One Wolf, Three Pigs, and Several Unfortunate Accidents.

I'm a wolf.

You might know me as ‘The Big Bad Wolf’.

The one who enjoys eating sick grandmas, tricking little girls wearing silly red costumes, huffing and puffing and blowing down buildings, et cetera, et cetera? They’re nice pastimes. Very entertaining.

Did I mention that I also enjoy being sarcastic?

Blowing down buildings with your breath is actually quite impossible.

And the 'Big Bad Wolf' is, in fact, not my name.

Just Horace. Horace W. Ólf.

Do not laugh. It is a respectable title for a respectable wolf!

Or—I was respectable. Now I’m thought of as a menace. You humans have judged me without knowing my story…

I was tending to my yard when I noticed that three new people had moved to a spot nearby, making them my neighbors.

I must go welcome them, I thought to myself. It’d be improper if I didn’t. Etiquette had been important to my parents in my childhood. They'd drilled it into my head to be proper. I didn’t intend to stop now.

So, I headed over to the first newcomer’s home, a batch of homemade cinnamon rolls in my paws.

He seemed to have just finished building the cottage, and I must say that it looked very…interesting. The walls were made of something yellow and dry. Straw? I inspected a piece. He built a house of straw? How silly! It’ll be blown away by the first gust of wind in a storm!

I spotted the owner of the house; a pig. He was sitting on his porch, softly whistling a merry tune. He stopped his song when he saw me and widened his eyes, knuckles white and clenched on the armrests of his chair. He stared at me with an expression that looked like...fear.

Hm.

Oh well.

“Hello, I'm Hor—” I began, holding out the rolls.

“W-W-WOLF! DON’T EAT ME!” the pig squealed. I stepped back, shocked at being so rudely interrupted by such an odd notion. He looked as if he might faint. Quite an inconvenient time...

Must everyone assume I'm hungry?! “I quite dislike bacon.”

That did not seem to help. The pig shot up from his chair and scrambled inside his house, peeking out the door.

“Can I at least know your name, sir?” I sniffed as dust tickled my nose. My allergies...

The pig stared at my fangs. Is there something in my teeth? “I-I-It’s—”

Turning my face away, I sneezed. It wasn’t a loud sneeze; just short and small. And it definitely didn’t conjure up some super-wind that blows down houses. From behind me, I heard a yelp and a door slamming shut with a bang. Then a sound like wind rustling leaves.

“Excuse—Oh!” The house had collapsed, now only a pile of straw. A few strands floated away on the breeze.

I gaped at the wreckage. Good heavens!

Now, you might be thinking, ‘Mr. Horace! You blew that house down when you sneezed!’ But no—I'd turned away from the straw house. It fell when the pig slammed the door.

Hopefully he’s alright. I’d rather not wait around. I inched away from the ruined house when a crowd of bystanders began to gather. I don’t want to be caught in the middle of this.

The next day, I remembered my other new neighbors—and the cinnamon rolls that I'd forgotten about. I grabbed them, then headed down the road.

Arriving at the second neighbor’s house, I stepped up to the door and knocked. This house was only a little less flimsy than the straw one; it was made completely of sticks. Not boards, sticks. Like someone had merely snapped branches off of trees and stuck them in the ground.

The door creaked as it opened. “Hello…”

“Hello!” I greeted exuberantly. It was another pig. This one was slightly bigger than the last, with dark speckles down his back. I held out the pan of room-temperature cinnamon rolls. “I’ve brought you—” I didn’t even get to finish my sentence.

A loose branch dropped from the ceiling, clonking the pig on the head. He crumpled backwards, knocked out. The pig crashed into the opposite wall, causing the sticks to break. Without the support of the wall, the house fell.

I stood in front of the still-standing doorframe, aghast. Oh my. That was unexpected.

With a crash, the doorframe also fell.

I left in a hurry. Good grief. What utterly unacceptable building standards.

After two house demolitions, I decided to let things settle before visiting the third.

I strolled towards the house carrying the now slightly stale cinnamon rolls that had been abandoned in my refrigerator since the last incident. This house looked quite normal—made of bricks instead of straw or sticks, thank goodness.

I knocked on the door.

An eye peered out of the peephole.

“What’re you doing here?” A voice growled.

“Uh…giving you a housewarming gift. Cinnamon rolls?”

The voice scoffed. “Bah!”

“Perhaps if you could open the door—”

“No way, wolf! Not by the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin!”

‘Chinny-chin-chin’? I was beginning to get annoyed with this character. “Pardon?”

“I know what you did to my brothers! You blew down their houses!”

“By the hairs of my 'chinny‑chin‑chin'," I began incredulously, insulted, "this is absurd. I did no such thing!"

The pig—if the other two were his brothers, he had to be a pig—ignored me. “I’m gonna tell the authorities!”

I inhaled, reminding myself that raising my voice would be quite impolite. I doubt that they’d take you seriously. “Would you like cinnamon rolls or not?!"

Brrrring, brrrring, brrrring, the phone rang. "Officer," the pig began.

"Sir!!" I gasp, quite irked now. "Why are you calling the police?!"

"Officer," the pig continued, his voice pointed. "There's an angry wolf on my doorstep!"

I flattened my ears. "I only want to welcome you to—"

"Officer, he's the one who blew down the pigs' houses!"

There was silence. I gaped at the door shut just inches from my nose, knowing that the lying pig was on the other side. "How dare you!" I tried the doorknob, but it's locked. "I did not—"

"Stop right there!" a voice shouted. Someone grabbed my shoulder and roughly spun me around. Cold handcuffs clamped around my poor paws, still holding the slight-squished cinnamon rolls. "Suspect caught attempting to break-and-enter," the voice said. I could see now that it was a bear dressed in a uniform; a policeman.

"Sir, I only want to give him these!" I gestured to the rolls. "And I did not blow down any houses! I only wanted to welcome my neighbors!"

The bear glared at me, his gaze sweeping over my fangs, tail, and gray fur. "Tell that to the judge, wolf."

And that’s how things really happened.

So here's the moral: don’t build houses out of straw or sticks! You might say, ‘Mr. Horace, that’s very obvious’, but it’s true!

Now I’m stuck in this terribly dark and odorous cell because the words of a pig are apparently much more trustworthy than the words of a wolf.

I demand a fair trial- and a broom as well. The cleanliness of this cell is absolutely terrible.

At least you’ve heard my side of the story…maybe you could help me?

…Or maybe you’d like some cinnamon rolls?