Hammond Deggs, the third member of the family of three little pigs, was a mason by trade who lived in the tiny hamlet of Boar's Cove. Naturally, he wanted to build a house for himself from bricks. When Hammond learned of the huffing--and puffing--induced vandalism of the home of his brother Oscar and Oscar's subsequent murder, he was terrified. He was so frozen with fear he couldn't go across town to warn his brother, Mayer. Instead, Hammond bricked up the beautiful bay windows at the front of his house, padlocked the door and cowered in the corner of his living room. The "pigs" at the police department (a term of endearment in Boar's Cove) called a short time later to report that Mayer also had been murdered and hamhocked in broad daylight. All the evidence indicated that the modus operandi was similar in both incidents.

As he hung up the phone, Hammond heard the voice he feared most. "Open this door, or I'll huff and puff and I'll blow your house down!" It was Big Bad Wolf, carrying out his threat to systematically annihilate the Deggs family. Hammond felt too afraid to confront the wolf, so he remained silent and waited. Over the next few weeks, Hammond added depth to his brick fortress. He thought that no one could hurt him if he could not be reached. Hammond's friends, the little piggy that went to market and the little piggy that ate roast beef, showed up to visit him. (They didn't invite the piggy that goes wee, wee, wee all the way home for obvious reasons.) Hammond could barely hear them through his new wall, and he squealed at them to go away and leave him alone. He thought, it's probably that clever wolf disguising his voice! Even the sweet pleadings of his fiancTe, Frances Bacon, could not convince Hammond to come out. The most persistent piglets selling Girl Scout cookies were left with bruised pigs' knuckles after knocking on Hammond's door in vain.

The voices grew dimmer as the wall grew thicker, allowing Hammond to feel safe for a while. But as the months passed, Hammond grew increasingly lonely and felt more and more isolated from the community, and from himself. Once, Hammond had been very proud of his appearance and had used his Stairmaster until his chops were in prime grade-A condition. He had even used a curling iron to give his tail the perfect twist. Since the incident with the wolf, Hammond became depressed, and slowly he let himself go. He had considered the phrase "sloppy as a pigsty" laughable, but now it seemed all too true.

After many months, he awoke one morning and realized that his brick fortress had become a prison. He recognized that his fear of the wolf must be faced head-on, because the solitude and the worrying had become worse than confronting the wolf. Hammond lifted his sledgehammer and began to dismantle his prison brick by brick.

Outside, the town of Boar's Cove was thriving. Hammond's friends welcomed him back and told him that Big Bad Wolf died several months earlier from trichinosis, the result of undercooked pork. They invited Hammond to join in their neighborhood crime watch, which had been helping to keep predators away, thus preventing their porcine neighbors from living in fear.

One evening, several weeks later, while Hammond was entertaining friends on his new porch overlooking the beautiful Bay of Pigs, they heard someone knocking on the door, followed by the distinctive huffing and puffing noise that they all recognized. Hammond and his friends armed themselves and headed to the door to meet their fear. When they opened the door, they encountered Big Bad's daughter, Virginia. Knowing she'd frightened them, she apologized for the huffing and puffing, and told them of her lifelong struggle with asthma. The pigs welcomed her to the group upon learning she was a strict vegetarian. After all, who's afraid of Virginia Wolf?

¬1995. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups by D. Sue and Allen Gallehugh. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442.