Goldilocks and the Three Bears

This is the whole tale, the same ten pages it runs in Pillowbook on the phone. Not a word is cut, and nothing asks you to sign up. The first three pages carry the paintings they were given; the rest of the plates are in the app, where the book is read one page to a screen.

Reading time is about five minutes at an unhurried pace, one page every thirty seconds or so. Gentle throughout. The bears are surprised rather than angry.

Inside, the floor was swept and the fire was low and the room smelled of honey and wood smoke. Three coats hung on three pegs by the door: a big one, a middling one, and a small one no bigger than her own. Mushrooms were drying on a string across the window. She put her hands behind her back, the way you do in a room that is not yours.

On the table were three bowls of porridge. The large bowl was still steaming, and far too hot, and she had to fan her mouth. The middling bowl had gone cold and grey around the edges. The small bowl was exactly right — warm all the way through, with honey stirred into it in a spiral — and she ate the whole thing without ever meaning to.

By the hearth stood three chairs. The big one was hard as a fence post and her feet did not come near the floor. The middling one was so soft that she sank into it up to her ears and had to climb out backwards. The small one fitted her perfectly — until one leg gave a small, polite crack and set her down gently on the floor.

A staircase went up from the corner, so narrow she had to turn sideways, and at the top were three beds. The large one was too high to climb without a running start, the middling one sagged like a hammock, and the small one stood by the window, with a wooden horse on the pillow worn smooth about the ears. She lay down only to try it, and was asleep before she finished the thought.

The bears came home at dusk with a basket of mushrooms between them. "Somebody," said Father Bear, in a voice like a barrel rolling downstairs, "has been at my porridge." Mother Bear looked at her chair, which was not where she had left it. And the cub looked at his empty bowl and his little chair sitting crooked, and lifted one paw and pointed at the stairs.

They went up quietly, all three, one behind the other, and stopped in the doorway. The girl was asleep on the small bed with one hand under her cheek and the wooden horse on the pillow beside her. She opened her eyes. She saw three bears standing in a row, looking at her. And for a moment nobody in that room moved at all.

Then she sat up very fast and said she was sorry, all in one breath. Mother Bear pushed her spectacles up. "Porridge is for eating," she said. "But it is nearly dark." So they gave her bread and honey at the table, and the cub sat beside her on the mended chair and told her the wooden horse's name, which was very long for such a small horse. Afterwards Father Bear walked her home through the wood, slowly, so she could keep up.

The end.