The Book Of Lost Things

“You’ll see,” said Brother Number One. “Anyway, we feed her an apple: chomp-chomp, snooze-snooze, weep-weep, ‘poor Snow White, we-will-miss-her-so-but-life-goes-on.’ We lay her out on a slab, surround her with flowers and little weeping bunny rabbits, you know, all the trimmings, then along comes a bloody prince and kisses her. We don’t even have a prince around here. He just appeared out of nowhere on a bleeding white horse. Next thing you know he’s climbed off and he’s onto Snow White like a whippet down a rabbit hole. Don’t know what he thought he was doing, gadding about randomly kissing strange women who happened to be sleeping at the time.”

“Pervert,” said Brother Number Three. “Ought to be locked up.”

“Anyway, so he bounces in on his white horse like a big perfumed tea cozy, getting involved in affairs that are none of his business, and next thing you know she wakes up and-ooooh!-was she in a bad mood. The prince didn’t half get an earful, and that was after she clocked him one first for ‘taking liberties.’ Five minutes of listening to that and, instead of marrying her, the prince gets back on his horse and rides off into the sunset. Never saw him again. We blamed the local wicked stepmother for the whole apple business, but, well, if there’s a lesson to be learned from all this, it’s to make sure that the person you’re going to wrongfully blame for doing something bad is actually available for selection, as it were. There was a trial, we got suspended sentences on the grounds of provocation combined with lack of sufficient evidence, and we were told that if anything ever happened to Snow White again, if she even chipped a nail, we’d be for it.”

Comrade Brother Number One did an impression of choking on a noose, just in case David didn’t understand what “it” meant.

“Oh,” said David. “But that’s not the story I heard.”

“Story!” The dwarf snorted. “You’ll be talking about ‘happily ever after’ next. Do we look happy? There’s no happily ever after for us. Miserably ever after, more like.”

“We should have left her for the bears,” said Brother Number Five, glumly. “They know how to do a good killing, do the bears.”

“Goldilocks,” said Brother Number One, nodding approvingly. “Classic that, just classic.”

“Oh, she was awful,” said Brother Number Five. “You couldn’t blame them, really.”

“Hang on,” said David. “Goldilocks ran away from the bears’ house and never went back there again.”

He stopped talking. The dwarfs were now looking at him as if he might have been a little slow.

“Er, didn’t she?” he added.

“She got a taste for their porridge,” said Brother Number One, tapping the side of his nose gently as though he were confiding a great secret to David. “Couldn’t get enough of it. Eventually, the bears just got tired of her, and, well, that was that. ‘She ran away into the woods and never went back to the bears’ house again.’ A likely story!”

“You mean…they killed her?” asked David.

“They ate her,” said Brother Number One. “With porridge. That’s what ‘ran away and was never seen again’ means in these parts. It means ‘eaten.’ ”

“Um, and what about ‘happily ever after’?” asked David, a little uncertainly. “What does that mean?”

“Eaten quickly,” said Brother Number One.

And with that they reached the dwarfs’ house.

XIV Of Snow White, Who Is Very Unpleasant Indeed

YOU’RE LATE!”

David’s eardrums rang like bells as Comrade Brother Number One opened the front door of the cottage and cried, very nervously, “Coo-ee, we’re home!” in that singsong voice that David’s father had sometimes used on David’s mother when he got back late from the pub and knew he was in trouble.

“Don’t ‘we’re home’ me” came the reply. “Where have you been? I’m starvin’. Me stomach’s like an empty barrel.”

David had never heard a voice quite like it. It was a woman’s voice, but it managed to be both deep and high at the same time, like those huge trenches that were supposed to lie at the bottom of the ocean, only not quite so wet.

“Ooooooh, I can ’ear it rumbling,” said the voice. “’Ere, you, listen to it.”

A big white hand reached out and grabbed Brother Number One by the scruff of the neck, lifting him off his feet and yanking him inside.

“Oh, yeph,” said Brother Number One, after a moment or two. His voice sounded slightly muffled. “I can hear iff now.”

David allowed the other dwarfs to enter the cottage ahead of him. They walked like prisoners who had just been told that the executioner had a little extra time on his hands and could fit in a few more beheadings before he went home for his tea. David cast a lingering glance back at the dark forest and wondered if he shouldn’t just take his chances outside.

“Close that door!” said the voice. “I’m freezin’. Me teeth are chatterin’.”

David, feeling that he had no other choice, stepped into the cottage and closed the door firmly behind him.