Green shutters! cried the boy.
With the green shutters, right! And then what do you think happened? A great big lion came dashing out of the woods, followed by a little man with a bow and arrow. The lion was very shy and playful. What did he do but jump on the roof and wrap himself around the chimney. The little man with the dunce cap began crawling on all fours—until he got to the doorway. Then he got up, danced a merry jig, and tan inside…
I don’t believe it, said the little girl. It ain’t true.
It is, too, I said, and if you’re not careful I’ll box your ears. Here I took a deep breath, wondering what next. The cigar was out, the glass was empty. I decided to make haste.
From here on it goes still faster, I said, resuming the narrative.
Don’t go too fast, said the boy, I don’t want to miss anything.
O.K…. Now then, once inside, Goldilocks found everything in apple pie order: the dishes were all washed and stacked, the clothes mended, the pictures neatly framed. On the table there was an atlas and an unabridged dictionary, in two volumes. Somebody had been moving the chess pieces around in Teddy bear’s absence. Too bad, because he would have mated in eight more moves. Goldilocks, however, was too fascinated by all the toys and gadgets, especially the new can opener, to worry about chess problems. She had been doing trigonometry all morning and her little brain was too weary to puzzle out gambits and that sort of thing. She was dying to ring the cow bell which hung over the kitchen sink. To get at it she had to use a stool. The first stool was too low; the second one was too high; but the third stool was just right. She rang the bell so loud that the dishes fell out of the racks. Goldilocks was frightened a first, but then she thought it was funny, so she rang the bell again. This time the lion unwound himself and slid off the roof, his tail twisted into forty knots. Goldilocks thought this was even funnier, so she rang the bell a third time. The little man with the dunce cap came running out of the bedroom, all a-quiver, and without a word, he began turning somersaults. He flipped and flopped, just like an old cart wheel, and then he disappeared into the woods…
You’re not losing the thread, I hope? said MacGregor.
Don’t interrupt! shouted Trix. Mommy, I want to go to bed, said the little girl.
Be quiet! said the boy, I’m getting interested.
And wow, I continued, having caught my breath, it suddenly began to thunder and lightning.
The rain came down in buckets. Little Goldilocks was really frightened. She fell head over heels off the stool, twisting her ankle and spraining her wrist. She wanted to hide somewhere until it was all over. ‘Nothing easier,’ came a tiny little voice from the far corner of the room, where the Winged Victory stood. And with that the closet door opened of itself. I’ll run in there, thought Goldilocks, and she made a dash for the closet.
Now it so happened that in the closet were bottles and jars, heaps and heaps of bottles, and heaps and heaps of jars. Goldilocks opened a tiny little bottle and dabbed her ankle with arnica. Then she reached for another bottle, and what do you suppose was in it?
Sloan’s Liniment! ‘Goodness Gracious!’ she said, and suiting word to action, she applied the liniment to her wrist. Then she found a little iodine, and drinking it straight, she began to sing. It was a merry little tune—about Frere Jacques. She sang in French because her mother had taught her never to sing in any other language. After the 27 th verse she got bored and decided to explore the closet. The strange thing about this closet is that it was bigger than the house itself.
There were seven rooms on the ground floor, and five above, with a toilet and bath in each room, to say nothing of a fire place and a pier glass decked with chintz. Goldilocks forgot all about the thunder and lightning, the rain, the hail, the snails and the frogs; she forgot all about the lion and the little man with the bow and arrow, whose name, by the way, was Pinocchio. All she could think of was how wonderful it was to live in a closet like this…
This is going to be about Cinderella, said the little girl.
It is not! snapped the boy. It’s about the seven dwarfs.
Quiet, you two!
Go on, Henry, said MacGregor, I’m curious to see how you get out of this trap.
And so Goldilocks wandered from room to room, never dreaming that the three bears had come home and were sitting down to dinner. In the alcove on the parlor floor she found a library filled with strange books. They were all about sex and the resurrection of the dead…
What’s sex? asked the boy.
It’s not for you, said the little girl.
Goldilocks sat down and began reading aloud from a great big book. It was by Wilhelm Reich, author of The Golden Flower or The Mystery of the Hormones. The book was so heavy that Goldilocks couldn’t hold it in her lap. So she placed it on the floor and knelt beside it. Every page was illustrated in gorgeous colors. Though Goldilocks was familiar with rare and limited editions, she had to admit to herself that never before had she seen such beautiful illustrations. Some were by a man named Picasso, some by Matisse, some by Ghirlandajo, but all without exception were beautiful and shocking to behold…
That’s a funny word—behold! cried the little boy.
You said it! And now just take a back seat for a while, will you? Because now it’s getting really interesting … As I say, Goldilocks was reading aloud to herself. She was reading about the Saviour and how he died on the Cross—for us—so that our sins would be washed away. Goldilocks was just a little girl; after all, and so she didn’t know what it was to sin. But she wanted very very much to know. She read and read until her eyes ached, without ever discovering what it was, exactly, to sin. ‘I’ll run downstairs,’ she said to herself, ‘and see what it says in the dictionary. It’s an unabridged dictionary, so it must have sin in it.’ Her ankle was all healed by this time, her wrist too, mirabile dictu. She went skipping down the stairs like a seven day goat. When she got to the closet door, which was still ajar, she did a double somersault, just like the little fellow with the dunce cap had done…
Pinocchio! cried the boy.
And then what do you think happened? She landed right in the grizzly bear’s lap!
The youngsters howled with delight.
‘All the better to eat you up!’ growled the big grizzly bear, smacking his rubbery lips. ‘Just the right size!’ said the polar bear, all white from the rain and hail, and he tossed her up to the ceiling. ‘She’s mine!’ cried the Teddy bear, giving her a hug which cracked little Goldilocks’ ribs. The three bears got busy at once; they undressed little Goldilocks and put her on the platter, ready to carve. While Goldilocks shivered and whimpered, the big grizzly bear sharpened his axe on the grind-stone; the polar bear unsheathed his hunting knife, which he carried in a leather scabbard attached to his belt. As for Teddy bear, he just clapped his hands and danced with glee. ‘She’s just right!’ he shouted. ‘Just right!’ Over and over they turned her, to see which part was the tenderest. Goldilocks began to scream with terror. ‘Be quiet,’ commanded the polar bear, ‘or you won’t get anything to eat.’ ‘Please, Mr. Polar Bear, don’t eat me!’ begged Goldilocks. ‘Shut your trap!’ yelled the grizzly bear. ‘We’ll eat first, and you’ll eat afterwards.’ ‘But I don’t want to eat,’ cried Goldilocks, the tears streaming down her face. ‘You’re not going to eat,’ screamed the Teddy bear, and with that he grabbed her leg and put it in his mouth. ‘Oh, oh!’ screamed Goldilocks. ‘Don’t eat me yet, I beg you. I’m not cooked.’
The children were getting hysterical.
‘Now you’re talking sensible,’ said the grizzly bear. Incidentally, the grizzly bear had a strong father complex. He didn’t like the flesh of little girls unless well done. It was fortunate, indeed, for little Goldilocks that the grizzly bear felt this way about little girls, because the other two bears were ravenously hungry, and besides, they had no complexes whatever. Anyway, while the grizzly bear stirred the fire and added more logs, Goldilocks knelt in the platter and said her prayers. She looked more beautiful than ever now, and if the bears had been human they would not have eaten her alive, they would have consecrated her to the Virgin Mary. But a bear is always a bear, and these were no exception to the rule. So when flames were giving off just the right heat, the three bears took little Goldilocks and flung her on to the burning logs.
In five minutes she was roasted to a crisp, hair and all. Then they put her back on the platter and carved her into big chunks. For the grizzly bear a great big chunk; for the polar bear a medium-sized chunk, and for Teddy bear, the cute little thing, a nice little tenderloin steak. My, but it tasted
