Vivian Vande Velde

“After a little bit, [the wolf] heard a human voice call out from inside the house, "Little Red Riding Hood, is that you? Have you come to visit your Granny?" But since the wolf didn't speak human, he guessed what the person had said was: "Did I hear something? Is there someone out there who needs to come in, could you scratch louder?" So that's what the wolf did: he scratched louder.”

“The wolf sniffed beneath the door to be sure this was a human cottage. The scent was undeniable. No pigs, except in bacon form. The wolf thought bacon form was a very sensible way for pigs to behave.”

“Still,” I said, “I am sorry. But I was desperate to rescue my sister.”“I understand,” the sagging dragon assured me. He explained, “I, too, had a sister, once.”The past tense didn't escape me. “What happened to her?” I asked, feeling we were connected, two of a kind after all, sharing similar personal tragedies.“I had to eat her,” the dragon said, “to keep her from stealing my gold.”

“And there was this sweet-looking little old lady with her white hair in a bun and everything, the typical grandmother type, and she was swearing her head off. I guess Alzheimer's had brought out her inner sailor.”

“They'd poisoned me, dammit. Probably to trade my dead body to the barbarians for Wulfgar's safe return. Or maybe just for the fun of it.”

“Giannine--What are they going to do: smack me on the head with a pamplet?”

“There, close enough to spit on--if I'd been a barbarian and inclined to spit--was the dragon.”

“if Saint Bruce doesn't like your poem, he chops your head off.”

“People always talk about good, fresh country air, but I kept getting wiffs of something that was neither good nor fresh but definitely country.”

“Then, early, early, early in the morning-just as in countless Disney films-I heard a rooster crow. But guess what? They don't do it just once.”

“Those Grimm brothers," she said with a sigh, "they'll never amount to anything." And she was right because all they ever became was writers.”

“She sighed. Loudly. "Physical appearance is not what is important."Yeah right. Tell that to any girl who hasn't bothered to put on a presentable shirt or fix her hair because she's only running into the grocery store to get a quart of milk for her grandmother, and who does she see tending the 7-ITEMS-OR-LESS cash register but the guy of her dreams, except she can't even say hi—much less try to develop a meaningful relationship—since she looks like the poster child for the terminally geeky.”

“If you don't like vampire games, don't play”