SNIPPETS Sticks

Look, building a house out of sticks is a perfectly reasonable architectural option. You humans did it for centuries, probably still do in some places. Straw’s not such a bad option either. Both of them simple, reasonably robust once you plaster over with a bit of mud and most importantly, it’s cheap.


It’s all very well saying, ‘Hey, look, your brother’s got a much better idea about how to build a house,’ but what I’m saying is that bloke didn’t give him a load of bricks for nothing, he can’t have. I mean, just to pay for that barrowful of sticks I had to spend a couple of hours digging up truffles.

How was I supposed to know that a wolf with superpowers was going to happen along just where I’d set up home? Your normal wolf now, sure, if he sees a pig or a chicken or whatever, lying about in a field, he’ll snap it up. They tend to eat a lot of lambs, but I reckon that’s just because they’re out there, day to day, aren’t they, lambs? No one comes and shuts them up at night. Actually, could also be because lambs are so irritating. All that joie de vivre. If I were a wolf I’d be snapping up lambs all over the place, just to stop that high-pitched bleating and the bloody bouncing. Anyway, to get back to the point, your everyday wolf goes for the easy option. If he comes across an animal tucked up for the night in a nice safe house, he passes on by, heads for something he can chase about a bit and then jump on. It’s obvious, isn’t it?

What I don’t get is why this wolf feels the need to go around picking on us in our nice new houses, when he could easily have any number of lambs. Honestly, it makes me mad just to think about it. Here we are, we’ve done our best, got ourselves nicely set up and along comes this creature determined to ruin everything for us. I’m beginning to wonder if my eldest brother hasn’t done something to piss him off. I can’t see any other reason for him to be hounding us this way. Huh, ‘hounding’, that’s pretty good. I’ll have to try and work that one into the conversation!

And it’s ridiculously unfair. How does a wolf get enough puff to blow down a straw house and a stick house? I tell you, the day my house was finished, the wind was terrific, and it never so much as lifted a single stick from my roof. But that wolf, up he comes and Huff and Puff and the whole house collapses around me. Only reason I’m alive to tell the tale is that part of the roof fell on the wolf. Me and my little brother were out of there by the skin of our teeth, I tell you.

Not that our big brother believes us. He’s convinced we’re exaggerating, sure that a wolf couldn’t possibly wreak the havoc we’ve told him about. We’ve begged him to run away with us, but he’s sure we’re all safer right here between these brick walls.

I just hope he’s right.