Another fairy tale from the dark side of My pen

Little Red Riding Hood lived in the forest with her mother. One day, Mother said, “Red Riding Hood, I’d like you to go and visit Grandmother this afternoon and take her some cakes. Why don’t you come into the kitchen and help me bake some?”

“Okay, Mother,” said Little Red Riding Hood, for she had always seemed a pliable little thing, though with an irritating tendency lately to talk to just about anyone, and the hairier the better. This had worried her parents for a while now.

They went into the kitchen together and Mother began to collect the ingredients for the cakes. “Oh, bother,” she said, searching through her cupboards. “I’m clean out of flour. Will you just pop round to the shop, Red Riding Hood, and fetch me some?”

“Okay, Mother,” said Little Red Riding Hood, and she set off, leaving Mother creaming the butter and sugar.

Leaning against the wall of the Happy Shopper supermarket was someone Red Riding Hood had met in the forest on several occasions. It was Mr Wolf.

“Hi, babe,” said Wolf, stroking her cheek with a bristly paw, something that made her shiver with pleasure. “You managed it, then.”

"You bet,” snickered RRH. “I hid the flour so she sent me out to buy some. She hadn't a clue. Did you remember my cases?”

“It’s all here,” said Wolf. “Everything you’ve smuggled into the forest over the last week. Shall we go then? The train to the airport leaves in half an hour.” He took her hand and scraped at her palm with a claw. She tried not to notice the crimson streak that ran down towards her fingers.

“Hang on. One more thing,” RRH said, sloughing off her bright red coat and leaving it abandoned on the roadside like an old rag. “If I leave this here, I won’t be so conspicuous in case the CCTV cameras pick us up.”

And with that, the pretty young girl and the wolf set off towards the station for the 11.55, RRH wondering, just for an uncomfortable second, what Grandmother would be thinking, alone in her cottage.