Title: Primary National Strategy
1PrimaryNational Strategy
This is an interactive fiction text. VIEW this
SLIDE SHOW to activate. It is not a game to play.
It is a story to read. But there are many
different ways to read it. You must find YOUR way.
begin
instructions
2Trails through the Forest
3Our tales are trailson the forest floor.Do they
lead us homeor lose us more?
the sisters trail
the brothers trail
4the brothers trail
5the sisters trail
6It was being so hungry that started it all. In
fact hunger was often the thing that moved our
story on. You could say we were eaten more than
we ate or almost so. I think I would call that
night the beginning that night when hunger would
not let me rest. Real hunger rolls about in your
stomach like rocks. It cramps you up in a sort of
weary agony. Little wonder my straw pallet in the
cottage corner held no sleep. So, being awake, I
heard them talk. I heard that woman twist my
father with her words wring out his will like a
dishcloth until she had him convinced there was
not bread enough in our poor lives for four, that
he should take my sister and I and leave us, be
rid of us for ever, abandon us just like unwanted
pets. I shall never forget his drained assent.
Later those words lay like stones in my soul,
heavier that the ones in my belly. But then my
thought was only for my sister, my sweet sister.
She needed me to save her. And I did save her, in
a way at at least we saved each other. But in
the end we only changed one hunger for another.
Q
B/S
7My clever idea worked it worked like a dream.
And we were home again. My sister was home. I
watched her face as she ran into our fathers
arms. And I watched his face too. There was joy
on both. But only one was unclouded. When I
heard of that first plan to leave us, lose us, I
had crept outside and gathered flint-white
stones. When the woman said goodbye, handing us
bread with a smile of loving sacrifice I knew for
malice, I had to pass it to my sister, for my
pockets were already full. And as we walked with
father, talking of trees and birds and
comfortable, familiar things that stuck in my
throat, I dropped the stones to leave a trail.
Long after he had left us, once the moon came
out, they were easy to follow home. But as my
sister rushed to fathers arms, it was the
womans look that greeted me. I knew at once that
she would try again, and would not let me best
her next time. Back then, I rose to the
challenge. Now, I know that she had won already.
Or rather that we had already lost.
Q
B/S
8It was a good idea, that trail of stones, a canny
one. But it made me too cocksure, too confident
by half. I thought I could repeat the same trick
with a clever twist. But I was wrong. So I lost
us both in the deep forest, with the stones back
in our bellies, and our only bread in the
stomachs of birds. For my own part I think I
could have borne it, even considered it a fair
price for escape not just from that woman, but
from both of them. But it was for my sweet Tel I
wept, shivering against me on that poor bed of
pine must. I knew her fear, her pain, her hunger,
far worse than my own. When that woman talked him
into leaving us again, as I knew full well she
would, I more than half expected the locked door
that kept me from the stones. I thought our
sacrifice of bread, more genuine than hers in
giving it, would save us cunningly. I thought a
crumb trail would bring us home again as well as
the stones had done. But there were others in the
forest as hungry as we were, others for whom the
crumbs were easy pickings. We were easy pickings
too!
Q
B/S
9It was I who had failed to get us home that
second time. So I did not blame my sister for
eating what was so readily available. That I was
to be eaten by the crone in return for the bread
my sister stole, I did not resent. If I had known
the price beforehand, I would have paid it
willingly. And yet as I crouched day after day in
that cage, my belly more full than it had been
all my short life, a greater fear than my own end
gnawed away at me. I understood full well the
witch was fattening me for her own oven. I knew
that my full belly and plumping limbs were as
much a threat to my life as the churning hunger
had been. But I had none left to cherish but my
sister. I would have made the witch a meal or
two, and gladly, would it save her, would it buy
her back what we had both lost. But I feared that
would not be. If I were the witchs dinner, who
would be desert? And so I saved the chicken bone,
and stuck it through the bars when the crone came
to test my finger for fattening. It bought me
time, time to find a way to save my sister. I had
to be strong for her.
Q
B/S
10Now that it is all over I can see that there were
two witches in our story and both of them tried
to kill us. One wanted to eat us, but perhaps had
no reason to love us in the first place. The
other was worse. She sent us to be eaten, when
she should have cared for us. Now they are both
gone, and good riddance I say. But there is
another in our tale whose behaviour was worse. He
did love us, and still sent us. It comes hard to
know that your father is a weak man. For my part
I would not have come home this second time. My
pockets were bulging with the witchs gold, and
it might have bought us happiness anywhere. We
came back once before. We should not have made
the same mistake again. Yet it was not for my
sake that I came. It was for my sister. First she
tricked the witch into leaving us - perhaps one
of these days she will tell me how and then my
sweet, gentle sister brought us home with
forgiveness shining in her eyes. I hope it is
enough for both of us.
Q
B/S
11When my dear mother died, she left me still
hungry for her love. The lack of it churned in my
stomach like a physical pain. So when my father
married again and brought that woman to live with
us in our little cottage, I tried and tried to be
nice to her. I tried to make her love me. In my
fathers presence she smiled back, cared for the
cottage, seemed to care for us. But behind his
back I caught a sneer of contempt on her lips,
and a glint of triumph in her eyes. Still I tried
for my fathers sake, for my fathers love. I
thought he would love me for loving her, and his
love was better than none. But I can see now that
it only played into her hands. It made me weak in
needing love and her strong in denying it. So
when my poor father took us that day deep into
the woods and asked us to wait for him, turning
from us with watery eyes, I knew he would not
return. I knew she would not let him. She
hungered for him herself, and he was a meal she
would not share.
Q
B/S
12I was not surprised when, left in the forest that
second time, my brother lost us. I was not
surprised that his oh-so-clever plan did not work
like the one before. But I said nothing. He
needed to think that he was looking after both of
us, that he was looking after me.I shivered and
cried as we lay in darkness beneath the pines, I
snuggled against him, so that he could play the
man, protect me. But I always knew that in the
end he could not save us. I always knew it would
be up to me. I saw where the blame lay, and it
was not with my father, nor my brother. What I
did resent was the loss of the bread - and
perhaps his misplaced self-belief. Even as I
watched, silent, without reproach, and as he
threw down crumb after crumb of our only food, I
could picture the scuttering creatures, the
swooping birds, filling their bellies instead of
ours. And by then hunger was churning and
churning inside me. I could have eaten stones.
Q
B/S
13With the crumb trail gone, we wandered in that
forest for a long time. Our hunger ate into us,
and tiredness drained us. So we were walking
almost in a trance when we came to the little
cottage in a clearing. It felt strangely
familiar, in a way I didnt understand. I was
drawn to it. But a soon as I approached it,
smelled it, touched it, found it was made of
bread and cake, there was no thought in my being
but to eat. I tore lumps of bread from the walls
and swallowed them voraciously. Knowing it was
not mine to take, I ate it anyway, and tried to
share both bread and guilt with Hans. Then she
came out, the old witch who owned it. The moment
I saw the look in her eyes, I knew she meant us
harm. I knew what I had done, too. My weakness,
my hunger, had played into her hands. I had eaten
her house, stolen her bread. Now she could demand
pay-back. Now she could take what was mine and
eat it. And what I had brought her was my bother.
Q
B/S
14She locked my brother in a cage, that crone. But
she made to look after me and care for me. She
fed me and taught me to bake. And all the while
she was fattening my brother for the oven. She
would eat him, take him from me. Behind her smile
she could not hide the glint of triumph in her
eyes. Somewhere inside I knew that she had done
all this before, and I had let her. I would not
make the same mistake again. The day her patience
ran out and I knew that she would eat him, fat or
no, she asked me to check the oven. See if its
hot enough, girl, for my bread. Bread! I feigned
stupidity, asked her to check herself, to show me
how. The heat surged out as I opened the oven
door, and when the crone peered in I pushed, and
slammed it shut again. I told my brother only
that she had gone. He was so distracted with the
piles of gold we found in her cupboards, that he
never asked where, or when or why- and I shall
never tell him.
Q
B/S
15And so in the end we are back in our cottage
where it all started. But are we home? More than
time has moved on. The gold we brought back means
there will always be bread baking in our little
kitchen. And we returned, of course, to find our
stepmother gone. Gone for good, my father said. I
have never asked where, or when, or why. I do not
need to ask, or want to. And the people? Have
they changed? Two, I think, have not. But I can
forgive my father the weak love in his watery
eyes. I can live with my brothers resentment
too. It is enough that, at last, I am here with
the two men in my life. My father. My brother. I
know them so well - but I am glad they no longer
know me. One calls me sweet child, one gentle
sister. Only I remember the sharp, fierce heat
on my face as I opened the oven door, and the
sweet, gentle joy in my heart as I closed it.
Q
B/S
16go back in time
go forward in time
make a choice
B/S
switch brother / sister
begin again
back to story
Q
quit the program
return to this page