"What If?" Fairytale Madness Blogfest

This fun blogfest is running from Monday to Friday this week. Our mission, if we chose to accept it, was to pick a classic fairytale and tweak it by altering "one detail, one event, one character trait, one thought". There are four categories: Plot Twists, Love Stories, Comic Relief and Tragedy. It didn't take me long to opt for the Tragedy team (I do like putting my characters through hell), but I've only just done my entry now although I've been signed up for almost two months. I was a bit stuck on the fact that most fairytales are tragedies if you just take away the happy ending, but I think I've finally come up with something a bit more creative. Anyway, it was super fun to write! Here's my entry of 300 words, hope you enjoy...

The smell of fresh porridge wafted out of the open door of the cottage and Goldilocks followed her nose inside. Sure enough, three different-sized bowls stood on the kitchen table. The smallest bowl tasted the best, and she ate it all up.

Her stomach felt rather heavy after that, and she thought she’d better sit down. The smallest chair was the comfiest, but after a few seconds she heard a crack and ended up on her bottom amid a pile of broken wood.

Now her bum was sore, her tummy seemed to be full of lead weights, and to add to that, she felt like she was going to black out. She dragged herself upstairs to find a bed. She chose the smallest one – it felt like it had been made for her – and fell into a chasm of sleep.

The three bears were shocked when they returned to find the mess and the empty bowl. They hurried upstairs to find a little girl asleep in Baby Bear’s bed.

“Who is she?” asked Daddy Bear.

“Was she,” corrected Mummy Bear, after feeling for Goldilocks’ pulse. “That porridge...” She sank onto her own bed and put her head in her paws. “Bear porridge is poisonous to humans – only sugar cancels out the effects. If she’d waited for us to come back, I would have given her some and none of this would have happened.”

“What do we do now?” Daddy Bear was comforting his son, who had started to cry.

“Take her out to the woods behind the house. Then we’ll need to pack up and get gone. Once her family realise she’s missing, the local bear family’s going to be first on their hit list. I really thought this time might be different, but it seems bears find trouble everywhere.”

If you want to read more, you can find a linky list here, courtesy of awesome Team Captain Leigh Covington. I can't wait to get round to all the other entries!