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Once there were three little pigs that all lived with their mother. Their mother, though, had very little space in her two-bedroom apartment, and her job provided barely enough for one child, much less three. So, one day the mother pig told her three children to go out in the world and build their own homes, and always beware of predators.
“Make sure you build good, strong homes, dears,” she said to them as they headed out the door.
“We will,” they replied, not really listening.
The three pigs went out together and walked through the neighborhood. Soon they came to an abandoned lumberyard, and the first pig stopped there. “This is what I will use to build my house,” he proclaimed, after looking at the woodpiles. The other two just looked at him but didn’t say anything. After calling a truck to haul the wood to his new property, the first little pig said goodbye to his brothers and went to build his new home.
The remaining two walked further into the neighborhood, and when they came upon a brick store, the second little pig walked in to buy some brick. “Brick is good, strong, and will not burn,” he said to his brother. “I will use this to build my new house.” And so the second little pig also hired a truck to take his bricks to his new property, there to build his new home.
The third and last little pig kept going until he came to a steel manufacturer. There, he bought enough steel to build his house and he hired a truck to take the steel to his property. The third little pig knew that his would be the strongest house since it was made of steel, but he didn’t say anything to hurt his brothers’ feelings. Once all three had built their houses, they settled in and lived happily for several months. None of them realized that something was lurking in the city, something waiting to strike at their homes and eat them for dinner. The first little pig was the first to encounter this waiting something.
The little pig was relaxing in his wood cottage, reading a newspaper and sipping tea when someone came knocking on his door.
“Who’s there?” asked the little pig.
“Let me in, man, I need help.”
Knowing the city could be dangerous, the pig asked, “Why do you need help?”
“Let me in, let me in, little pig.”
“Ahh, it’s a wolf,” the pig said quietly. Loudly, he said, “I won’t, big bad wolf, not any one bit.”
“Then I’ll just come in and get you!” the wolf roared. There was a rumbling from the floor, and then there was an explosion as a stick of dynamite went off. The little pig ran from his house, all the way to his brother’s brick house while the wolf searched the wreckage. The second little pig hurriedly let his brother in and locked all the doors. They didn’t have much time to rest, for the wolf came knocking on the door a few minutes later.
“Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!” he said.
“Not by so much as an inch off our lives,” the two shouted back.
“Then I’ll just blow this house up!” roared the wolf. As the dynamite burned out, the two pigs escaped and ran to their brother’s steel house. The wolf searched the rubble pile but found nothing.
When the two pigs reached their brother’s, he let them in and sealed his house. “Let’s see that wolf get in here,” he said to his brothers. Several minutes passed quietly, then, there came a knocking on the door.
“Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!”
“Not so much as an inch off our lives,” the three brothers shouted.
“Then I’ll just blow this house up!”
The wolf set his dynamite and a few minutes later, it exploded. Nothing happened to the house, so the wolf tried again. Again nothing happened. The wolf tried three more times until he was out of dynamite, but nothing happened. “I’ll just go through the ventilation, “Mission Impossible” style,” he thought. He worked his way through the duct, and just when he could see two of the pigs, he heard an eight-gauge shotgun being cocked. He froze, one hand ready to strike.
“Time to go,” the third little pig said, just before he fired the shotgun. The wolf was protected from the blast, but was shot out through the house, high into the air and was never seen in the city again.