Goldilocks and the two beach pavilions

A CCA bedtime story

By Linda Felaco

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks who lived on an organic farm in the woods near the Great Swamp, in a passive solar house she built all by herself out of native granite that she cut and shaped herself with her little hands. Imagine that!

Now, eight months out of the year, Goldilocks liked to ride her little bicycle all over town. Every day, she would ride a little bit farther away, and one day, she rode all the way to the ocean!

And what did she find there at the beaches but two brand-new beach pavilions being built. 


The workers were just getting ready to install the showers when Goldilocks arrived.

“Are those hot showers?” she asked.

“Why yes, they are,” the workers replied.

“Oh no!” Goldilocks said. “We can’t have hot showers! People will come all the way from Western Connecticut to use them, and we can’t have that!”

So the workers installed cold outdoor showers instead, using saltwater from the ocean.

Now, one of the pavilions was being built with blue shingles. The designers were trying to choose between two different shades of blue.

Goldilocks inspected the shingle samples. “These shingles are too blue!” she declared, pointing to one sample.

“And these shingles aren’t blue enough!” she declared, pointing to the other sample.

“But these shingles,” she said, pulling a sample book out of her knapsack in the basket of her bike, “are just right!”

And those were the shingles the workers installed on the pavilion.

Next, Goldilocks rode her little bicycle to the other pavilion, which was across the street from the beach. Goldilocks became very worried about “traffic calming.”

“There are only two speed bumps here!” Goldilocks exclaimed. “We must have at least five!”

Goldilocks was also worried about people getting run over crossing the street after using the bathrooms, even though they’d always had to cross the street from the parking lot long before the pavilion was built.

“I know!” she cried. “We can put some boulders along the edge of the parking lot to block people from walking out into the street! I have some lovely boulders up at my house. We can send the town workers up there to get them!”

But the workers pointed out that there already were boulders between the parking lot and the street.

“I know!” Goldilocks cried. “We can plant Rosa rugosa! That way, if people try to climb over the boulders, they’ll get scratched by the thorns!”

But the workers pointed out that Rosa rugosa is an invasive species.

“Run along now, little Goldilocks,” the workers told her. “Go back to your farm and grow some bramble fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowering perennials. You don’t want to lose your nice farm tax deduction, do you?”

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Read the other CCA bedtime stories:

The three little piggies

Little Red Riding Hood