There’s nothing wrong with that. But it can be hard to be a monster when everyone tells you that you are the opposite. All the monster parts of you—the anger, the wildness, the hunger for more—are parts you have to keep hidden.
And so little girls go into the woods. Sometimes they leave their little heart monsters behind in their burrows in the woods, and come out again to grow up and be exactly what they are told they are.
Sometimes they are consumed by their little heart monsters and never really come out of the woods again. People cluck their tongues and whisper about the tragedy, but they don’t really mind because there are enough nice, quiet, proper little girls to comfort them.
But sometimes, a little girl goes into the woods with a secret heart monster, and she comes back out a monster with a secret little girl heart.
I think those are the best kind, don’t you?
And at this particular time, in this particular forest, the little girl going into the woods wore a long red cloak. It fastened with a ribbon bow around her neck, and had a hood that went up over her hair and draped her face in deep shadows. She loved that hood. It made her feel mysterious. Peering out through it at the world, she pretended she carried secrets in her basket.
What she actually carried was far more boring than secrets. Some bread, some cold chicken, a bit of cake, a cork-topped glass bottle of lemonade, and some porridge from the stupid castle. Surely a castle could send better food than porridge.
“Now, Jill, take it straight to your grandmother,” her mother had sternly cautioned. “Stay on the path. And no dillydallying about! You are still in a lot of trouble for what you did to Jack, young lady.”
The little girl pulled her cloak down lower over her face. Jack hadn’t gotten in trouble for kicking her out of her own bed and making her sleep on the floor. Jack never got in trouble for climbing on things, or shouting, or knocking all the heads off the flowers with a stick. Jack never got in trouble for bragging or spitting or pushing.
She was not one bit sorry for pushing him into the well. And that was part of why she was being punished so much. You and I know that parents want to see that you feel bad for what you did. If she could have worked up some remorseful tears or written a flowery apology letter, she would probably have been off the hook. But she just couldn’t do it.
She was always in trouble anyway, for something ridiculous like talking too loud, or eating too much, or laughing too brightly. Even her face got her in trouble for looking too smart, or too mean, or too sullen.
She liked being too. She didn’t want to stop.
Her stomach growled. She growled back at it.
And then the woods growled, too.
Startled, she stopped. The path stretched ahead of her. It was clear and precise, bordered by a heavy wall of trees on both sides. The branches crowded overhead, clawing at the sky over the path. The trees seemed to hint that they would love to grab the path and drag it away. And the little girl thought she’d like the woods better with no path.
The little girl looked to her right. The gloom of the forest hung heavy and green, impenetrable after a few feet. But, over to the left, past snaking roots and between massive trunks, the sun broke through to illuminate a small clearing filled with flowers. A large flat rock was in the center. Nature had prepared for a picnic.
“Don’t ever leave the path,” her mother cautioned in her memory. “It’s too dangerous.”
But the little girl liked too.
She clambered over the roots, tugging her cloak free when it snagged on a branch. She could still see the path from the clearing. She was still safe.
Or so she thought.
She seated herself on the flat rock, then took out her grandmother’s food and examined it. The cake couldn’t be eaten without leaving evidence. She had no fork, and bite marks would show. Same with the chicken. It was so neatly sliced that even tearing a piece off would be obvious. The bread was a whole loaf, which would also give away her crime.
She was really very angry with her mother.
But the porridge …
She didn’t have a spoon. The porridge was a big glop in a bowl with a cover on it. She stuck her finger in the middle experimentally. When s
he pulled it out, the porridge slowly settled back to fill it in.
(Oh dear. Please don’t, little girl.)
She smiled, took a huge handful, and shoved it in her mouth.
(I feel a bit sick, don’t you? I wish she knew what we know about that porridge.)
It was … not good. Really not good. (So much worse than not good, poor thing.) She gagged, but she had eaten it so fast she accidentally swallowed some. She thought it must have gone bad, which would explain why the castle had given it out for free.
Angry that her rebellious picnic had been ruined, she slammed the lid back on the bowl. She couldn’t even open the lemonade to try to get the taste out of her mouth. So she was understandably quite annoyed when a wolf stepped into the clearing with a growling sneer.