Third Time's a Charm?

By Erin Lee and Alana Greig

Good things - horrible ones too - come in threes. Erin Lee and Alana Greig take one last stab at the classics in this last book of their Once Upon A Reality Series. Six new tales, based on the classics, are about to get real.

Third Time's A Charm?

This book can be read as a stand alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crazy Ink
• Release date: May 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386039693

Erin Lee

Erin Lee lives in Queensland, Australia and has been working with children for over 25 years. She has worked in both long day care and primary school settings and has a passion for inclusive education and helping all children find joy in learning. Erin has three children of her own and says they have helped contribute ideas and themes towards her quirky writing style. Her experience working in the classroom has motivated her to write books that bring joy to little readers, but also resource educators to help teach fundamental skills to children, such as being safe, respectful learners.

Book preview

Authors’ Notes

Some people say there are two or more sides to every story. They also say the glass is either half full or half empty, depending on how you look at it. We believe them.

But that’s about the only thing we agree on when it comes to fairy tales. The reality is, depending on where you come from, what you’ve seen, and your own life experiences, we all see the world a little differently. Some people believe in fairy tales. Others don’t. We represent both but have found common ground.

Two authors with a shared passion for words and story-telling but very different voices on opposite ends of the big pond, we didn’t know if we could once again pull off a joint project that would do the stories justice. But, as happy endings rarely do, it clicked. And, like they say, the third time’s the charm!

One last time, we went our separate ways, played with the words, and then, brought them home to these pages.

Join us while we toss a little reality back at the classics again. What happens when fairy tales get real? Well, brave friend, you’re about to find out... And this time, it might get a little messier.

-  Erin Lee (who began as the realist).

-  Alana Greig (who started as the believer).

(Until things got twisted and we began to rub off on one another and discovered we were more alike than different).

Glossary of English Terms

Sounder:

One of the names used for a group of pigs.

Sow:

A female pig, who has had a litter of piglets.

Boar:

A male pig. It is also the name of a species of wild pig wild boar. They have bristly hair usually in a dark shade and small curved tusks.

Folly:

A costly ornamental building with no practical purpose, especially a tower or mock-Gothic ruin built in a large garden or park.

Glamour:

A type of magic that is meant to change or hide a person’s appearance.

Beside himself – meaning extremely upset. Very popular British saying.

Wendy House:

A small house for children, large enough for one or more children to enter. Size and solidity can vary from a plastic kit to something resembling a real house in a child's size.

Based upon the renowned

Rapunzel

The original story:

A lonely couple, who want a child, live next to a walled garden belonging to an evil witch named Dame Gothel. The wife, experiencing the cravings associated with the arrival of her long-awaited pregnancy, notices some rapunzel plant growing in the garden and longs for it, desperate to the point of death. One night, her husband breaks into the garden to get some for her. She makes a salad out of it and greedily eats it. It tastes so good that she longs for more. So her husband goes to get some more for her. As he scales the wall to return home, Dame Gothel catches him and accuses him of theft. He begs for mercy, and she agrees to be lenient, and allows him to take all the Rapunzel he wants, on condition that the baby be given to her when it's born. Desperate, he agrees. When his wife has a baby girl, Dame Gothel takes her to raise as her own. The witch names her Rapunzel after the plant her mother craved. She grows up to be the most beautiful child in the world with long golden hair. When she turns twelve, Dame Gothel locks her up inside a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor a door, and only one room and one window. When she visits her, she stands beneath the tower and calls out Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb thy golden stair.

One day, a prince rides through the forest and hears Rapunzel singing from the tower. Entranced by her ethereal voice, he searches for her and discovers the tower, but is naturally unable to enter it. He returns often, listening to her beautiful singing, and one day sees Dame Gothel visit, and thus he learns how to gain access to Rapunzel. When Dame Gothel leaves, he bids Rapunzel let her hair down. When she does so, he climbs up and they fall in love. He eventually asks her to marry him, which she agrees to.

Together they plan a means of escape, wherein he will come each night and bring Rapunzel a piece of silk, which she will gradually weave into a ladder. Before the plan can come to fruition, however, she foolishly gives him away. In anger, Dame Gothel cuts off Rapunzel's hair and casts her out into the wilderness to fend for herself.

When the prince calls that night, Dame Gothel lets the severed hair down to haul him up. To his horror, he finds himself staring at her instead of Rapunzel, who is nowhere to be found. When she tells him in a jealous rage that he will never see Rapunzel again, he leaps from the tower and lands on some thorns, which blind him.

For months, he wanders through the wastelands of the country and eventually comes to the wilderness where Rapunzel now lives with the twins she has given birth to, a boy and a girl. One day, as she sings, he hears her voice again, and they are reunited. When they fall into each other's arms, her tears immediately restore his sight. He leads her and their twins to his kingdom, where they live happily ever after.

The real deal:

Caged

Bars, walls and wires surround me. I bare my teeth at the electric fence surrounding me as if I could scare it off by growling at it. I only wish. How long have I been in here? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? It’s hard to tell without being able to see the sun or the trees as they change with the seasons. It feels like two lifetimes or more.

I squat in the middle of the prison, careful not to touch the electric wires surrounding me. This is madness, being locked up like this. And I am starting to become more feral for staying out of canine form so long. But I have to stay this way. I must. If I don’t, I will confirm the reason the people locked me up: I am a werewolf. Letting them know their suspicions about me are correct will only cause more problems. I need them to believe they were wrong. Why is this taking so long?

I hear the thudding of feet approaching my cage. The thumping pattern sounds like Jackson, the man who feeds me most often and with the biggest portions. He has always walked with a slow, heavy stride that bounces off the concrete walls in echoes that no longer scare me. I am right. I turn away as he slides a bowl through the food flap and the smell of rancid meat hits my nose. I am famished but the meat piled in the tin bowl doesn’t seem very appetizing to me. I eat it anyway. I have to keep my strength up, just in case.

After what seems like hours, another person struts toward my cage. It is Winslow, the scientist who suspects I am a werewolf. The crack in my back is the giveaway. My unusual blue eyes are another tell-tale sign. Because no one has blue eyes and a scar on their back other than me? Seriously?

Still, I can’t fully blame him. He did see me transform from a human to a wolf. It’s my own fault. I was careless, and I didn’t check my surroundings before I changed. The bright side is he is not certain that he saw me transform because it was dark, and he takes more Prozac than the therapists would hope to put me on if they know. His mental status is the hope that I cling to.

Winslow crouches by my cage and looks into my teal wolf eyes. Won’t you change, my little friend? He whispers. His eyes gleam with intensity. Won’t you show us that you’re a werewolf? Little wolf, little wolf. Show me your truth.

I bare my teeth in response.

He laughs and says, I thought you’d say that. He rises, his knees making a cracking sound. Jackson, he yells down the long empty hallway, Restrict the food on this one, don’t feed her until she shows us her true form.

My heart lurches. I am underfed as it is. What am I going to do? The food is bad enough. Nothing fresh. The maggots. Winslow continues down the hallway, cackling evilly to himself. Bastard.

Eventually she’ll learn. They always do.

The next day isn’t so bad. Keep track of the time. Stop letting it ride by. You need to know. My mouth waters and my stomach grumbles at the time I am normally fed, but it is bearable. By the fourth day though, I find it hard to lift my head when Winslow comes to give me my daily bribe about showing my true colors. No. He cannot know.

By the seventh day of really keeping track, I am delusional. My blood sugar is so low that I am finding it hard to move at all. When I