Out of the mouths of babes

As I may (or may not) have mentioned, I'm beginning a second “career”—or third or fourth or fifth, depending on how you define it. I parted company with my previous employer this year well beyond the normal retirement age of 65. But, after three months of vagabonding around Europe and returning home I started feeling restless without my previous 9 to 5 life style. I enjoy the leisure of not having to get up at the crack of dawn, but, as I knew I would, I began to feel the need to do something productive--on a part time basis. So, now I am starting some new (for me) classes in ESL (English as a Second Language) for young learners (elementary school age) and tutoring a couple of teenagers as well in the late afternoon and early evening three days a week--as of this post.

Anyhow, I was looking for some appropriate reading material that would be interesting (and short) enough to motivate one of my groups. I ran across an Internet site that had some very, very short stories that turned out to have been serially written by 10-year-olds by adding their own ideas to the ongoing story. I had an “aha” moment and decided to piece some of the kids' efforts together and fill in the gaps myself to make a funny and gory enough story to capture the imagination of children who secretly love such stories--if the kids who made their contributions are any example. The story is about Little Red Riding Hood, more or less.

Can you figure out which parts are the kids' and which are mine?

The Little Girl who Hated the Color Red

One day Little Red Riding Hood had the sniffles and the sneezes. 


Little Red Riding has a secret. She loves her grandmother more than her mum, and she wanted to go to granny's house. 


The problem was Little Red Riding Hood hated red and her grandmother's house was red. But she loved her grandmother so she went inside anyway.

Little Red Riding Hood was happy to see her grandmother, but the problem was it wasn't her grandmother, it was the big bad wolf. 

Now, Little Red Riding Hood didn't know it was the BIG BAD WOLF so she said, "Hello grandma, what BIG BLOODSHOT RED EYES you have and what a BIG RED TONGUE you have". But, the problem was the BIG BAD WOLF didn't say anything, he was too busy eating Little Red Riding Hood.

Little Red Riding Hood hated the color red and the inside of the big bad wolf's stomach was red. Lucky for her she had a cold, so she sniffled and huffed and puffed and sneezed and blew herself out of the wolf. Then she went to hide in the bathroom because the wolf was still in her grandmother's house.

Lucky for Little Red Hiding Hood she had her cell phone in her pocket. She called her Dad who was a policeman and he came over and shot the big bad wolf.


The big bad wolf blew up and splattered blood and grandma all over Little Red Riding Hood and her Dad. Unfortunately granny was as dead as the big bad wolf, but Little Red Riding Hood and her Dad were OK. Little Red Riding Hood really hated red now and said: “I want a Green Riding Hood from now on.”

Actually, Little Red Riding Hood was having a dream. When she woke up, she was still at home. Just to be sure, she took out her cell phone and called Grandma. “Hellooo. Oh, hello sweetheart. I'm hungry. Why don't you come over for lunch?” It sounded like granny had a rough voice. Maybe she had a cold, too.