Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf Read online

  Contents

  1. The First Story

  2. Clever Polly

  3. Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf

  4. Little Polly Riding Hood

  5. The Visible Wolf

  6. Huff, Puff

  7. Monday’s Child

  8. The Wolf in the Zoo

  9. Polly Goes for a Walk

  10. The Seventh Little Kid

  11. In the Wolf’s Kitchen

  12. The Wolf in Disguise

  13. A Short Story

  CATHERINE STORR was born in 1913. She was educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School in London and then at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she read English Literature. Although her ambition was always to be a writer, she decided to study medicine and went on to work as a psychotherapist. Catherine was married in 1942 and in the same year had the first of her three daughters. She returned to her writing and created short stories for her young daughters, including the adventures of Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, which has remained in print ever since it was first published in 1955. Catherine wrote more than thirty much-loved books for children and young adults, which have been translated into many different languages. She died in 2001, aged eighty-seven.

  Books by Catherine Storr

  CLEVER POLLY AND THE STUPID WOLF

  POLLY AND THE WOLF AGAIN

  1. The First Story

  This book has twelve stories about Polly and how she always managed to escape from the wolf by being cleverer than he was – which wasn’t very difficult because he was generally not at all clever. In fact he was rather stupid.

  The very first story of all, which tells about how Polly met the wolf for the first time, has really been told already, in a book called Clever Polly. But because it’s very annoying not to know how things started and how the people you are reading about met each other in the beginning, I’m going to put it in here. So really this book has thirteen stories about Polly and the wolf and that is all the stories there are at present about them.

  This first story is a very small story because Polly was very small when it happened, so the story was just big enough to match her. And here it is.

  2. Clever Polly

  One day Polly was alone downstairs. Camilla was using the Hoover upstairs, so when the front doorbell rang, Polly went to open the door. There was a great black wolf! He put his foot inside the door and said:

  ‘Now I’m going to eat you up!’

  ‘Oh no, please,’ said Polly. ‘I don’t want to be eaten up.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said the wolf, ‘I am going to eat you. But first tell me, what is that delicious smell?’

  ‘Come down to the kitchen,’ said Polly, ‘and I will show you.’

  She led the wolf down to the kitchen. There on the table was a delicious-looking pie.

  ‘Have a slice?’ said Polly. The wolf’s mouth watered, and he said, ‘Yes, please!’ Polly cut him a big piece. When he had eaten it, the wolf asked for another, and then for another.

  ‘Now,’ said Polly, after the third helping, ‘what about me?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the wolf, ‘I’m too full of pie. I’ll come back another day to deal with you.’

  A week later Polly was alone again, and again the bell rang. Polly ran to open the door. There was the wolf again.

  ‘This time I’m really going to eat you up, Polly,’ said the wolf.

  ‘All right,’ said Polly, ‘but first, just smell.’

  The wolf took a long breath. ‘Delicious!’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Come down and see,’ said Polly.

  In the kitchen was a large chocolate cake.

  ‘Have a slice?’ said Polly.

  ‘Yes,’ said the wolf greedily. He ate six big slices.

  ‘Now, what about me?’ said Polly.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the wolf, ‘I just haven’t got room. I’ll come back.’ He slunk out of the back door.

  A week later the doorbell rang again. Polly opened the door, and there was the wolf.

  ‘Now this time you shan’t escape me!’ he snarled. ‘Get ready to be eaten up now!’

  ‘Just smell all round first,’ said Polly gently.

  ‘Marvellous!’ admitted the wolf. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Toffee,’ said Polly calmly. ‘But come on, eat me up.’

  ‘Couldn’t I have a tiny bit of toffee first?’ asked the wolf. ‘It’s my favourite food.’

  ‘Come down and see,’ said Polly.

  The wolf followed her downstairs. The toffee bubbled and sizzled on the stove. ‘I must have a taste,’ said the wolf.

  ‘It’s hot,’ said Polly.

  The wolf took the spoon out of the saucepan and put it in his mouth:

  OW! HOWL! OW!

  It was so hot it burnt the skin off his mouth and tongue and he couldn’t spit it out, it was too sticky. In terror, the wolf ran out of the house and NEVER CAME BACK!

  3. Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf

  Did I say that the wolf never came back? I’m wrong, he did come back a year or two later. This time Polly was sitting at the window of the drawing-room and she saw the wolf open the garden gate and glance anxiously around. He looked up and saw Polly.

  ‘Good morning, Polly,’ said the wolf.

  ‘Good morning, Wolf,’ said Polly. ‘What have you come here for?’

  ‘I have come to eat you up,’ replied the wolf. ‘And this time I’m going to get you.’

  Polly smiled. She knew that last time she had been cleverer than the wolf and she was not really frightened.

  ‘I’m not going to eat you up this morning,’ said the wolf. ‘I’m going to come back in the middle of the night and climb in at your bedroom window and gobble you up. By the way,’ said the wolf, ‘which is your bedroom window?’

  ‘That one,’ said Polly, pointing upwards. ‘Right at the top of the house. You’ll find it rather difficult, won’t you, to get right up there?’

  Then the wolf smiled. ‘I’m cleverer than you think,’ he said. ‘I thought it would probably mean climbing and I have come prepared.’

  Polly saw him go to a flower bed and make a little hole in the earth. Into the hole he dropped something, she couldn’t see what, and covered it carefully up again.

  ‘Wolf,’ said Polly, ‘what were you doing then?’

  ‘Oh,’ said the wolf, ‘this is my great cleverness. I have planted a pip of a grape. This pip will grow into a vine and the vine will climb up the house and I shall climb up the vine. I shall pop in through your bedroom window and then, Polly, I shall get you at last.’

  Polly laughed. ‘Poor Wolf,’ she said. ‘Do you know how long it will take for that pip to grow into a vine?’

  ‘No,’ said the wolf. ‘Two or three days? I’m very hungry.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Polly, ‘in a week or two a little shoot might poke its way above the ground, but it would be months before the vine could start climbing and years and years before it could reach my bedroom window.’

  ‘Oh bother!’ said the wolf. ‘I can’t wait years and years and years to reach your bedroom window. I shall have to have another idea even better than this one. Goodbye, Polly, for the present,’ and he trotted off.

  About a week later Polly was sitting at the drawing-room window again. She was sewing and did not notice the wolf come into the garden until she heard a sort of scrambling noise outside. Then she looked out of the window and saw the wolf very busy planting something in the earth again.

  ‘Good morning, Wolf,’ said Polly. ‘What are you planting this time?’

  ‘This time,’ said the wolf, ‘I’ve had a really good idea. I’m planting something which will grow up to your window in a moment.’
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  ‘Oh,’ said Polly, interested. ‘What is that?’

  ‘I have planted the rung of a ladder,’ said the wolf. ‘By tomorrow morning there’ll be a long ladder stretching right up to your bedroom window. I specially chose a rung from the longest ladder I could see. A steeplejack was on the other end of it climbing a church steeple. He will be surprised when he comes down and finds the bottom rung of his ladder has gone. But in a very short time I shall be climbing in at your bedroom window, little Polly, and that will be the end of you.’

  Polly laughed. ‘Oh, poor Wolf, didn’t you know that ladders don’t grow from rungs or from anything else? They have to be made by men, and however many rungs you plant in this garden, even of steeplejacks’ ladders, they won’t grow into anything you could climb up. Go away, Wolf, and have a better idea, if you can.’

  The wolf looked very sad. He tucked his tail between his legs and trotted off along the road.

  A week later Polly, who now knew what to expect, was sitting at the drawing-room window looking up and down the road.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ asked her mother.

  ‘I’m waiting for that stupid wolf,’ said Polly. ‘He’s sure to come today. I wonder what silly idea he’ll have got into his black head now?’

  Presently the gate squeaked and the wolf came in carrying something very carefully in his mouth. He put it down on the grass and started to dig a deep hole.

  Polly watched him drop the thing he had been carrying into the hole, cover it over with earth again, and stand back with a pleased expression.

  ‘Wolf,’ called Polly, ‘what have you planted this time?’

  ‘This time,’ replied the wolf, ‘you aren’t going to escape. Have you read “Jack and the Beanstalk”, Polly?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t exactly read it,’ said Polly, ‘but I know the story very well indeed.’

  ‘This time,’ said the wolf, ‘I’ve planted a bean. Now we know from the story of Jack that beans grow up to the sky in no time at all, and perhaps I shall be in your bedroom before it’s light tomorrow morning, crunching up the last of your little bones.’

  ‘A bean!’ said Polly, very much interested. ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘I shelled it out of its pod,’ said the wolf proudly.

  ‘And the pod?’ Polly asked. ‘Where did that come from?’

  ‘I bought it in the vegetable shop,’ said the wolf, ‘with my own money,’ he added. ‘I bought half a pound, and it cost me a whole sixpence, but I shan’t have wasted it because it will bring me a nice, juicy little girl to eat.’

  ‘You bought it?’ said Polly. ‘Yourself, with your own money?’

  ‘All by myself,’ said the wolf grandly.

  ‘No one gave it to you?’ Polly insisted.

  ‘No one,’ said the wolf. He looked very proud.

  ‘You didn’t exchange it for anything?’ Polly asked again.

  ‘No,’ said the wolf. He was puzzled.

  ‘Oh, poor Wolf,’ said Polly pityingly. ‘You haven’t read “Jack and the Beanstalk” at all. Don’t you know that it’s only a magic bean that grows up to the sky in a night, and you can’t buy magic beans. You have to be given them by an old man in exchange for a cow or something like that. It’s no good buying beans, that won’t get you anywhere.’

  Two large tears dropped from the wolf’s eyes.

  ‘But I haven’t got a cow,’ he cried.

  ‘If you had you wouldn’t need to eat me,’ Polly pointed out. ‘You could eat the cow. It’s no good, Wolf, you aren’t going to get me this time. Come back in a month or two, and we’ll have a bean-feast off the plant you’ve just planted.’

  ‘I hate beans,’ the wolf sighed, ‘and I’ve got nearly a whole half-pound of them at home.’ He turned to go. ‘But don’t be too cock-a-hoop, Miss Polly, for I’ll get you yet!’

  But clever Polly knew he never would.

  4. Little Polly Riding Hood

  Once every two weeks Polly went over to the other side of the town to see her grandmother. Sometimes she took a small present, and sometimes she came back with a small present for herself. Sometimes all the rest of the family went too, and sometimes Polly went alone.

  One day, when she was going by herself, she had hardly got down the front doorsteps when she saw the wolf.

  ‘Good afternoon, Polly,’ said the wolf. ‘Where are you going to, may I ask?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Polly. ‘I’m going to see my grandma.’

  ‘I thought so!’ said the wolf, looking very much pleased. ‘I’ve been reading about a little girl who went to visit her grandmother and it’s a very good story.’

  ‘Little Red Riding Hood?’ suggested Polly.

  ‘That’s it!’ cried the wolf. ‘I read it out loud to myself as a bedtime story. I did enjoy it. The wolf eats up the grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood. It’s almost the only story where a wolf really gets anything to eat,’ he added sadly.

  ‘But in my book he doesn’t get Red Riding Hood,’ said Polly. ‘Her father comes in just in time to save her.’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t in my book!’ said the wolf. ‘I expect mine is the true story, and yours is just invented. Anyway, it seems a good idea.’

  ‘What is a good idea?’ asked Polly.

  ‘To catch little girls on their way to their grandmothers’ cottages,’ said the wolf. ‘Now where had I got to?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Polly.

  ‘Well, I’d said, “Where are you going to?”,’ said the wolf. ‘Oh yes. Now I must say, “Where does she live?”. Where does your grandmother live, Polly Riding Hood?’

  ‘Over the other side of the town,’ answered Polly.

  The wolf frowned.

  ‘It ought to be “Through the wood”,’ he said. ‘But perhaps town will do. How do you get there, Polly Riding Hood?’

  ‘First I take a train and then I take a bus,’ said Polly.

  The wolf stamped his foot.

  ‘No, no, no, no!’ he shouted. ‘That’s all wrong. You can’t say that. You’ve got to say, “By that path winding through the trees”, or something like that. You can’t go by trains and buses and things. It isn’t fair.’

  ‘Well, I could say that,’ said Polly, ‘but it wouldn’t be true. I do have to go by bus and train to see my grandma, so what’s the good of saying I don’t?’

  ‘But then it won’t work,’ said the wolf impatiently. ‘How can I get there first and gobble her up and get all dressed up to trick you into believing I am her if we’ve got a great train journey to do? And anyhow I haven’t any money on me, so I can’t even take a ticket. You just can’t say that.’

  ‘All right, I won’t say it,’ said Polly agreeably. ‘But it’s true all the same. Now just excuse me, Wolf, I’ve got to get down to the station because I am going to visit my grandma even if you aren’t.’

  The wolf slunk along behind Polly, growling to himself. He stood just behind her at the booking-office and heard her ask for her ticket, but he could not go any further. Polly got into a train and was carried away, and the wolf went sadly home.

  But just two weeks later the wolf was waiting outside Polly’s house again. This time he had plenty of change in his pocket. He even had a book tucked under his front leg to read in the train.

  He partly hid himself behind a corner of brick wall and watched to see Polly come out on her way to her grandmother’s house.

  But Polly did not come out alone, as she had before. This time the whole family appeared, Polly’s father and mother too. They got into the car, which was waiting in the road, and Polly’s father started the engine.

  The wolf ran along behind his brick wall as fast as he could, and was just in time to get out into the road ahead of the car, and to stand waving his paws as if he wanted a lift as the car came up.

  Polly’s father slowed down, and Polly’s mother put her head out of the window.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ she asked.

  ‘I
want to go to Polly’s grandmother’s house,’ the wolf answered. His eyes glistened as he looked at the family of plump little girls in the back of the car.

  ‘That’s where we are going,’ said her mother, surprised. ‘Do you know her then?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said the wolf. ‘But you see, I want to get there very quickly and eat her up and then I can put on her clothes and wait for Polly, and eat her up too.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ said Polly’s father. ‘What a horrible idea! We certainly shan’t give you a lift if that is what you are planning to do.’

  Polly’s mother screwed up the window again and Polly’s father drove quickly on. The wolf was left standing miserably in the road.

  ‘Bother!’ he said to himself angrily. ‘It’s gone wrong again. I can’t think why it can’t be the same as the Little Red Riding Hood story. It’s all these buses and cars and trains that make it go wrong.’

  But the wolf was determined to get Polly, and when she was due to visit her grandmother again, a fortnight later, he went down and took a ticket for the station he had heard Polly ask for. When he got out of the train, he climbed on a bus, and soon he was walking down the road where Polly’s grandmother lived.

  ‘Aha!’ he said to himself, ‘this time I shall get them both. First the grandma, then Polly.’

  He unlatched the gate into the garden, and strolled up the path to Polly’s grandmother’s front door. He rapped sharply with the knocker.

  ‘Who’s there?’ called a voice from inside the house.

  The wolf was very much pleased. This was going just as it had in the story. This time there would be no mistakes.

  ‘Little Polly Riding Hood,’ he said in a squeaky voice. ‘Come to see her dear grandmother, with a little present of butter and eggs and – er – cake!’

  There was a long pause. Then the voice said doubtfully, ‘Who did you say it was?’

  ‘Little Polly Riding Hood,’ said the wolf in a great hurry, quite forgetting to disguise his voice this time. ‘Come to eat up her dear grandmother with butter and eggs!’