Three Little Pigs

Once upon a time, there were three little pigs who were given a large plot of land to share. They split the plot into three equal portions, and each set about building their own house.

The first little pig saw that the farmer had left some of the straw bales out in the field, and she used these to build a small cosy house just big enough for her needs.

“Nice one, May,” said her sister, June. “You put me to shame – time I finished my place.”

June had decided to build her house from fallen pieces of wood that she collected from the nearby trees. She gathered up all the branches and twigs, and expertly wove them into a tidy hut.

“Nice technique,” admired May, inspecting the closely woven layers. “Let’s go and see how Julie’s doing.”

The two sisters trotted across the fields, well pleased with their new homes.

They found Julie sweating and heaving a hod of red bricks to where a small wall stood in a square shape. Julie started to slap cement onto the bricks, whistling tunelessly.

“Hey, Julie, is that all you’ve done? It’s going to take ages using those ugly bricks. Where did you get them from anyway?”

“I got them from the builder’s yard, where do you think?” Julie replied without looking at her sister.

“Well, where did they get them from?”

“Who cares?” Julie slapped more cement onto the bricks.

For the next few days, May and June sat in their new homes, enjoying the familiar sweet smells of straw and wood, listening to the distant scrape and ring of brick-on-brick as Julie laboured on her new home. Finally, it was done and May and June went to have a look.

“Well, I dunno. It looks kind of weird,” said June doubtfully.

“Give me simple straw any day,” said May.

“But this is built to last,” said Julie proudly. “You’ll see.”

Then one day a prowling presence was felt in the woods. The leaves stirred uneasily, and the grasses swayed and whispered with nerves. Suddenly, the shaggy form of a wolf erupted from the trees, its long body flattened almost to the floor as it loped towards the pig’s houses.

May squealed in terror as she heard him snarling outside her house of straw. She felt his hot stinking breath as with a mighty bellow he blew the straw house away. May fled terrified to June’s house, hotly pursued by the wolf.

The two sisters huddled together listening to the sounds of the wolf snarling outside, and the wood creaking and cracking.

“He won’t get in here will he?” whispered May. “Oh, no!” With another mighty snarl, the wolf knocked down the woven wood walls and the two sisters fled in terror to Julie’s house. Julie let them in and smugly bolted the door behind them.

“I told you this was built to last,” she said.

The wolf tried without success to break into the brick house. Finally, with bleeding nose and paws, he limped home hungry.
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Ten years on, there are many more brick houses. The green woods and yellow fields of corn have long since vanished beneath a vast expanse of little red brick boxes stretching out as far as you can see. No-one sees the wolf any more. They say that he and his wife and children died of starvation. The pigs hardly ever talk to each other now, because they feel safer when they stay in their houses. There’s not much left to go out for anyway. But they do feel safe. And it’s a good job that the wolf didn’t eat the little pigs. Isn’t it?