cinderella’s at home and can only dream of such finery.

13 January 1852, 11. 43 pm.

The prince had been dancing with this young lady for hours on end. Charmaine and Gertrude are exhausted from the wait and are fanning themselves feverishly— they’ve been standing still for hours. And to think Cinderella complains about having to move from here to there, down the servant steps and back up!

14 January 1852, 1.32 am.

What ignominy! My two dear daughters did not dance once with the prince, who had eyes only for that young lady. They were very disappointed.

That young lady was starting to get on my nerves.

14 January 1852, 8 am.

I hear the prince is coming ‘round our town to find that young lady he danced with. That strange girl, she ran right away at midnight, and dropped a slipper. I have no idea why the prince would like such a hasty and awkward lass. Why, she’s almost as bad as Cinderella!

Every lady can try the slipper on— I hear the slipper’s miniscule— and whoever fits it perfectly, has the prince’s hand in marriage. Oh, my dream for Charmaine is to have her marry the prince. I told her to pretend she’s that young lady. Admittedly her feet are a little on the long side— thirty inches long— but Charmaine must marry the prince, she must.

14 January 1852, 11.32 am.

I write this in bitter disappointment and great anger. The prince has visited.

Charmaine and Gertrude tried the slipper on— it was only five inches long, a real squeeze for them— but they could not fit into the shimmering glass slipper. I whispered bitterly to Charmaine that I suspected no-one could fit in such a tiny thing.

Then the prince asked if there were any other young ladies in the house. I said, we have a servant here but she was home yesterday night. He said, have her come out. So Cinderella came out, and gingerly placed her little foot into the slipper.

And the slipper fitted. Then she produced another identical slipper from her pinafore pocket. Cinderella, our servant living on my kindness and charity, dares to fit into a glass slipper and be married to the prince!

As was proper, we (Charmaine, Gertrude and I) immediately got on our knees and said we were so very sorry for mistreating Cinderella and would she please forgive us? She smiled sweetly at us and said yes, she would. I saw a glimmer of condescension in that smile.

She’s going to marry the prince this very day. It’s to be an opulent ceremony, and we were invited. But we said no. Why would we celebrate the wedding of our servant? Now who will cook and clean and dust and mend and buy groceries and bake and do the laundry?

I guess we have to start learning how to do chores.

THE END