Title: Talespins
Series: Talespins 1-3
Author: Michael Mullin
Release Date: 22nd February 2013
BLURB from Goodreads
A trilogy of alternative fairytales and retellings. Discover the real Snow White story through the eyes of Creepy, the unknown 8th dwarf! Meet a teen princess who hires "The Frog Prince" witch to get revenge on a Mean Girl at school! And learn how the giant, boy thief and magic beans tale truly went down!
PURCHASE LINKS
EXCERPT
The stories we pass down from parent to child
Were once filled with darkness, but somehow turned
mild.
We tweak and revise, and when all else fails
We choose to omit certain crucial details.
Until they're forgotten, and nobody knows
How a story originally, truthfully goes.
Take Snow White, for example. A popular tale
With plenty of unpleasant truths to unveil.
For instance, I’d wager that you didn’t know
Seven lived in that cottage … while one lived
below.
It wasn’t always that way. They once lived as eight.
‘Til he changed into strange: staying up, sleeping
late.
He ate less and less, turning skeleton-thin,
And shaved his beard down to a patch on his chin.
He was twisted and moody. A freak to the letter.
Calling him “Creepy” didn’t make things much better.
He had nothing in common with his cheerful housemates
Who were always so thrilled about things that he
hates.
He had different notions of pleasure and fun
And he never agreed with the way things were done.
But each comment was heard as a selfish complaint
So he kept to himself. He practiced restraint.
But silence just made him a deeper enigma
Confirming his odd personality stigma.
Til one night at dinner, he’d had quite enough
Of their pointless, dwarfish, merriment stuff.
When a spider crawled slowly across Creepy’s bowl,
He grabbed it and showed it and swallowed it whole.
“That does it!” they said, and they locked him
downstairs
In a cellar room, cold and in need of repairs.
From there he still heard them, their chatter and
feet,
And he saw them through floorboards that didn’t quite
meet.
He wondered how long they would keep up this game.
After all, he was just living up to his name.
The next morning the seven went back to the grind.
Not one looked back as they left him behind.
“Who needs them?” he asked himself, angry and hurt.
Then he stomped around, kicking his shoes in
the dirt.
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