PETITE ROUGE

The faint waft of raw meat reaches your nostrils and you savour the smell. You consider walking into the kitchen and taking some meat, but they’re for your Nanna. Ever since she caught that tick she’s been feeling ill so your mother is making you take some meat to her today.

You subconsciously start scratching at your neck with your back leg, ruffling up your fur. Your mother chooses this moment to walk in from the kitchen and she growls disapprovingly. Her yellow eyes glare at you and you put your leg down guiltily. She scolds you, telling you that scratching is very unattractive and will make it difficult to find a mate. You whine in utter embarrassment. She’s been telling you that since you turned four, and that was two years ago. She ignores your whining and hands you the basket with Nanna’s meat in it, then gives you a lick. You whine again and tug at your dress in discomfort. You hate it when your mother licks you.

She tells you to stay a while at Nanna’s if she wants to talk to you and you roll your eyes when your mother isn’t looking. Your Nanna always wants to talk, so chances are you won’t be coming home until very late. Then she begins her lecture, but you regurgitate it for her: stay on the path and don’t wander off, don’t talk to anyone you don’t know, and if you see any humans, run away as fast as you can. Your mother warns you yet again about Petite Rouge, the evil human who stalks the woods and kills the animals for their fur with her partner, the poacher. The humans are barbaric and live in the woods like animals, killing your kind for food and money. She tells you to howl at the top of your lungs if you see Petite Rouge. She’s the worst human you could possibly come across.

You nod and give her a lick goodbye before you turn and walk out of the house. As soon as you are out of sight you drop onto all fours, put the basket in your mouth and start running, not caring that your dress is becoming stained from the grass and dirt. Your mother doesn’t like you running but you don’t listen to her. You don’t listen to her when it comes to a lot of things, especially humans. You have a human friend, but you keep her a secret. She’s not like the others.

Halfway along the path to your Nanna’s house, you stop suddenly and your ears perk up, hearing something. The bush before you rustles and you emit a deep growling from the back of your throat. You shrink away and accidentally drop the basket to the ground. The rustling stops and you retreat quickly, frightened. You’re worried that it might be a human. A voice calls out, asking who’s there. Your panic ceases and you expel the deep breath you’ve been holding; you know that voice. A young female human emerges from the bush, her hair all messed up. You ignore her nudity – all humans are nude except for those who kill your kind for your fur, like Petite Rouge. The human catches sight of you and she gasps, jumping back. Then she smiles and laughs, coming forwards again. You smile to the best of your ability and pick the basket up, this time standing up on your hind legs.

She greets you in relief, saying that she thought you were someone else. Red is your friend, but your mother doesn’t know about her. You’re not supposed to even go near a human, but Red isn’t like the others. She clasps her hands together and you pick up the faint metallic scent you always smell when you see Red. You ask her what she was doing behind the bush and she replies mischievously that she is with her boyfriend. You feel slightly uncomfortable as a naked man stands up from behind the bush and casually slings his arm around Red’s petite figure. You’ve never met another human besides Red. You smell the same sort of scent on him as Red and you glare at him, not trusting him.

You turn your attention to Red and try to ignore her boyfriend. You tell her that you are just on your way to see your Nanna and that you’d better get along before she worries about you. You say goodbye and walk off as quickly as you can. As soon as you can no longer smell them you leap back onto all fours, carry the basket of meat in your jaws and run as fast as you can. You know that you would get to Nanna’s place in less than half the time if you cut through the woods, but humans live there so you stick to the path, fearing them.

As you approach Nanna’s house, you feel very uneasy. That smell is back again, only this time it’s really strong. You cringe and stand up, holding the basket in your front paw. You consider running back home, but that would be rude to leave Nanna all alone. You walk up to the front door and you knock, calling out in greeting. A feeble voice issues from the house, telling you to come in. You think her voice sounds different but you ignore the squirming feeling in your stomach and open the door. You almost gag on the overpowering smell that hits you like a wave, but stop when you see your Nanna lying in bed as though nothing is wrong. You think that maybe she can’t smell it or sense something is wrong, and then you notice her eyes. They aren’t moving at all. If anything, they look dead. Your mother told you that she was going blind, but surely she hasn’t gone completely blind yet?

You greet her cautiously. Your ears are perked right up and the smell is strongest where she is. You realise with a shock that she smells like Red, only twenty times more powerful. She whispers hoarsely for you to come closer, and you know for sure that her voice sounds different. You know now that something is very, very wrong.

You nearly drop the basket to the floor as you whisper in horror that her eyes are not moving. She replies that she is going blind. You tell her that her voice sounds different. She says that her throat is sore. Her voice isn’t coming from her body, and her jaw is not moving with her speech. You say to her that her jaws aren’t moving. She doesn’t reply this time…and you hear the tiniest creak of a floorboard. You drop the basket and jump backwards – straight into a human’s body. You snarl in shock and drop on all fours, growling at your own idiocy. Your Nanna did not have the scent of life with her…and from your position on the floor you see that a pool of red blood has gathered underneath the bed, dripping steadily from Nanna’s body. You look up at the human and almost stop breathing.

It’s Red.

You whimper and whisper her name and she laughs coldly. Her peculiar smell is overwhelming and the two scents link themselves in your mind. Blood. Red has always smelt like blood. That’s what the smell was, and you were just too dense to realise it. You thought she was your friend, that she was different to all the other humans out there, and that she was different to Petite Rouge –

Petite Rouge. Your French lessons come flooding back to you in a swift second, and you realise that rouge is French for ‘red’. How could you have been so stupid? You think angrily.

The man Red was with in the bush today appears behind you. You snarl and walk backwards, your tail between your legs, petrified. He’s holding an axe and Red is closing in on you. You wildly, desperately think that perhaps they’re playing some sort of sick joke on you…but you know they aren’t. You feel so betrayed, so helpless, like a fly trapped in a spider’s web. You should have realised from the beginning.

Red mocks you, saying how stupid you were to actually trust her, a human. She says that she loves your fur and that killing your Nanna was just a way to draw you here so that she can kill you and skin you for your fur, and then afterwards eat your meat for food. You release a whimper and your hind legs hit the wall. They’ve cornered you, and you want to howl but your throat can’t seem to work. You’re terrified, and the smell of your Nanna’s blood makes you want to vomit. You beg her, telling her that you’re her friend…and she laughs, saying that she was only ever your friend for your fur. She’s just like the other humans, the barbaric, murdering, uncivilised humans, hunting your kind, the civilised, educated wolves for their fur and their meat.

She grabs the axe from the man. You realise that he must be the poacher, the partner Petite Rouge works with. This thought makes you tremble and you try to howl, praying that someone is passing by, but the only sound that comes out is a pathetic moan. And no-one will be passing by, not this far deep in the forest.

Red raises the axe above your neck and brings it down, and in your last second, you truly understand why they call her Petite Rouge.

Petite Rouge.

Little Red.

Red. The colour of blood.