4. Little Polly Riding Hood

Once every two weeks Polly went over to the other side of the town to see her grandmother. Sometimes she took a small present, and sometimes she came back with a small present for herself. Sometimes all the rest of the family went too, and sometimes Polly went alone.

One day, when she was going by herself, she had hardly got down the front doorsteps when she saw the wolf.

‘Good afternoon, Polly,’ said the wolf. ‘Where are you going to, may I ask?’

‘Certainly,’ said Polly. ‘I’m going to see my grandma.’

‘I thought so!’ said the wolf, looking very much pleased. ‘I’ve been reading about a little girl who went to visit her grandmother and it’s a very good story.’

‘Little Red Riding Hood?’ suggested Polly.

‘That’s it!’ cried the wolf. ‘I read it out loud to myself as a bedtime story. I did enjoy it. The wolf eats up the grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood. It’s almost the only story where a wolf really gets anything to eat,’ he added sadly.

‘But in my book he doesn’t get Red Riding Hood,’ said Polly. ‘Her father comes in just in time to save her.’

‘Oh, he doesn’t in my book!’ said the wolf. ‘I expect mine is the true story, and yours is just invented. Anyway, it seems a good idea.’

‘What is a good idea?’ asked Polly.

‘To catch little girls on their way to their grandmothers’ cottages,’ said the wolf. ‘Now where had I got to?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Polly.

‘Well, I’d said, “Where are you going to?”,’ said the wolf. ‘Oh yes. Now I must say, “Where does she live?”. Where does your grandmother live, Polly Riding Hood?’

‘Over the other side of the town,’ answered Polly.

The wolf frowned.

‘It ought to be “Through the wood”,’ he said. ‘But perhaps town will do. How do you get there, Polly Riding Hood?’

‘First I take a train and then I take a bus,’ said Polly.

The wolf stamped his foot.

‘No, no, no, no!’ he shouted. ‘That’s all wrong. You can’t say that. You’ve got to say, “By that path winding through the trees”, or something like that. You can’t go by trains and buses and things. It isn’t fair.’

‘Well, I could say that,’ said Polly, ‘but it wouldn’t be true. I do have to go by bus and train to see my grandma, so what’s the good of saying I don’t?’

‘But then it won’t work,’ said the wolf impatiently. ‘How can I get there first and gobble her up and get all dressed up to trick you into believing I am her if we’ve got a great train journey to do? And anyhow I haven’t any money on me, so I can’t even take a ticket. You just can’t say that.’

‘All right, I won’t say it,’ said Polly agreeably. ‘But it’s true all the same. Now just excuse me, Wolf, I’ve got to get down to the station because I am going to visit my grandma even if you aren’t.’

The wolf slunk along behind Polly, growling to himself. He stood just behind her at the booking-office and heard her ask for her ticket, but he could not go any further. Polly got into a train and was carried away, and the wolf went sadly home.

But just two weeks later the wolf was waiting outside Polly’s house again. This time he had plenty of change in his pocket. He even had a book tucked under his front leg to read in the train.

He partly hid himself behind a corner of brick wall and watched to see Polly come out on her way to her grandmother’s house.

But Polly did not come out alone, as she had before. This time the whole family appeared, Polly’s father and mother too. They got into the car, which was waiting in the road, and Polly’s father started the engine.

The wolf ran along behind his brick wall as fast as he could, and was just in time to get out into the road ahead of the car, and to stand waving his paws as if he wanted a lift as the car came up.

Polly’s father slowed down, and Polly’s mother put her head out of the window.

‘Where do you want to go?’ she asked.

‘I want to go to Polly’s grandmother’s house,’ the wolf answered. His eyes glistened as he looked at the family of plump little girls in the back of the car.

‘That’s where we are going,’ said her mother, surprised. ‘Do you know her then?’

‘Oh no,’ said the wolf. ‘But you see, I want to get there very quickly and eat her up and then I can put on her clothes and wait for Polly, and eat her up too.’

‘Good heavens!’ said Polly’s father. ‘What a horrible idea! We certainly shan’t give you a lift if that is what you are planning to do.’

Polly’s mother screwed up the window again and Polly’s father drove quickly on. The wolf was left standing miserably in the road.

‘Bother!’ he said to himself angrily. ‘It’s gone wrong again. I can’t think why it can’t be the same as the Little Red Riding Hood story. It’s all these buses and cars and trains that make it go wrong.’

But the wolf was determined to get Polly, and when she was due to visit her grandmother again, a fortnight later, he went down and took a ticket for the station he had heard Polly ask for. When he got out of the train, he climbed on a bus, and soon he was walking down the road where Polly’s grandmother lived.

‘Aha!’ he said to himself, ‘this time I shall get them both. First the grandma, then Polly.’

He unlatched the gate into the garden, and strolled up the path to Polly’s grandmother’s front door. He rapped sharply with the knocker.

‘Who’s there?’ called a voice from inside the house.

The wolf was very much pleased. This was going just as it had in the story. This time there would be no mistakes.

‘Little Polly Riding Hood,’ he said in a squeaky voice. ‘Come to see her dear grandmother, with a little present of butter and eggs and – er – cake!’

There was a long pause. Then the voice said doubtfully, ‘Who did you say it was?’

‘Little Polly Riding Hood,’ said the wolf in a great hurry, quite forgetting to disguise his voice this time. ‘Come to eat up her dear grandmother with butter and eggs!’

There was an even longer pause. Then Polly’s grandmother put her head out of a window and looked down at the wolf.

‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.

‘I am Polly,’ said the wolf firmly.

‘Oh,’ said Polly’s grandma. She appeared to be thinking hard. ‘Good afternoon, Polly. Do you know if anyone else happens to be coming to see me today? A wolf, for instance?’

‘No. Yes,’ said the wolf in great confusion. ‘I met a Polly as I was coming here – I mean, I, Polly, met a wolf on my way here, but she can’t have got here yet because I started specially early.’

‘That’s very queer,’ said the grandma. ‘Are you quite sure you are Polly?’

‘Quite sure,’ said the wolf.

‘Well, then, I don’t know who it is who is here already,’ said Polly’s grandma. ‘She said she was Polly. But if you are Polly then I think this other person must be a wolf.’

‘No, no, I am Polly,’ said the wolf. ‘And, anyhow, you ought not to say all that. You ought to say, “Lift the latch and come in”.’

‘I don’t think I’ll do that,’ said Polly’s grandma. ‘Because I don’t want my nice little Polly eaten up by a wolf, and if you come in now the wolf who is here already might eat you up.’

Another head looked out of another window. It was Polly’s.

‘Bad luck, Wolf,’ she said. ‘You didn’t know that I was coming to lunch and tea today instead of just tea as I generally do – so I got here first. And as you are Polly, as you’ve just said, I must be the wolf, and you’d better run away quickly before I gobble you up, hadn’t you?’

‘Bother, bother, bother and bother!’ said the wolf. ‘It hasn’t worked out right this time either. And I did just what it said in the book. Why can’t I ever get you, Polly, when that other wolf managed to get his little girl?’

‘Because this isn’t a fairy story,’ said Polly, ‘and I’m not Little Red Riding Hood. I am Polly and I can always escape from you, Wolf, however much you try to catch me.’

‘Clever Polly,’ said Polly’s grandma. And the wolf went growling away.