Throwback Thursday: Little Amanda ReWrites Robin Hood

I am not entirely certain how old I was when I wrote this... I vaguely recall typing it up and I'm pretty sure it was in the 11-13yr old time frame.  My mom was going through old boxes of school work and came across it.  We were all quite entertained, and I thought it would make a good Throwback Thursday!

Once upon a time, there lived a pig named Bacon Hood. He was a very brave little pig, and once he saved Prince Boar from a terrible fire and was made an outlaw. Now it may seem rather odd that he was made an outlaw because of this, but P.B., as he was referred to, hated Bacon Hood and didn’t want to feel grateful to him.  So P.B. and Jay (Jay was Prince Boar’s faithful turkey) got together and thought of a plan so that they wouldn’t have to thank him. Finally they decided on the story that Bacon Hood had set fire to trap P.B. and then didn’t want to get in trouble with the Sheriff of YummyHam and decided to save him instead. Now this was not true, of course, but that is what they said, so Bacon Hood was made an outlaw.

Bacon Hood walked slowly into Pigwood forest and sat down on a log to think. He said, “Well I’m an Outlaw and that’s that. I suppose that since I am an outlaw, I must act like one. Let’s see, outlaws must have a band of merry swine and rob from the Pigs to feed to the Swine.” (The upper class, as you know, were called Pigs and the lower class was called Swine, whether they were or not, if you get my meaning). “Pity,” he said, “I don’t know any outlaws and I haven’t the faintest notion on how to rob. Well, I suppose I’ll learn sooner or later.” With that, he set off to find a band of merry swine.

After two days of searching and finally getting hopelessly lost in the forest, he sat down on a log to think. “Well,” said he, “I’m just not meant to have a band of merry swine andI am certainly no outlaw. Outlaws don’t get lost in a forest, and they always have herds of pigs just flocking to them and begging them to be their leader. Perhaps I am not meant to be an outlaw king after all.” He sighed, “If that is the case than I don’t know if I want to be an outlaw.” Just then he heard cries for help. Someone is in trouble! He thought. I must save them! Jumping to his feet, Bacon Hood ran off towards the cries.

Eventually he reached the edge of the forest and peered out cautiously. To his surprise, it was P.B. and Jay who were calling for help.  Two pigs dressed in bright red were robbing them. They must be outlaws, he thought. They are wearing red, like me. But outlaws or no, I must help P.B. and Jay.  Bacon Hood jumped out of the trees. “Stop!” he called. “These are my friends, P.B. and Jay. He made me into an outlaw, but I am a very forgiving pig so I don’t want them to be robbed.” The two pig outlaws, whose names were Little Chop and Will Sausage, looked at each other, dropped P.B. and Jay and ran over to Bacon Hood.

“Will you be our leader?” They asked hopefully.

“Of course I will!” Cried Bacon Hood. “I must be meant to be an outlaw king after all! I will lead you in outlawry and you will be my merry swine, and we will rob the Pigs to feed the Swine.”

“Yippee!” they cried and ran off into the forest together.

For the next few weeks, Bacon Hood and his merry swine tried their hand at outlawry. As they later admitted, they weren’t that good. After an especially disastrous attempt with the Sheriff of YummyHam (which partiall involved saving P.B. and Jay, again), they held a meeting.

“I say,” said Little Chop, sewing up a rip in his bright red outfit, “we’re not that good at pick pocketing, are we?”

/Most certainly not,” agreed Will Sausage, examining the cut in his foot.

Bacon Hood sat silently for a moment, then straightening his bright red jacket said sadly, “Well, we might as well face it. We are just not meant to be outlaws. And what’s worse, we’re stuck being outlaws too.”

“What do you mean?” coursed the other two anxiously.

“What I mean is that we can’t go live somewhere else because our bright red clothes proclaim that we are outlaws, and we can’t buy other clothes because merchants are forbidden under pain of bacon to sell any sort of material of clothing that isn’t bright red to outlaws. And we can’t waylay a merchant and rob him of material because, for one thing, we are too kind-hearted to rob, and for another, we can’t sew!”

They sat in gloomy silence. Then Will spoke up, “Hey, we could save people that get lost in the forest or attacked by animals or drowned in rivers!”

“That’s a capital idea!” exclaimed Bacon Hood delightedly. “We’d be really good at that! We are brave and kind-hearted and every good rescuer needs both of those in order to be a good rescuer. And there are a lot of people that need saving!”

“Especially P.B. and Jay, commented Little Chop. “I believe that they got themselves into a fix at least 15 times last week.”

And so that is what they did. After saving P.B. and Jay another hundred times, they finally decided to be friends…. But that is another story.

THE END