Snow White, Prince Charming And The Seven Dwarf Sons

This original short story was a piece of University coursework. We were asked to retell a fairy tale. I’m blogging it because people on Facebook said they’d like to read it. So, here it is… don’t laugh too much please!

Fairytale Retold: Snow White, Prince Charming and the Seven Dwarf Sons.

By the time this story was written, Snow White was a grown-up. She had married the king’s son, who had rescued her from the forest and taken her home to be cared for by his parents after her horrible stepmother threw her out of their palace when she was seven years old. They were happily married and very much in love. However, there is no such thing as a life without problems, not even in a fairy tale.

Snow White had been rescued from a terrible life of child abuse at seven. She grew into a very superstitious teenager and, when the good king and queen allowed her to marry their son, she told him that she wanted seven children. After all, seven was her lucky number. When it came time to have children, though, the doctors said they would never be able to give her any at all! So Snow White and Prince Charming cried and screamed, but still no doctor in the country could give them any children.

Still, Snow White remembered how it had felt to be unwanted by her terrible stepmother. So she and Prince Charming phoned the social services and told them they wanted seven children, boys who could play ball games with Prince Charming.

***

On the other side of London, in a tiny little house, sat an ordinary mum and dad a lot like yours and mine. Like the grown-up prince and princess, they longed for seven children.

“One will be shy,” said the mum with a smile. “One will be happy. One will sleep all day. One will cry all night. One will fail in school. One will get a lot of colds. The last will be a Doctor.” Her husband smiled and agreed.

And then it happened that this mum and dad went to the doctor one day. “You have seven babies in your tummy,” the doctor told them when the mum asked him why she always felt so sick. The excited parents looked at each other and smiled. All their dreams were coming true!

But when the babies were born, they were too small. “Will they ever grow bigger?” asked the worried parents. “Never,” said the doctors. “They have a disease. They are dwarfs.” The parents were confused. They sat and cried for weeks. At last, they knew they could not live with these seven little boys, who could never make their mother’s dreams come true, so they gave them up for adoption.

***

Now, at last, Snow White’s prayers were answered. Social Services phoned the Prince and told him about the seven brothers. Snow White and Prince Charming talked and talked about the tiny little boys. They were good, sensitive, understanding people. They knew they could love the babies just as if they were their own. So, that Saturday afternoon, they went to meet them.

“One is shy,” explained the social worker. “One is always smiling. One never wakes up! One cries all night. One is always sneezing!” She looked at the sixth and her expression changed. “He will never go to school,” she said sadly. Then she looked at the seventh and smiled. “With a bit of love and support, he will be a Doctor,” she said.

Of course Snow White loved the babies straight away. So she and Prince Charming took them home. As they grew, Snow White found that the social worker had been right about their personalities. She named the shy boy Bashful. The one who smiled was named Happy. Their brothers were Sleepy, Grumpy, and Sneezy. The one who had been told he would never go to school, they called Dopey, and Snow White gave up her days and taught him to read and write at home. As the brothers grew, the family nicknamed the seventh Doc. They had happy childhoods, playing ball games with Prince Charming when they were not at school and watching Snow White cook when she was not giving Dopey lessons.

The sad day came when the boys turned 18, but, because they had been adopted by Snow White and Prince Charming, they were allowed to stay on at the palace for as long as they liked. Then, one day soon after their 18^th birthday, only six dwarfs could be found. The whole family looked everywhere for Sneezy. But when they found him, he was dead. Snow White had been scared this might happen, but she knew that there was nothing that could be done.

So she cremated the smallest of her sons and placed his ashes in a tiny cardboard coffin, and kept it in the palace, and the whole family learnt to guard it with their lives. Until the day that Grumpy flew into a rage and accidentally knocked it off the shelf! But Snow White could not be angry. She had her memories, and she had her other six sons. So, somehow, she accepted the truth and life carried on in the palace.

When this story ended, Bashful was still shy, Happy was still smiling, Sleepy hadn’t woken up for a week and Grumpy was in a very bad mood! Doc had grown into a supportive and successful doctor. As his parents had taught him to do, he treated everyone equally and never turned a patient away.

Snow White and Prince Charming lived happily in the same palace with Dopey. Snow White was still giving him lessons. By now, he could read and write. Snow White and Prince Charming were still very much in love. Most important of all, although they had accepted by now that nothing could bring Sneezy back to them, they were all still guarding his memory with their lives.