If Snow White Had been Under Quarentine

Once upon a time, an evil queen’s vanity made her so jealous of her little step-daughter that she ordered the child’s death. The child was beautiful, with hair black as ebony, lips red as blood, and skin white as snow. Luckily, the little girl was spared by the huntsman. She came across a little cottage in the woods where there were seven little chairs, seven little beds, and a place to hang seven pick-axes hung on the wall.

Snow White, as the child was called, allowed herself inside. She cleaned up the clearly bachelor owned abode and fell asleep in one of the beds.

Seven little men came home that night with news of a disease that had spread from the village. They felt confident and smug as their work kept them from coming in contact with such illnesses. Then, they discovered their clean house and the girl drooling upon one of their pillows. Her lips were bright crimson and her skin was pale as death. Clearly, she was ill and had brought the disease upon them.

The seven dwarfs tripped over one another in a panic to be out of the house. They locked the door behind them and boarded up the windows and doors.

Snow White awoke as they continued to lock her in. She protested through the slats, insisting she wasn’t sick.

“That’s what sick people always say,” one of the oldest of the men declared. “Now you just stay in there under quarantine until the doctor says you can come out.”

“How long will that take?” she cried.

“The closest doctor is a three day ride from here on horseback,” a different man explained.

“Oh. Six days is not so bad. My step-mother locked in my my room for a week once.”

“Yes. But you see we don’t have a horse,” a third man said.

“But don’t worry. There is plenty of food in there for you to eat, little girl,” a fourth dwarf explained.

“We are sorry about this, but aren’t you glad we’re letting you stay in our house. Don’t think we didn’t consider burning it down,” a different dwarf stated.

The sixth dwarf grunted, “Just try not to breathe on anything until we get back.”

At which a seventh dwarf chimed in, “Unless you can do more cleaning and organizing. I mean, it would be the least you could do since we are going to get the doctor for you.”

And so they left her. Snow White started her isolated days easily. She patched up worn-out dwarf clothes and reorganized their sock drawers. When the days were particularly long, she cleaned. When the days felt shorter, she played games with the mice living in the walls.

Then the days started to blend together. Soon, she was speaking to the mice, planning out adventures with them. As this was the time before the internet, her child mind started to come up with her own answers to questions she had about the world. Her conversations with herself went like this:

“Why is a mouse’s tail not as furry as the rest of him?”

“Because, Snow White, is a bitch. That’s why.”

“Oh! Duh. Silly me.”
As the dwarfs had no books, she started using coal to draw and write stories on her walls. These were not as much fun after the mice criticized her tale of a her step-mother choking on a whole onion.

“What do you mean she wouldn’t eat a whole onion? Don’t question my art, mice!” Either way, the onion was changed to an apple.

Snow White didn’t know how many days had gone by (only that trying to cut her own hair had been a bad idea) when the dwarfs finally returned with a man a plague doctor mask. He removed the mask after the boards over one window were removed and he got a good look at her.

“This child isn’t sick. She just needs more sunlight. You seven do you know at the other symptom besides bleeding lips and pale skin is foaming from the mouth right? You’re lucky I don’t report you for child abuse, but as we don’t have laws for that, I guess there’s nothing I can do.”

The dwarfs released Snow White, she punched each of them in their seven faces, and she went back to town with the doctor. Snow White then used the plague mask and a gloves to take a comb, ribbons, and an apple from the home of a diseased family She sent them to her step-mother, waiting for the vain woman to be quarantined, and used the opportunity to take back her kingdom.

The end