How a Mother Weaned Her Girl from Fairy Tales Read Online Free

storybook: a frozen rag doll, walnut-headed and big, played the lead role in the dream, as if she were an old illustration drawn hovering above the girl’s very head while she was sleeping. The mother knelt down, clasped the daughter’s warm hands in her own, and said, “The dolls were told not to interrupt, and never to argue, and now look what’s happened. They’re both gone. You won’t get any more fairy tales. They’re trouble, I tell you, they’re trouble.”

    The girl vowed never to ask for a talking doll ever again. Though smiling, she seemed very unhappy. The mother paced around the house for hours each day. “If only we had followed her rules—we could have seated the dolls in their miniature high chairs, taped over their little doll mouths, and listened to her fairy tales. Then we’d still have the dolls. We’d still have the fairy tales. We should have let her finish her story—it wasn’t a very good story, but it was only beginning.”

    The daughter tried to comfort the mother. “At least we still have each other. Maybe she was just lonely—maybe she needed some friends. It was worse for her, really. She didn’t know how to tell a good story.” The daughter looked out the window at night, hoping to catch a glimpse of the dolls—it was something to hope for, anyway, that she might someday see them floating around in the dark sky, the big doll repeating her story over and over again while one small doll gently admonished, and the other berated, the tale.

    â€œAn owl flew by a garden, sat on a tree trunk, and drank some water. An owl flew by a garden, sat on a tree trunk, and drank some water. An owl flew by a garden, sat on a tree trunk, and drank some water . . .”

Babes in the Woods
    One time there was a man with no wife and two daughters. Eventually he married a lovely woman he met in a bar. She was gentle and cool. She had a nice rock collection and enjoyed whittling slingshots, but she didn’t like children. It wasn’t that she disliked the girls specifically—it was children in general. Her dislike was more of a discomfort: children had so many needs and they were so vulnerable. It made her nervous and caused her to drink. She knew it would be better if she weren’t a mother—for the children’s sake, not for her own. She didn’t want anyone to know about this; she was gentle and cool, and didn’t like to hurt feelings.

    Before she knew it, she began depriving the children of food. She knew this was wrong, but she thought maybe then they would leave on their own—find another home where they would be better fed and have a good mother. Or it could be they would prefer the starvation—you never knew, these days, sad as it was—and then maybe, as a result of their own unfortunate choosing, they would perish. She didn’t really wish this, but she thought of it; that is, she got the idea or image, inside of her head.

    The mother hid the cans of tomato soup first; the daughters loved tomato soup best. She did this furtively, for she knew it was wrong, but she still couldn’t help it. Next she hid the sardines, which the children ate after school, on buttered slices of bread. She hid the potatoes; their eyes always bothered the elder girl, so these were not missed. She hid the apples, the cherries, the Slim Jims, the walnuts, the flour.

    The father did not notice the missing items too quickly, because he did not frequent the pantry. At work every morning he bought an egg sandwich for breakfast, from a silver trailer outside of his office. At work he sold windowpanes—over the phone. Every evening he brought groceries home, but they always were gone by the morning. So it went like this for some weeks, until at last the children really were nearly starving to death.

    One night, after two Jack and Gingers, the father wondered what he could do about the bad situation. The