A Grim Tale by Jackie Penticost
We all had special needs, and the council had placed us in a supported living facility. It was a short walk through the forest to the ore-processing plant, and we filled their ‘differently abled’ quota pretty well. So the arrangement suited everyone.
We all had similar physical restrictions, but we also had mental problems. Dwayne had narcolepsy, and Bradley suffered from social anxiety disorder. Kevin was simple, and Bertram was bipolar. There were seven of us, and we were a real tight team.
Until that bitch arrived.
The council usually sent a carer from the agency to do the housework, but this time they’d hit the jackpot.
The girl was about 16 and looked like an immigrant worker, all black hair and big eyes. Her skin was so white it looked like she’d spent most of her time in an illegal truck. The agency wasn’t fussy about work permits. The place was a tip. She’d slugged our home-made beer, jumped on our beds, and passed out.
It was too late in the evening to kick her out, and so she stayed.
To be fair, it started well. The house was tidy when we came home, the laundry was done, and a hot meal was on the table. But she’d leave the door open, and every type of vermin would get in. Squirrels ran all over the kitchen surfaces and stole our dried goods. Birds shat all over the laundry. Dwayne ran screaming from a nest of rabbits in the larder. One day we found a stag which had crashed in and tangled with the sheets.
And then she started to set us against each other. She knew which of us poor saps had fallen in love with her, and who was immune. And so the name-calling started. Kevin became Dopey and was called out when he couldn’t tie his shoelaces. Bertram was Grumpy, because of his mood swings. She hid George’s anti-allergy medication and called him Sneezy, and she tortured Bashful Bradley. She called me Happy because I hated her.
She quickly became bored and took to chatting to the local peddlers that came to the door. I warned her that things would turn sour, and sure enough, disaster struck.
We came home to find the door open. She was laid out on the floor, lifeless. Strangely, an apple was on the floor beside her. I guess that she’d taken a bite and choked to death. Truth to tell, I was glad to be rid of her, and I didn’t feel for a pulse.
Most of the boys wanted to bury her behind the house. But Kevin couldn’t bear the thought. We raided our savings for a glass casket so he could look at her, and we put her in the garden. Gave me the creeps. But at least it was sealed, and so she didn’t decompose.
It took a while for life to return to normal, and our lives got back on track. Until one day when we returned from work to find the glass casket smashed, and the body gone. Some sick bastard had taken her.
We put the news out on Crimewatch, to no avail. But one day I was looking through some old magazines and came across a copy of OK! Some European prince was getting hitched, and his bride was the spitting image of our young cleaner. But then all those immigrants look the same to me.
I enjoyed this and thought it was a very clever to turn such a well-known story on its head. Loved Happy’s misogynistic tone and all the vermin running round the house!
A sad story. I had to recall the original fairy tale in order to feel better! Good vehicle for the brief, these stories are so deeply known by so many.
From Simon: Writing, as I’ve often said, is a matter of controlling the flow of information. When you’ve finished a draft, you the writer know the whole story. The skill comes in how much of that story you want your readers to share at any given point. And there is something very satisfying when the narrative revealed is one you recognise. This piece is a particularly good example of that. The modern setting, the contemporary jargon – ‘differently abled’ and so on – takes the reader a long way away from fairy stories. It was only when I got to the name-calling that I realised what was going on. So immediately – because I’m like that – I read through the first bit again to see if the writer had cheated. And she hadn’t. The right amount of information was there, some of it very well disguised. Once I knew what the story was, I could enjoy the ironies of the second half, until we reached the very satisfying conclusion of OK magazine. A nice piece of writing, and an original interpretation of the brief.