By Janice Martin
I don’t often tell the tale. It gives me the shivers. But I’ll tell you.
I spent the blustery day outside raking my yard and I overdid it. The next day a burning fever kept me in bed. I endeavored to get up to brew some tea but, nearly fainting, I collapsed into bed again.
I jerked awake to the telephone’s ring. “Hello.” I croaked.
“Mom! You’re sick! I’ll send Little Red Riding Hood over with a basket of goodies. She is a very capable nurse.”
I didn’t utter more than, “Okay.” Now I would force my voice box to operate at any pain level. I wished to tell my daughter, “Don’t send Riding Hood along that dangerous path alone!”
However, I snuggled into bed, relieved that Red Riding Hood would make tea for my aching throat. I smiled as I thought of Riding Hood with her dark hair and snapping eyes and the scarlet cape I made for her. Little Red Riding Hood wore that cape all over and her father laughingly called her Little Red Riding Hood. The name stuck.
I woke with a start. “Knock! Knock!”
“Come in, dear!” My throat stung.
A click, click, like toe nails sounded on the hard floor. A nose rounded the corner. I nearly had heart failure. With a surge of adrenaline, I shot out of bed, raced for the on suite. I securely locked the bathroom door and shoved the medicine cabinet in front, climbed into the shower, and wrapped myself in towels. My teeth rattled. I shivered. Not from fever. It was the terrific shock of having let a wicked ravenous wolf into the house and realizing he was setting up camp in my bed.
It seemed hours later that my unsuspecting granddaughter entered the bedroom. “Hi grandma! I brought you some tea.”
“No! No! No!” I screamed but mute.
But the sly wolf had the situation in hand. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.” He rasped, sounding just like a victim of laryngitis.
A moment of shocked silence then “Wow! You look tough! Your eyes are huge!”
“All the better to see you with my dear,” rasped the beast in my bed.
“But your ears…. Is that from your cold too?”
I waited to hear no more. I sprang from the shower, and armed with the toilet plunger and toilet bowl cleaner I barged into the bedroom just as the wolf prepared to spring.
The wolf howled in agony as Bowl Brite penetrated his eyes. As he stumbled for the door, I managed to deliver a headache with the toilet plunger. Feeling weak I collapsed onto the sofa.
“Oh Grandma!” Little Red Riding Hood cried. “Thank you! Oh, that awful wolf! I should’ve listened to mother. He tricked me something fierce! I’ll never talk to any strangers again. Now let me make some tea.”
Friend, that was a cup of tea mingled with the tears of gratefulness.