Wolf Anxiety

This is the first chapter to the book PigBadWolf


Point-du-Farme was a small town out far beyond the furthest edge of Calabaza Lake, the major city of the Temperate Forest Biome, actually a little further than that, on the northeast side of the biome’s mountain range, in a valley that was the center of a large watershed, fed by glacial rivers and streams.

The town was host to an array of plants, animals and assorted geological features.  Flying over town, a Falcon would see an expansive pine and evergreen forest to the north, out of which flowed a smallish, but not to small river bordering the town on the north and west sides. The river ran south into a mid-sized lake, and out again at the south-western tip, where a family of beaver maintained the old dam.  The lake was a natural lake, with an added dam to keep the water level constant and the lower end of the river navigable for commerce.

Near the dam end of the lake, on the west side of town, there were fields of grain; oat, wheat, rye, barley and sorghum.  Farther east Falcon would see a mixed forest of hardwoods, especially noteworthy would be the large grove of ironwood trees.  A verdant carpet of pasture lay in the northeast corner of the town just north of where the edge of the hardwood forest meets the pine forest.

The town itself was a mixture of homes built with a variety of natural products created by local home builders and furnished by local artisans.  As mentioned earlier, the town is a bit too far from anywhere, not to be sustainable in its own right with locally grown and produced products, including the majority of the food and resources needed for the survival of the local community.

Along with the old dam, the beaver family ran a ferry service which provided transport to town folk, carrying mail, produce, children heading to school and an occasional traveler from away, across the lake to the town.  The ferry stopped at points along the shore to pick up and drop off passengers and packages, the last stop being the edge of the rapids near Strawhouse Hill. 

On the top of Strawhouse Hill, was the house for which the hill, and the lane leading up to it, is named.  This was not your standard straw house made by just any builder, this was the house of the FirstLittlePig, who apprenticed in the fine art of straw weaving and straw home construction. The homes that he built are made of the finest straw-bales, not only aesthetically pleasing on the outside, but tastefully decorated on the inside with handmade straw mats, wall hangings and furniture.  FirstLittlePig hired only the best straw artisans to work with him and he maintained a fine, and respected reputation for the quality of his construction projects.

From inside the house on a spring day, you can hear the sound of the rapids as the water washes over the rocks and down to toward the lake.  Today was such a day. As FirstLittlePig sat at the breakfast table, scanning the newspaper spread out in front of him. The top of the front page read;

Wolves spotted setting up new home in the Pine Woods

The headline sent shivers up his spine, his old childhood anxieties began to stir.  MotherPig had told the boys stories about their ancestors back when he was a very impressionable child.  One such story was of a great-great-great-grand uncle who fared poorly in an encounter with a wolf who had a strong breath of wind.  FirstLittlePig had nightmares for months after and then several years of therapy to recover from this story, his fear of strange wolves remained on the surface even to this day, even with his success as a fine builder of straw houses that could hold up even in hurricane force winds.  New wolves in the area would not know how this town ran, they would not know that all animals lived as equals in Point-du-Farme, and that the only area for hunting was across the river in the Free Game Preserve.

The local wolf population were prominent members of the community, many were members of the protection squad, who kept the town safe from raids by the L.A.B. facility many miles to the south.  The Laboratory Animal Business was notorious for raiding the land south of the town, grabbing any animal it could find and conducting secret tests on the animals, holding them forever to see how the animal adapted to new surroundings or even worse selling them to other research facilities or gasp to food production.  The town had many community members who had escaped the L.A.B. facility or had family members who had been in captivity there.  The protection squad had been hard at work for numerous generations, and no town members had been lost in recent years.

So, FirstLittlePig knew the value of the town wolf population, but he feared any new wolves coming into the area, his phobia had been kept in check for so long, but this headline was putting him well over the edge.  Working to settle himself down, he continued to read the paper and there on the bottom of page five was an advertisement;

Wolves have you worried? 

Fear no more, our new and improved pill

 Wolf-Phobia-Be-Gone - will keep your fears at bay! 

Only $19.99 for a three-month supply, order yours today!

Most people would have skipped past this add, but FirstLittlePig felt that one could never be too sure, and the old phobia coming back now would surely hurt his straw home business.  He took out his cell phone, found the website and placed an order to be delivered overnight.