Snow White

         Once upon a time, in a the land of Fairytale, where imagination knew no boundaries, there was a glorious moment. It was a famous moment, a legend in fact, one that never lost its magic, despite the many thousands of translations and interpretations that it was forced to endure throughout its long life. It was a moment that filled the children of the dull, restricted world of Reality with wonder and excitement. It was magical, beautiful and perfect, but all of that was about to change, for an intruder had arrived ...

         The queen looked out upon a scene that had once filled her heart with wonder, but felt only hollow emptiness, for sorrow and illness had ensnared her and would not ease its deathly grip. The mountains glared with icy hatred at the woman, who sat deep in thought on her black balcony, with fingers working rapidly to complete a cross-stitch that she showed very little interest in. Her mind mourned over the fact that she was dying, and that the child she had dreamed about would never be born. The snow showed little sympathy to her and pelted down, bombarding her with compact pieces that stung her skin. Her vision was soon obstructed by the attacking army of little white soldiers. The mountains disappeared behind the swarm and all that the queen could see was the white snow and the black ebony. It was then that her hand slipped, and the sewing needle cut deep into her finger and the events that follow rest solely on the droplets of blood that landed at her feet. The simple beauty of the red blood, white snow and black wood took her breath away. With that the queen wished with all her heart to be a mother, 'Let the child be as white as snow, as red as blood and as black as ebony.'

         That was how it should have went.

         However, the queen was not alone, as she should have been, for there was another woman in the scene with her. She had a stern look about her, and unlike the queen with her long flowing hair and beautiful dress, she seemed to be making every effort to be seen as a man. She wore trousers and a brown business suit with square, broad shoulders, and her plain brown hair was cut very short . She sat on the the balcony with the queen who, though they were sitting opposite one another, had not yet noticed her presence. She must have arrived at some point during the heavy snowfall, while the queen was quietly wishing. As the snow died down, the queen glanced up and noticed her sitting there. She gasped in shock.

         The woman smiled in a fashion that closely resembled a sneer. “Oh dear, did I startle you? I sincerely apologise, your Majesty. Let me introduce myself, I am Miss. Tickle,  an Official Fairytale Supervisor, Trained to Eliminate the Derogatory.”

         For a few moments, the poor queen was too shocked to speak, as she wondered how the woman had appeared so suddenly. “Y-y-you are Mystical ... are you a witch? Or a Sorceress? Can you grant me my wish?”

         A look of disgust flashed across the womans eyes. “I am not 'mystical', I am Miss. Tickle, Miss. Polly Tickle. I am here to make some minor adjustments to this fairytale, in order to eliminate its offensive and derogatory content. Starting with this scene. Do not worry, your highness, I will explain everything to you fully.”

         Polly Tickle carefully examined the queen, before pulling a clipboard from her brown, leather bag. “Now ... where shall we begin?  You are of high social status, are you not?”

         The queen nodded. “I am of the highest social status that any woman can be.”

         Polly gave the queen another smirk. “I am afraid that just won't do. Stories that are to be read to children should not imply that those of higher social status are of any greater importance than those of lesser social status. Therefore, you will now be 'Mrs. White'.”

         With those words, the queen's crown and all of her jewels disappeared before her eyes. Mrs. White was horrified.

         “The fact that righteous characters are always beautiful is also a horrific implication to press upon the mind of a young child. So I'm afraid that-”

         “No!” Mrs. White screamed. “Please not my-”

         A large, fat boil appeared right on the tip of her nose, so huge that she could see it when she looked down. She sighed miserably.

         Polly, however, appeared to be thoroughly enjoying herself. “Lastly, the location needs a slight tweaking. It definitely should be brought up to date so that the readers can identify with what they are reading. A block of flats would be perfect.”

         This time it was less of a shock, as the majestic palace melted away to reveal a block of flats.

         Polly's smile grew. “This is nice, isn't it? A lot more of Britain's  children will identify with this than with the old location, what percentage of our readers have grown up in palace? I shall let you have some input now, if you like. Choose a place, somewhere that gets lots of snow.”

         Mrs. White sighed again. “I'm not sure ... oh, I know, Narnia!”

         Polly looked at her indignantly. “I was referring to a place in Britain.”

         Mrs. White was  horrified. “Britain? Is that in Reality? You can't set a Fairytale in Reality?!”

         Polly shook her head. “I'm sorry, Mrs. White, but I have to get through this whole Fairytale, I'm on a very tight schedule. Now, I need somewhere that is both very cold and urban, with nearby Colliery's. Newcastle! That's it! You are Mrs. White of Newcastle!”

         She gasped. “Eh?! Whadya mean, Newcastle? Ya crazy you, like, setting a Fairytale in bleedin' Newcastle!”

         “Goodbye, Mrs. White.”


         Despite the gigantic changes that had been made, the story unfolded in a similar way to how it would have done, without the intervention of Polly Tickle. Mrs. White soon forgot that she had once been a queen, she told her husband of the strange event and wish that she had made, but he managed to convince her that it was nothing more than a dream. By the time she found out that she was pregnant, she had already been sucked in modern culture and had developed an undying obsession with celebrities. This led her to the name Snow, which was suitably strange, though she would have preferred to have named her baby after a fruit. During childbirth, poor Mrs. White passed away, but Snow White was perfectly healthy.

         Snow grew up happily in her little Geordie council flat, and it was came to pass that her darling mother's wish for her came true ... though not instantly. Snow had blonde hair, quite a tanned complexion and blue eyes. However, as her teenage years approached, she began listening to a variety of music known as 'Heavy Metal'. Therefore, by the time she was fifteen, Snow's hair was as red as blood, her face as white as snow and her lips, eyes and most of her clothing as black as ebony. Snow's father, Johnny, eventually remarried. His wife, Diana, was very beautiful, but jealous and evil.

         Almost every day when Johnny came home from work, she would say to him:
         “Johnny, Johnny, I want to know.
         Who'd ya love better, me or Snow?”

         Johnny was a slave to his wife, and would to anything to keep the peace.

         “Darlin', Darlin', I love you so!
         You're my favourite lass, not Snow.”

         “Well, I must say, I'm impressed,” said a voice from behind them.

         “Eh! Who are you, like?” Johnny asked, startled by the arrival of the stranger in his house.

         “I am Polly Tickle,” she said, as if that explained everything. “I am here to-”

         Diana screamed. “What's that?

         Diana pointed to a creature next to Polly, the thing was almost like an oversized lizard, with small, evil, yellow eyes on the sides of its scaly green head. Saliva dribbled vulgarly from rows of pointed teeth and a forked tongue slithered out of its gaping mouth. The creature stood on it's hind legs, with its small, pathetic looking arms waving uselessly in front of it. It roared with such power that the objects in the room shook.

         “I do apologise. He is not this noisy in the office, but the derogative phrases and stereotypes in these stories tend to upset him,” Polly explained.

         “What it it?” Johnny asked, stunned. “It looks like a dragon.”

         Polly raised her eyebrows and assumed the tone of someone explaining something very simple to very small child. “It is not a dragon, it is what we like to call a Thesaurus. It is specially trained to assist me. It helps me to eliminate the derogatory by providing me with alternative words that help to avoid offence. It will replace any offensive words you say with safe, friendly and correct alternatives.”

         “Ar!” Johnny cried. “I know what ya on about now! This has got to do with all o' that 'political correct' ru-”

         “Waste or rejected matter, which is non-recyclable and without value,” said the Thesaurus.

         Polly bared her yellowing teeth, in what may have been a smile. “Now, as I was saying, I am impressed so far by the changes you have made. For instance, the male is portrayed as weak and is dominated by the female, which is rare in such stories. Also, the villain of the story does not appear to be u-”

         “Below average levels of attractiveness and not facially enhanced,” the Thesaurus stated.

         “You are not supposed to correct me!” Polly snapped at her Thesaurus. “Now, we may continue the story correctly and if that Narrator continues to use derogatory language and fails to discontinue his or her use of negative descriptions in order to portray me as the villain ... I may be forced to take action and replace him or her with the Thesaurus itself.”

         One day, Diana, who had great difficulty in distinguishing between right and wrong, arrived home from work early and overheard a discussion between Snow and her father.

         “Daddy, daddy, please don't lie.
         Do you love me as much as Di'?”

         Johnny replied honestly:

         “Darlin', Darlin', sweet as honey.
         I'm only with that cow for her money.”

         “What!” Polly screamed at the Thesaurus. “Why didn't you correct that?”

         “A cow is a mature female mammal, of which the male is known as a bull,” it replied.

         “Be careful, Narrator, I can hear every word,” Polly stated, in a fashion that  heavily implied that a consequence would follow any failure to abide by her rules.

          As soon as Snow and Diana were alone together, Diana drove Snow out of the house with sneering insults and threats.

         “No!” Polly interrupted. “Definitely not, Snow decides to leave of her own accord. It is unsuitable for children to read of such neglect, that sort of content is bound to make them doubt their own parents. Carry on.”

         Snow was feeling excessive amounts of negative emotion towards her step-parent, which propelled her to make an exit out into the world alone. She fled with a great lack of contentment from her rather inadequately sized and decorationally challenged council flat, with tears running down her cheeks. Snow wandered the streets of Newcastle, looking for anyone who could help her to dispose of the negative emotional strain that was causing her discomfort.

         Luckily, it wasn't long before someone came along, and it could not have been anyone more unlikely. “Y'alright, Pet? Nar ... wait, that was a daft question, wannit? You dain't look alright at all, you look canny depressed, to be honest. D'you wanna cup o' tea, Lass? We've got plenty tea ... we were havin' a Convention, see, but only seven of us turned up, like.”

         Snow couldn't help but stare, for the man only came up to her waist like a child, but he had the face and voice of a man. “Oh, cheers ... erm, what kind o' convention's this, like?”

         “It's a Dwarf Convention! It's annual, we've been meeting up for a canny few years now. There were ten of us last year, but this time Hairy, Fatty and Snobby couldn't make it.”

         Polly Tickle's passionate disapproval was evident in her eyes, her face and her posture. “That's about enough! I will not stand for such outrageous terminology! It's disgraceful, I will be having a mass debate about this with senior members of my office. Thesaurus, censor that Midget!”

         Snow's head span around suddenly. She stared at Polly for a few long moments, her brain ticking and her eyes analysing the expression on Polly's face. It was an expression of absolute horror. Without any warning at all, Snow burst into a fit of laughter. It wasn't just any fit of laughter, it was the wildest and most uncontrollable that she had ever experienced. She howled, cackled, spluttered, coughed, choked, cried and snorted, she was doubled over, with stitches in her sides. So violent was her laughing fit, that she almost did a little wee ... she tried desperately to explain what she found such to her amusement. “M – m – m-”

         The dwarf looked slightly taken aback. “It's not that funny, Pet. I personally find being called a midget canny offensive.”

         “M – m – mass debate! Ha ha ha ha!”

         The dwarf chuckled. “You never heard that one, kid? Are you kiddin', it's ancient?!” He turned to Polly. “I'm very insulted by your terminology, Miss.”

         Polly didn't seem to hear him. Her eyes were glazed as if she were lost in a trance.

         After a while, she spoke, “I do, with all of my heart, sincerely apologise ... and I am afraid that I will have to leave you now,” she muttered.

         “Yes, I think that would be appropriate,” said the man who had materialised behind her. He was very similar to Polly, with his Thesaurus flapping around his head in Pterodactyl form. “In fact, I have disagreed with many of your changes, Polly. I think it's time we left this Fairytale to make its own way.”

         Polly nodded regretfully, but couldn't bring herself to say a word.

         In the blink of an eye, Polly, the man and the two Thesauruses vanished into oblivion, never to be seen again.

         And with that, they all lived happily ever after.