Little Red’s Lessons

Rose is nineteen. As a girl she was Little Red to the whole village; she's still Red to her mother, her grandmother, and Peter, her oldest friend, lately something more, which pleases and confuses her. She lives with her mother, Maren, in a small cottage at the edge of the village; her father died of a fever one winter when she was very small. Her mother lives by piecework, mending, harvests, births and farm chores, wherever she's needed, and has been leaning on Rose more and more, to ready her for a life that needn't hang on a husband with a trade. Rose is easily distracted, wilful, reluctant to take on responsibility, and much loved. Her grandmother, Hulda, lives in the wood, a witch in all but name, valued for her charms and herbs, and she dotes on her.

The story opens on a visit to her grandmother. She's given a red cloak like the one she wore as a child, and called Little Red, and on the long walk home through the darkening wood she understands why it made her so happy: she isn't ready to be grown. Home late in the dusk, she and her mother talk frankly, and Rose finds she wants to be Little Red for a while, and that part of being Little Red is being held to account. Her mother is the first to take her in hand. Through the game she carries that identity into the village and beyond, shares it with others she learns to trust, and learns how being Little Red can help her to be Rose when the cloak comes off. She'll be the heroine of more than one fairytale, her own among them.

The safe word is her name. If she says "Rose" while she's being disciplined, she's Rose again, a grown woman who needs a different kind of care: everything stops at once, and her mother answers her as Rose. Her mother calls her Red, or Little Red, and never Rose while it lasts (a test checks this). Rose never uses her mother's or grandmother's names: they're Mama and Grandmother to her.

The look is a soft toon style (after The Wind Waker HD and Mika and the Witch's Mountain): grown-up bodies under larger-than-life heads, so faces carry big expressions. Everything is made in code: three.js, no build step, shapes and textures generated in the browser, synthesised sound, no asset files. It installs as a mobile web app.

Run it

npm run serve        # http://localhost:8123/ opens chapter one (story.html); /lap.html is the correction test (any of the cast, in any of the rooms: the cottage, the cabin, the bakery on its bench by the counter or brought into the middle, the inn, the forge's back room, the bench brought out); /editor.html is the character editor; /rooms.html is the room editor
npm test             # the pain model, the discipline scripts and the looks

The look (js/toon.js, js/stage.js)

• Smooth, rounded characters with two-band cel shading and a thin warm-brown outline (an inverted hull). The body is skinned to its skeleton, so the trunk, each arm, each leg and the neck are continuous surfaces that bend smoothly through the shoulders, elbows, waist, hips and knees, with the outline running unbroken across them. The bust is sculpted into the torso rather than set on it.
• Painted faces: eyes, lids, brows, mouth, blush and tears are drawn onto a thin layer that follows the face, and redrawn as the expression changes, so every feature morphs smoothly (the mouth from a smile through flat to a frown or open; the lids down over the eyes). The nose is a soft 3D slope with a painted shadow. Ten expressions, pushed further than life, ease from one to the next: calm, smile, shy, cheeky, pout, stern, surprised, wince, gritted, crying.
• Hair: a cap with a proper hairline and a fringe. Rose's long hair hangs from swinging pivots: two locks by her face and the back of it to her shoulder blades. It hangs with gravity, swings as she moves, and settles. Her mother wears hers in a bun, grey at one temple.
• Clipping: a covered part (skin under the skirt or in the boots, the drawers under the skirt, the blouse under the bodice, her mother's skirt behind her apron) keeps its own colour unless it pokes through what covers it; there, it's drawn in that layer's colour, so it reads as a fold of the cloth rather than something showing through. (Each frame, each figure's outer clothes are drawn on their own as depth first; a covered point in front of its layer's outer surface is one that has come through.)
• Clothes:
  • Rose: her grandmother's scarlet cloak, a capelet, longest at the back, edged in cream, with the hood down on her back or up over her hair. Under it, a cream blouse with puffed sleeves, a dark laced bodice, a skirt in the red of her cloak with a white hem, linen drawers, and boots.
  • Her mother: a plum bodice, a cream blouse, an apron and a long brown skirt, bare feet. Or her lavender "Fine" gown with gold bracelets.
  • How the skirts move: they are skinned to the legs, so they follow them. Seated, her mother's skirt is its own drape over her lap and knees.
• Motion: blinking, breathing, a standing idle (weight shifting from foot to foot, the head wandering), and springs on everything that reacts, so movement eases and settles instead of snapping.
• The cottage (js/cottage.js): one modest room. Wattle-and-daub walls limewashed white in an oak frame (sill, posts, rail, braces, wall plate), on a low stone foundation, under a thick thatch roof seen from inside (rafters, purlins, ridge beam, tie beams), with a gable at each end. A planked door with strap hinges, up on the foundation, with three stone steps down from it into the room (walked up and down: the figures step onto each),, a shuttered window letting a shaft of sun across the floor. A trestle table (jug, bowl, loaf) and two low stools; an iron-bound oak chest; a peg rail hung with dried herbs, lavender and wicker baskets; a stone hearth on the front wall, across from the pegs (a log fire on iron fire-dogs, its flames flickering and throwing a warm, wavering light across the room; an iron pot on a swinging crane, a kettle and fire irons on the hearthstone, a candlestick and jug on the mantel, logs stacked beside it, the chimney breast rising into the thatch); a raised bed nook with a straw mattress in ticking, a heavy woollen blanket, a patchwork quilt turned down, a bolster, and a curtain tied back. Walls, roof slopes and floor aren't drawn while the camera is outside them (each with whatever stands against it), so the room is open to the camera from any side, above or below.

The world (js/world.js, js/save.js, js/calendar.js, js/reputation.js, js/quests.js, js/questdata.js)

The game is an open world with a saved game, following the quest plan (docs/quest-plan.md) and the build plan (docs/build-plan.md). So far the places are the cottage, the wood and her grandmother's cabin: the cottage door gives onto the wood's village end (until the village is built), the wood's far end leads back to the cabin door, and each way out is a way in somewhere else.

• The saved game (js/save.js): where she is and when, every quest step done and on which day, her reputation, trust and openness with each figure, what she's told Wolfe, what she carries. Kept in the browser on every change; Continue on the title takes it up where it was left.
• The calendar (js/calendar.js): the day and the time of day (dawn, morning, afternoon, evening, dusk, night), the light that goes with it, and her curfew at nine (the village's is ten: Master William rings the bell at half past nine, and stands by it till ten). The day opens at half past seven at breakfast, the two of them sat at the table across from each other, their plates before them; her mother's word for the day, and then a fade, and Red's out of her door with her basket, what the errand wants packed for her (the pot in the basket; the little butt in her hands instead of it). Two game minutes pass for each second she's out and about (not while she's talking, or busy); sleeping (the bed, at home, from the evening on) moves on to the next morning. The day and time are top left, with the phase of the story.
• Her reputation (js/reputation.js): wilful, mischievous and naughty; trust and openness with each figure (0 doesn't know, 1 she's told them what being Little Red means, 2 she's asked them to take her in hand); how far it's known in the village; what she's told Wolfe, never shown.
• The quests (js/quests.js, the plan as data in js/questdata.js): every quest line's steps, the nine phases of the three acts, and the gates. A step is offered when its line has come to it, its phase is reached, its condition holds and its gate is open; going into a place plays the scene for the step on offer there. The pause menu's Her days shows where each line has got to. Every figure in the story is an adult (their ages are in the data, and a test holds to it).

So far chapter one (phase 1.1) is played through the world, and phase 1.2 opens the next morning with her mother agreeing her chores and the curfew. The rest of the plan's steps are in the data, waiting for their places and scenes.

Chapter one: The Red Cloak (story.html, js/chapter1.js)

The scenes, played by the world as their steps come up:

1. Her grandmother's cabin (js/cabin.js): a log cabin built hard against a great oak, the trunk the back corner of the room, roots and all, with shelves of jars cut into it and two of its limbs running in under the roof as beams hung with herbs. A stone hearth, a rocking chair, a round table laid for tea, a dresser, a box bed under a patchwork quilt, a braided rug, a round window. It opens with tea and cake and being fussed; her grandmother fetches a parcel from the dresser and gives it to her: a red cloak like the one she wore as a girl. She puts it on, turns round to show it, and her grandmother calls her Little Red. Then she's free about the cabin until she goes out of the door.
2. The wood (js/wood.js): the long path home. Her thoughts come as she goes, without stopping her (the realisation, in her own words). Three places stop her: the bluebells (she picks a posy), the stream (she sits on the flat stone) and the old beech (the R and P). At each she can choose to stay longer: an armful of bluebells, a while thinking by the water about being responsible, a while with the carving and her memories of Peter. The time goes with the path (whatever her pace), each stop and each time she stays, so she's home in the dusk at the least, and well into it if she lingers; she can also sit on the fallen tree. At the edge of the wood the trees give way to the meadow: open grass thick with buttercups, clover, daisies and cornflowers, a few lone oaks, hedges down either side, and the lane across it to the meadow gate, the village's trees and chimney smoke beyond the hedge. Go through the gate, from either side, opens it and takes her through, between the meadow and the village. Home, she carries the bluebells in (a posy, or an armful): her mother's first clue that she didn't come straight home. Asked if she did, she can come clean or insist she did. Each place she stayed, and a lie, makes the correction heavier: the main part runs longer, her mother scolding her for each, before the hairbrush comes out (always twelve).
3. The village (js/village.js), on the way: out of the wood at the meadow gate and down the street to her own door. (See The village, below.)
4. Home, late in the dusk: it opens on her mother by the hearth, waiting, concerned, turned to the open door, as Rose comes in and down the steps in her cloak; then her mother sees her face at once, and the homecoming conversation. Then the correction, played there in the room (js/correction.js): a fade, the chair at the middle of the room and the lap scene in it, a Light correction scripted by js/discipline.js, her mother's lines in the conversation box over the smacks. The round camera button steps round the angles; the octagon, ROSE (or R), is her name, and stops it at once. Then the two of them by the fire, the end of the chapter, and on to the next morning.

The title screen can begin again, continue, or start chapter one at the wood or at home. Her grandmother, Hulda, is a third character: shorter and softer through the middle, grey all through her hair, a knitted shawl over her shoulders, laugh lines.

The Fowlers' smallholding (js/holding.js)

Where the meadow meets the wood: the fork leaves the meadow lane at a finger-post (on the beech's side of the path; the Barrows' way will fork off the other side, one day), crosses the meadow and goes out through a gap in its east hedge. Beyond it the lane runs on between hedgerows, meadow either side and the wood along the north, to the fence round the Fowlers' holding and its gate. Inside: Peter and his grandfather's cottage, built as the village's are; the coop on its legs and the hens scratching in their run, the duck on her pond, the nets drying on their poles, the garden, the cat on the step, the bench by the door. Peter's at the nets in the morning, the coop at midday, the pond of an afternoon; Master Fowler on the bench, or in his garden. Each can be talked to (a little trust the first time each day): Peter calls her Red; Master Fowler asks after Hulda, and grumbles about the wood. The holding is theirs to let her into: until the first visit, she can only walk the lane to the gate. (Not on chapter one's walk home: the fork opens once that's done.)

Peter (js/peter.js)

• The first visit. The first errand asked once the chores are agreed is Eggs from the Fowlers'. Master Fowler meets her at his gate: the eggs (fourteen: the hens won't hear of fewer), Hulda, the noises at the wood's edge. Then he lets her in and points out Peter, and leaves her to find him. Talking to him is shy at first (he looks at his net as if it might help), then easier: the linnets he let go, Tom in the duck pond, sitting by the nets. His grandfather crosses the yard as they talk, reaching them with the last line, and sends Peter to walk her back to the village. A fade, and the two of them at the meadow gate, on the wood's side: he tells her of a knot in the old beech, at the height of her hand, where he might leave her something; then he goes back across the meadow, and her day's her own again. If she comes of her own accord first, it plays the same, without the eggs. After it, the gate stands open to her and the eggs are an errand like any other.
• Notes at the beech. Every few days (never on the day of the visit, nor on his days off), Look in the knot of the beech: a folded note, "The beech, at four. If you can. P." The objective holds the hour. He's there from then, and for an hour after; come, and they sit under the carving a while (forty minutes, and a little trust). Two meetings, and Meetings at the beech is done. Miss one, and next time he says he waited, till the light went. Passing the beech with a note in it, she remembers what he said (a thought, and she walks on). Talking to him at the Fowlers' with one unread, he asks shyly if she's been by the beech. There before the hour, Wait for Peter: the time passes under a fade, and he comes along the path to her; and after their talk he goes under another fade.
• His free time. Once she's been: his afternoons, from two (unless he's waiting at the beech), and all of Lay day, his day off, he's in the village: about the green, on the lime-tree bench, by the pond as often as not (the ducks). He can be talked to there.

Grandmother's herbs (js/herbs.js)

At her grandmother's door, from the path, Red knocks (Knock at the door), and her grandmother calls her in from inside, as in the tale: Who's that knocking? … Then lift the latch, my love, and come in. The door swings in for her.

Visiting her grandmother in the days after the cloak, Red's asked to fetch a herb, one at a time: yarrow from the meadow, west of the lane (flat white heads, leaves like feathers); wood sorrel on the stream's bank (three folded hearts, small white flowers: "taste one"); comfrey by the fallen tree, where the ground stays wet (big rough leaves, purple bells). Each grows where she says (a patch of it, drawn), and is gathered there (Pick the yarrow, and so on). Brought back, her grandmother teaches her what it's for: woundwort for cuts, sorrel for a fever and for knowing you're awake, knitbone for sprains and bruises ("if you ever want some, and would rather not say what for, you only have to ask"). One a visit; the next asked another day. Three brought, and the herb errands are done (one of the three things 1.3 waits on). Until the first is asked, the day's list says to visit her when there's time.

Into the Wood: phase 1.3 (js/intowood.js, js/inhand.js)

The village's middle figures taken up, Agnes and Georgie settled, and Holt in the wood. Phase 1.3 opens once the pie, Mistress Abney's promise and Grandmother's herbs are done; Act 2 waits on five of what follows (the smith's standard, Mistress Pennock's trust, Mistress Abney taking her in hand, Holt met, and Agnes and Georgie settled), and opens on the stranger at the stream.

• Holt, at Grandmother's. The first visit in 1.3, he's sat at her table: the woodsman, big and quiet, who cuts her wood and mends her roof. A warning (a man about these last weeks, good boots and no business), and Red's answer (careful, or "I can look after myself"); then off out of the door to an ash by the stream.
• The stranger at the stream (Act 2's first step). Of an afternoon or evening, when she's on her own on the path, a man on the flat stone, filling a flask. Charming; asking far more than he tells. Whatever she tells him (her grandmother at the path's end; that she likes it on her own; that she's Little Red) is kept, and never shown. He doesn't give his name.
• Telling Tom (once he trusts her): he says she's been odd since the pie, and she can tell him what she and her mother have ("Does it help?" "It does."), or not yet.
• The same standard as Tom. Once Tom knows, she can ask Master Ferrier to answer to him as Tom does, for what they get up to together. Agreed, the next dare she takes with Tom, he's heard it from the anvil: into the forge's back room, the pair of them, the bench brought out from under the workbench, Tom first (to the corner after, the one by the door), then her; and he walks up to tell her mother himself (a reprieve at home).
• Mistress Pennock's trust. At the end of a morning's work, once she trusts Red enough: the key to her back door under the third pot, for any hour; and setting straight, if ever she needs it.
• Mistress Abney. At the end of an afternoon's work, once she trusts Red enough: "you've something on your mind, and it isn't pots." Red can tell her and ask to know where she stands with her: then and there, by the fire, Bess watching ("she's been wanting to do that to someone for years"). Her mother hears it from her, and is glad.
• Peter notices she's changed, at the beech or at the Fowlers'; how much she tells him is hers (all of it, an "understanding", or nothing, which he doesn't believe).
• Her hour, told. After his first catch, an evening at home: her mother's had a word with Master William and filled him in: Red's hour is nine, not the village's ten, so from then on he looks out for her from nine. He still walks her to her door for her mother to see to. (His offer to see to it himself, and her mother's blessing for it, are Act 2's.)
• Agnes and Georgie (js/agnes.js). From the morning after the fair Agnes keeps away from the well, sat on the pinfold wall watching Bo's ewes (and if Red missed the kiss, she's heard of it by then: Tom's told everyone). Found there, she doesn't want his sorry: she wants him to feel it as she did, and doesn't know how he could. Trusting Red enough, she can be told what being Little Red means: asked for, a word that stops it, and the after. Then Georgie, once he trusts Red (and has walked her home on a Lay night after the fair, awkward and honest, or trusts her more still), and once someone besides her mother has taken Red in hand: ashamed, and running made it worse. Red puts it to him plainly, and it's his to choose. Yes: the three of them at the pinfold, the terms set (the wood, off the herb path by the fallen tree, the next afternoon; his word, Millstone; and whether Red's there, which Agnes asks), then done there, Agnes on the trunk with her father's legget, Red watching, and the after, the two of them. No: his sorry, meant, and not enough; Agnes civil, and back at the well. Either way it's settled, and Agnes is at the well again, with a word for Red the first time.

The village (js/village.js)

The village from outside, built as the cottage and the cabin are (limewashed daub in an oak frame on a stone footing, thick thatch with its ridge capped, the same textures and ink) and at the same scale. One street runs through it, from the meadow gate in the north-west (and the wood beyond) to the east gate and the farms; the green lies south of it, with the well, the old lime tree with a bench round it, the curfew bell on its frame, the stocks (only to look at, for now) and the duck pond, and a lane loops round the green's far side, with the lane south to the mill off it.

• Maren's cottage, nearest the wood: its walls are the room's own, so her door (on the west end), her windows and the hearth's chimney are where they are inside. Her door opens and she goes in; out of it, she's on the path to the street. Her vegetable garden is behind.
• The inn (Mistress Abney's): across the street from the green, two floors, its sign (a wheatsheaf) over the street, benches and a table, barrels, a lantern by the door.
• The bakery (Mistress Pennock's): at the green's east end, the bread oven a stone dome against its gable, a loaf on its sign, the window's board let down as a counter with loaves on it.
• The forge (Master Ferrier's): stone, its front open onto the lane, the hearth glowing inside, the anvil on its stump, the slack tub, a cart wheel.
• The cottages: next door to Maren's, the Pennocks' (past the inn, a step up the street from the bakery), the Ferriers' (by the mill lane, round the corner from the forge), the Thatchers' (Agnes's), the Dunns' (the Watchman's, a lantern by the door for his rounds), and three more; gardens of vegetables and flowers in hurdle fences. The bakery and the forge are workplaces: the Pennocks and the Ferriers walk to them from home, and back.
• The pinfold, just inside the east gate on the way to Halloran's farm: a round pound of dry stone with a gate, where Bo Peep's flock is penned overnight (in at dusk; by day they graze at the farm), and where strays are put.
• Round it: low stone walls along the street and lanes, an orchard, ploughed strips and a hayfield with its stacks, hedges, and trees thickening toward the wood. The east and south lanes end at gates, shut for now.

Only the outsides for now: her door is the one that opens. At dusk the windows and lanterns light. Outdoors the camera is kept out of the buildings, pulled in toward her when one is in the way. The still parts are merged by material once built, so the whole village draws in a couple of hundred calls.

Bo Peep and the flock (js/flock.js)

Every evening at five Bo Peep (Halloran's granddaughter, eighteen and young for it) brings her grandfather's flock in from the farm: in at the east gate, along the street, and up the lane to the pinfold, where they're penned for the night. As she passes, Red can stop for a word with her (once a day). She looks up to Rose: her trust starts at two. About one evening in three, after the first few days, the flock won't mind her and scatters about the street's east end, and she runs to Red for help. Helping, Red goes after the strays (near enough, and each trots back to the pinfold; Bo brings in what she can, more slowly), and when all nine are in, Bo's thanks. Saying she can't costs a little of Bo's trust. Not there, or not helping, Bo manages alone, by half past six.

Days and errands (js/chores.js)

Once the chores are agreed with her mother (the morning after the homecoming), the days have a shape:

• Mama's garden, behind the cottage, every day before dusk (see Mama's garden, below). Left till dusk, it's a little broken promise.
• Her mother's errands, asked over breakfast from that first morning (the chores agreed, the eggs from the Fowlers' asked straight after). One left undone (let slide, missed, turned down, or never finished) is asked again the next morning, before anything new ("Yesterday's still wants doing"), unless that day falls to a shift (the bakery's afternoon, or the inn's on Carrier's day), when it waits for the day after. The water from the well let slide leaves the garden's butt dry: the flowers can't be watered till it's fetched. A garden left only for that (the weeds and the beds done, the flowers dry) isn't held against her as the garden: her mother speaks of it as the well's, one thing let slide running on into the next.
• An errand on most days, given over breakfast: her mother says what's to be done today, and Red says yes (there's no refusing it: the deciding is her mother's now, which is what Red asked for). Her yes is a promise, to be begun by its time (shown as the objective and in the journal); how she says it is how she's been lately (a sulk, a grin, or meek). Past its time there's a half hour's grace, not spoken of: begun then, it's done, for half the trust. Let that go by too, and it's let slide: wilful, she knows it, and it's too late to do (her mother says so, once). Three let slide in a week bring a maintenance correction that evening, last thing (her hand; the shape of her days put back: the garden, what's given her, the bell), which settles her wilfulness.
• The errands, first asked in this order from the second day: eggs from the Fowlers', a pot to the forge, an afternoon helping at the bakery (the clearing down), a jug from the inn, a pie for the Dunns (not before three, when Master William's up: knock earlier and nobody answers; leave it till he's gone out to the bell and it can't be done, and her mother has words), an evening working at the inn (from four, the carrier's men and their suppers, into the evening: straight home after), water from the well, bread from the bakery. After that, any of them, most days, but the well: that's asked again once Red's filled the watering can five times from the garden's butt (the water she drew last time used up), whatever else the day might have been. Each is done at its place in the village, some carried home to her mother after. At the well, Agnes Thatcher's there each time, and talks while Red draws the three pails. What she carries: her basket is in her hand whenever she's out of doors: she has it as she goes out in the morning. At home and at her grandmother's she keeps it in hand until they sit down at the table (or another scene fades in), when it's set by, back in her hand as she goes out. At work (the bakery, the inn, the forge) it's set by as she comes in, and back in her hand as she leaves. Anything she's carrying she can put down where she stands with Q (offered on screen when she goes to take something else with her hands full); out of doors it stays where she put it the rest of the day (her peg at home empty meanwhile), and is back where it lives the next morning. Going to take something else with her hands full, she thinks she'll have to put down what she has first. What's collected goes in her basket (the eggs, the loaves, the jug; the Dunns' pie, put in by her mother; a herb for her grandmother): going to collect without it, she remembers where she left it (set by at home, or where she put it down), and can't till she has it; the list and the guide say where it is. While she's carrying it, a basket by the diary (or B) lists what's in it. What goes from the cottage is picked up there (the pot, on the hearth across from the kettle); the well's errand is the little water butt by the hearth, carried down, filled with three pails, and walked home full (too heavy to run). Go to the door without what the errand wants, and her mother calls after her, and the door stays shut. The pot's gone from the house for the day once it's with the smith. Their scenes don't spend the day: the clock stops while they play, and moves on by the work's own time when she's done.

When the one an errand is for is there (Master Pennock at the bakery's door, the smith at his anvil, Mistress Abney at the inn), they say their own word for it; when they're indoors or about elsewhere, what happens is told, around Red's own thoughts.

Mama's garden (js/garden.js)

Mary's garden, of the rhyme: Maren's, and Red's to tend. Three rows of flowers, the silver bells (pale hanging bells), the cockle shells (scalloped coral fans) and the pretty maids (white daisies, all in a row), each between beds that feed the house: onions, cabbages, and beans up their poles. Paths run between the rows, with a headland down either side; the gate is on the west, by the cottage, and the water butt is in the far corner with the can at its foot.

Each day's work varies (the objective shows what's left):

• Weeds: one to four, come up anywhere, between the flowers or among the greens. Pull up the weed, from the path beside it.
• Watering: the flowers, and only the flowers, the rows that are dry: all three on a dry day, one or two on others, none after rain in the night (her mother says so at breakfast). Take the watering can, Fill the can at the butt (enough for two rows), and Water the silver bells from the path beside them, walking its length with the can held out; the bed darkens as it's watered. Then Put the can back by the butt.
• The vegetables: one or two of Hoe between the onions, Pick the caterpillars off the cabbages, Tie the beans up their poles.
• Days off: about one day in five her mother has the time and sees to the garden herself, and the day after a correction for it she sets her flowers straight herself; she says so over breakfast.

Each piece of work is offered only from close by, and spends a few minutes (two a weed, six a row and two a fill, eight a job): the work itself is about half an hour on an average day, besides the walking. Walk carefully: steer her off a path into a row of flowers and they go down, tipped out of their row, and their petals cling to her boots for a few hours (on her ankles, wherever she goes), dropping off one by one. Anyone in the village near enough to see her tread them, or to see the petals fall from her boots, is remembered.

Every few days (never the next day, sometimes the second, always by the third) her mother goes round the garden at dusk; the first time Red's home that evening (coming in, or before bed), she says what she found. Nothing amiss, a word of praise. Trodden flowers, and she asks: owning up brings a correction for the carelessness (her hand). A lie is believed, unless it was that same day and the petals are still on her boots: then the correction is for both, longer, with the hairbrush to finish. A lie believed may not hold: if anyone saw (or, one time in three, someone in the lane), her mother hears it the next day, and that evening it's the correction for both. Either way she sets her flowers straight again.

The village's people (js/villagers.js)

The village's people keep to their days. Where each is, is worked out from the day and the time (the same every time it's asked), and they come out of their doors, walk the lanes to their places, and go in again when their day's done:

• Agnes Thatcher has no trade to keep her: out from eight till dusk, here and there (the lime-tree bench, the pond, a walk round the green), but most often by the well.
• Georgie Dunn is at the mill all day. On most afternoons he's back by three or so, till the bell: on the inn's bench, about the green, or near the well, where he can see Agnes.
• Tom Ferrier is at the forge's slack tub in smithing hours (seven till four), out and about after; about one day in three his father gives him the day off. On some of his free days he comes and finds her, whether or not she has something she ought to be doing (an errand, the garden: then he's keeping her from it). She can get away early (a few minutes gone), or ask what it is: then it's a story (half an hour, and a little of his trust), or a dare: ring the curfew bell in broad day, or knock at the Dunns' door with Master William asleep upstairs (mischievous, either). Taken, the dare's hers to do (in the list, and marked): Tom watches from where he is, and comes running up after, crowing. The clock runs while he keeps her.
• Master Ferrier at his anvil, seven till five. Bess Abney on the bench outside the inn through the day; Mistress Abney at the inn's door at the busy times (midday, and from five).
• Mistress Pennock at the bakery's counter in the morning, Master Pennock at its door early on (he bakes from four, and goes to his bed after; the afternoon's the clearing down, inside).
• Master William, the Watchman, on his round at night, lantern in hand, from a little before the bell till first light.

Each can be talked to (Talk to Agnes, and so on): a word by the time of day, something else if they've talked already today, and a little trust the first time each day. Peter Fowler's days off in the village come after the first visit to the Fowlers'. They walk the lanes and paths as a net of points (the shortest way, cutting corners where it's clear); those too far from the camera to make out aren't drawn.

Who knows. What Red can take it the village knows (rep.aware, rep.allAware in js/reputation.js), counted among those who sleep in the village (Peter, the Hallorans and Bo live out). Those she's told herself; Mistress Ferrier once Tom and his father both know; Bess once her mother knows, or after her hints enough times over; Master Pennock, his wife's knowing standing for his; Georgie, if Red says she knows how it feels after Agnes's correction of him in the glade (Agnes tells him why she can), or later, when he lets slip in the village that he's had one; the Thatchers, after the fair, at the door with her mother as Red comes in to dinner, fond of her as of when she was small, and her mother asks if she'd mind them knowing (she wouldn't) and has a word with Mistress Thatcher herself. All of them knowing is what lets the Watchman see to her where he finds her, with nobody asking after.

The week. Seven days, counted as country folk count them, and the days that mean something named for what happens on them: First day, Second day, Third day, Carrier's day (the carrier through, and his men at the Wheatsheaf of an evening: the inn's evening shift falls on it), Fifth day, Baking day (the Pennocks bake double for tomorrow; no bakery afternoon for Red), and Lay day, when work is laid by: the forge cold, the bakery and the mill shut, no farm work but the beasts, Maren home all day, and nothing given Red but the garden. Tom and Georgie are about all day; Peter's in the village for his one day off (the birds and his grandfather's leg keep him at home the rest of the week, though about one working day in four he's sent down at midday with birds for the inn, and is about for an hour). Tom's at the tub seven till three, and about one working day in four there's no work after dinner and his father lets him go at noon. On Lay night, Lay day's eve (Baking day's night, into Lay morning), Georgie takes his father's watch, lantern and all, the mill being shut the day after so he can sleep it off (he's about on Lay day from the afternoon): he rings the bell at half past nine, and doesn't know Red's nine o'clock hour, so stops her only after ten, awkwardly; walks her home; and tells her mother he won't tell his father. (His catches are his own: they don't count toward Master William's.) The clock shows the day's name ("Day 12 · Carrier's day · 4.30 in the afternoon").

Her mother's day. It's planting time, so most days Maren is out at the Hallorans' farm: she walks out of the door after breakfast, is home for dinner at half past twelve, out again from half past one, and home for good at half past five. About one day in four she has needlework, and stays home for the morning or the afternoon instead (she says which at breakfast). While she's out, there's no one to talk to at home, and what Red brings back is left on the table for her (the errand's done all the same). Dinner: if Red comes in at dinner time, it fades straight to the two of them at the table with their plates; if she's in already, her mother comes in from the farm, glad to find her, says to sit, and then the table. Red tells her morning first (what she's done, and not), and then her mother has her word on it (the garden, the errand, a trodden stem by the path), never correcting there, but saying what she's seen; a fade, and they're up again, and her mother's back at her work: gone, if it's the farm, or in the chair by the hearth at her needlework (so too after breakfast, and whenever Red comes in while she's at it). It fills her capacity again. What she's warned of and still finds undone that evening is wilful as well. Not home for dinner, and her mother mentions it at supper.

The fair's fortnight (js/fair.js): once the inn's evening has been worked, the first of Grandmother's herbs learnt, and Bo met, the planting at the Hallorans' is finished on the next Sixth Day (her mother says so at breakfast), and the spring fair is the Sixth Day a week on. The week between, her mother's home, making Red a dress for the fair from a length of blue cloth she's kept back: at her needlework in the chair by the hearth on the First, Second and Third day mornings, and on Fifth day's afternoon, when she wants Red home at four to try it on and have the hem pinned (late, and she's kept her waiting, and says so: wilful). In that week everyone who works is busy getting ready and says so (the hurdles, the flour, the hinges, the rooms aired), and Mistress Pennock's and Mistress Abney's asks for her help come in fair-week terms. After breakfast and dinner her mother is either gone to the farm or sat at her work in her chair, moved to the hearth for it (and back under the peg rail for meals). The fair day itself has no garden, errand or shifts; her mother's at her stall all day; the clock runs at the inn shift's pace, a minute a second; and Red's curfew is lifted till the fair ends at ten. Fair day (js/fairday.js): stalls along the north of the green, bunting between them and across the dancing ground: her mother's flowers (her mother in her good dress), Grandmother's remedies beside them, the Pennocks' gingerbread, Mistress Thatcher's ribbons and fairings, Mistress Abney's ale; the Miller fiddling on his crate; everyone at the fair, and the visitors (the Thatchers, Old Halloran and Bo's mother and father, Bo herself by the pens, the carrier's men), each with a word. Red's in the blue dress all day, and the first time each of them sees her in it they say so: those who know what being Little Red means (or, like Master William, half know it) with an allusion to keeping it out of the cinders; the rest fondly; Agnes with the blue dress with a white collar she wore as a girl; Peter flustered if he's easy with her, and undone if he's still shy. The errands come as the day goes on: her mother's (more flowers cut from the garden, from the path beside the maids; her purse from the chest at home; her dinner from the table), Grandmother's (yarrow from the meadow), and favours she may turn down: Master Ferrier's stall hooks from the back of the forge (mind the hearth's soot), Bo's old ewe out of her mother's cabbages (round by the paths), Mistress Thatcher's ribbon taken to Bess at the Wheatsheaf (her frock story then, if Red's not heard it). Each is fetched into her basket and given to whoever asked, and shown in the objectives. The dress takes what the day puts on it, and shows it at once: earth from any garden bed she cuts across, the pond's edge wet, the forge's soot. From seven Peter asks her to dance (shy, or easy, as he trusts her), and they go round to the Miller's fiddle; in the middle of it Georgie Dunn catches Agnes by the shoulders and kisses her in front of everyone; she cries, Tom and the lads come roaring, and he runs down the mill lane and leaves her standing (if Red's not dancing, it happens all the same by half past eight, if she's near). : home after ten (her curfew lifted till half past), her mother in from her stall sees the dress: clean, and she's proud; a mark owned, and they wash and mend it together in the morning; spoiled, or said to be fine when it isn't, and Red's corrected for it (and for the hiding), and it's mended in the morning all the same.

Evenings on the green (js/green.js): from seven till near nine the young ones gather, Agnes and Georgie on the bench round the lime tree, Tom about the green, Peter by the pond on his days in the village; and one of them may ask her along (Tom's dares, Agnes's news, Peter's quiet things: three each, in turn). Once an evening, an hour gone, home before the bell, and their trust, more than a day's talk brings. At supper, when there's time before the bell and she's not seen them, her mother says she passed them on the green coming in; and every so often, once it's been four days or more, she asks when Red was last up at her grandmother's (who, at the end of the first tea, asks her to come back soon, whenever it all sits too heavy, or for no reason at all).

Out of the wood by dusk: apart from the village's curfew, the wood has its own rule: out of it before the light goes. Still in it at seven (on Grandmother's errands, after chapter one), Red knows it at once; it's wilful, and her mother's correction is owed that evening, raised as she comes in.

The loaf, and the ducks (js/loaf.js): what goes from the house goes in her basket (the pot, which makes it heavy: no running, and it wears her more; the loaf); tools (the trowel, the watering can, the little butt, the broom) want her hands, and can't be held with it. The bowl on the table is the table's. The loaf is her mother's, for supper: putting it in her basket is naughty. That evening her mother finds it gone and asks: still in her basket, Red can own up and put it back (half the naughtiness of taking it gone again), or say she doesn't know. Peter, on his days in the village, sometimes lingers by the pond watching the ducks, and wishes he'd a crust for them. With bread in her basket (the loaf, or Master Pennock's loaves on the bread errand), he sees it, and they can feed the ducks together: every crumb gone. Then it's owned up to that evening, and a correction owed (the loaves were her mother's errand: they can't be handed over now). What she's brought home, if she comes in at dinner time, is handed across the table as the dinner talk begins. The loaf's eaten too, a piece at each meal (a loaf lasts about four days); down to the heel, her mother asks her over breakfast to fetch another from Mistress Pennock's counter (shopping: not an errand, but named on top of whatever the day's is; both done, and she's twice grateful at supper, one missed and she's understanding) (Ask Mistress Pennock for a loaf, in her basket; home, Put the fresh loaf on the board). Taken and still in her basket, it can go back on the board before her mother misses it. Fed to the ducks in part, the rest back on the board, her mother sees it's gone down at the next meal and asks: I was hungry is a lie, and she takes it for wilful, chides her for eating between meals, and counts it toward the week's three; the truth is naughty, and a correction.

Her mother in the day (talking to her before six): whatever Red's brought home is given first, and the errand's done (the eggs out of the basket, the basket hers to hang up again); or, an errand with nothing to bring, she asks how it went, and Red says (fine; Tom kept her talking; harder than she thought); or, still to do, a reminder of it, and the time (late: it's not too late); or a word about nothing much (the Thatchers' hens, the Hallorans' mending, a sprig of rosemary on the step from Grandmother). Then the garden, if it's not done ("the garden won't tend itself"), or supper at six.

The bakery's day: the days Red's asked at breakfast for the bakery's afternoon (at one, just after dinner), her mother's at the Hallorans' all day and says so: not home for dinner, but there'll be bread and cheese out on the table. It's there from when she goes till she's back at half past five; eaten, it's Red's dinner (it fills her as much, and counts as it), and on that day no dinner's missed either way.

Evenings at home (js/evening.js)

Whenever Red comes home after six of her own accord (walking in at her door, not sent there by a scene), her mother has a word with her, and in it whatever she's learned that might call for a correction, in this order:

• Brought home by the Watchman. Master William comes out to the bell at a quarter past nine, rings it at half past, and stands by it till ten, the village's curfew; then he goes his round, seeing the stragglers in. If he sees her out, he calls to her to stop where she is, and comes to her; then he walks her home a few steps behind her. Till he's been told her own curfew is nine (by her mother, when she speaks with him about Willie Winkie's blessing, whichever way Red answers) he leaves her be until ten; after, he'll stop her any time after nine (the objective says so; the way to the wood is shut to her while he does). At her door he hands her over to her mother, and goes back to his round. His first catch completes Caught after curfew; the first and second are remembered for what he offers later.
• In after the bell, brought home or not: corrected for it.
• What someone else has already dealt with (Mistress Pennock, for the pie): a reprieve, always. Her mother has heard of it from them, or Red tells her herself; or, if neither, her mother hears of it in a day or two, and it's a reprieve still, with a word about not being told.
• The pie: sent home by Mistress Pennock (told or kept back), or found out the next evening.
• The garden: her mother's look round, every few days.

Telling her day (js/report.js). At dinner and at supper her mother asks about her day, and Red tells her what she will, a thing at a time (each with its word between them, then the choice again: the errand, the garden, Grandmother's herb, Peter at the beech, the bread, a dare, the loaf, her mother's flowers, a correction someone else gave her, the pie), or says there's nothing much (nothing else, once she's told one). Then what her mother's noticed for herself and Red hasn't said, she asks: the errand, the garden, the flowers she's been round, the loaf on the board, a dare the village is talking of; and Red owns up, or lies (found out at once, it's naughty). Owning up before she's asked is better than when she's asked. What's told or asked at dinner isn't again at supper. Owning up to the ducks earns her mother's leave for the heel: any morning after when the heel's all that's left, it's in Red's basket for them.

Her mother's own corrections are always the last thing of the evening: whatever's earned one is raised when it comes up, and the evening goes on as usual, coloured by it. Only one correction an evening; whatever else is owed waits for the next. Supper: her mother calls her to the table, and under a fade they're sat on the stools across it from each other, a bowl of potatoes between them; will she help (Of course, and she peels too, or an honest I'm worn through, and she sits with her mother while she peels), and the day talked over as the knives go round. Nothing owed: up from the table, and supper's when she's ready for it: she washes at the jug and basin on the dresser (before nine she can slip out again first; after nine her mother reminds her gently of the curfew at the door). A correction owed: her mother ends the talk with it: after supper, and go and wash for it. A fade to the two of them stood in the room, and what it's for, said plainly; a fade, and it's given. In after the bell, or brought to the door by Master William or Georgie: no supper. Handed over, her mother's word on it, stood, and straight into the correction (if Master William has seen to it himself on the way, once her mother's let him, only a word between them instead). After every correction, at home, in the chair where it was given, her mother still sat in it: Red held on her lap if she reached tears, or sat up on it if not, and a word. After a curfew one, the night's her own in the house: the bread and cheese on the board if she wants it, and Sleep until morning at the bed (at the door, her mother sends her back sternly). Every night ends in bed: the two of them under the quilt, her mother's arm over her, the fire low, and Red's thoughts on the day (the correction, the errand, her grandmother's herb, Peter at the beech), her mother asleep before she is; and the morning. Before six, coming in only brings up what can't wait: being sent home by Mistress Pennock. Each of them answers, too, what else she's holding against Red (how naughty, how wilful she's found her lately, short of the week's three that make a maintenance correction): any of it, and it's her drawers down for the last of it, and longer the more there is; brought home by the Watchman, the hairbrush besides, a spell of it not counted. A reprieve for one thing (someone else has dealt with it) doesn't excuse another still owed that night, and she says so. Nothing owed is slept on: whatever's owed that day is seen to that night, all of it together (tonight's reason leads; the rest is named over her before the end), whichever way the evening ends (after supper, after the bell, brought home by the Watchman, the fair's night); only what someone else has already dealt with is let go.

The week, and maintenance. What Red does is wilful (the shape of her days pushed against: what she's told, let slide or refused; what her mother minds most), naughty (what costs someone else: taking, lies, broken promises, harm to what others made or grew; weighed heavier, as character), or mischievous (play that harms no one much: never her mother's reason for this). Each Lay day morning, after breakfast, her mother reckons the week since the last: wilful, naughty half again, and one for each correction she's needed besides (from anyone: needing them more than once a week is just what this guards against). Over the line, she's set right there and then: all three stages, each longer than an evening's, her mother going through the week as she gives it (what was let slide, her skirt lifted; what cost somebody else, her drawers down; and the hairbrush, which she's sent to fetch, for the corrections that didn't hold and the week as a whole). Her wilfulness is settled after, and some of the naughtiness. Near the line, a plain warning; a good week (a little wilful at most, hardly naughty, nothing that needed seeing to), said so. Midweek, once she's near it, her mother warns her at supper, once.

The inn (js/inn.js), and Mistress Abney's promise (js/promise.js)

The Wheatsheaf's taproom: the great hearth with its fire and Bess's high-backed chair drawn up to it, the counter across the back with the barrels behind and tankards on their hooks, two long tables with benches, the stair up to the rooms, the door from the street. Mistress Abney at her counter; Bess in her chair (she's not to be on her feet), to talk to.

The inn's evening, played (js/work.js and js/innshift.js): given at breakfast, Work at the inn by four takes her in at the door. Mistress Abney is off to Ashby for the brewer till seven, and Bess has the house, from her chair: Red is her legs. Bess's word as she works: Build up the fire, Wipe down the tables, Scour the pots, Set out the bowls and bread. At about five the carrier's men come in (big Ned Hobb, old Amos, young Kit, as figures, to the table by the hearth) and call their orders: ale, drawn at the barrels (the second, not the first), or stew, ladled from the pot on the fire, and taken to the man who asked. Keep one waiting too long and Bess hauls herself up and sees to it herself, the very thing her mother asked Red to see she didn't. In a lull (before they come, or with nobody waiting; twice an evening at most) Red can Sit with Bess a minute, and Bess's story comes out a piece a shift: the baby kicking, Rose under the table at six, her brothers and sister gone, Robert Shafto and Curly Locks, the woman from Ashby for the birth, how Rose has changed; old Amos knew Robert. Then Clear after them, Sweep out. The shift runs on its own quicker clock; at seven Mistress Abney's back and looks it over: all done, and Bess up no more than once, it's done (her trust, and Bess's; then her favour to ask, or her taking Red in hand). Not done, or Bess up twice: before Red's confided in her, nothing for it but her worry; after, a correction, as Mistress Pennock's. Offered on the day by Mistress Abney (Abney's offer), it's an afternoon's tidying with her there, no carrier's men. The first evening completes Work at the inn.

Shifts, in any order. At the bakery and the inn alike, the tasks are offered where they're done, as she comes near each, and can be done in any order (as the garden's are); a task with another before it (clearing after the carrier's men) waits for that one. At the inn each table is a task of its own; Bess's tea steeps on the bar, taken up there and carried to her; sweeping, as at the bakery, begins with the broom by the door. If she comes in with her basket, it's set by while she works and back in her hands as she goes. Mistress Abney's own afternoon (Abney's offer, on the day: two hours, its clock running a minute a second): she goes up to turn out the rooms, and comes down when the time's up (not when the list is done: done early, Red waits it out). More than half done: a help, and her thanks. Half: no more said. Less: Abney's stricter than Mistress Pennock: idle, her trust down; or, once Red's confided in her, naughty, and taken in hand for it. With her mother out of the room, Bess asks Red to sit a while (after the second thing done, and the fourth): on the bench nearest her chair, a piece of Bess's story, and another if Red stays, or she remembers she should get on. Every shift ends, once the boss has had her word (and her correction, if there's one), in a fade, and Red's outside in the street again.

The promise. Once she's worked there, Mistress Abney asks a favour (at the end of an afternoon, or when Red next talks to her): she's to market with the carrier tomorrow evening, and Bess mustn't be alone so near her time; will Red come at six and sit with her till nine? An honest no is allowed (she'll ask another day). Yes is a promise, and the next evening, about five, someone comes to find her in the village: Tom with the best dare there's ever been, Agnes off to the pond to hear Georgie read his poem, or Peter with the linnets coming in to roost. She can say she's promised, or go just for a little while.

• Kept: at the inn by half past six, Sit with Bess: the evening by the fire, till Mistress Abney's back at nine and walks her home herself, squaring the hour with her mother (no curfew owed). Mistress Abney's trust (and Bess's), and A promise done.
• Broken: half past six goes by, and Bess sits alone. Naughty (the kind Mistress Abney minds most), her trust down; the next evening her mother's heard of it from her, and corrects her for it; and Mistress Abney is cold with her until Red says sorry to her face. A promise is done either way.

Calling on Grandmother (js/herbs.js's call). Once the first three herbs are learnt, as Red comes in at her door her grandmother greets her (how long it's been; whether she knows what Red and her mother have) and asks: here to help, or just to visit? Help, and it's a herb, as ever. Visit, and it's tea, and the village's news as Red tells it (the fair, Agnes and Georgie, Peter, the bell rung in broad day, Bess near her time; and, if her grandmother knows, who's taken her in hand), half an hour of the day. Once a day, and not when she's back with a herb.

The pie (js/pie.js, the bakery inside: js/bakery.js)

Phase 1.2's pie, once Mistress Pennock and Tom both trust Red enough (trust 2 with each; Tom's dares behind them; her first afternoon helping at the bakery counts toward Mistress Pennock's). One afternoon (between one and a quarter to five: the pies out to cool, the smith at his anvil) Tom comes looking for her with an idea: I dare you. She can refuse (the idea keeps), or take the dare: Tom goes to watch from the corner, and the pie's hers to take off the bakery's board (Take a pie off the board, within the hour, or he gives up on her). Mistress Pennock is out of her door before she's turned round, catches Tom too (I can see your boots), takes her pie back, and has the pair of them before Master Ferrier at his forge (under a fade: no walk). Her basket, if she has it, stays on her arm. Master Ferrier, busy at his anvil, leaves Tom to her. Then Mistress Pennock sends Red home: she'll be speaking to her mother herself. Red can:

• Obey: home (the objective says so). There her mother sees her face: she can tell her, and she's corrected for the pie, and that's the end of it; or keep it back, and the next evening her mother's had a visit from Mistress Pennock, and she's corrected for the pie and for keeping it from her. Tom's kept in the rest of the day. It comes once: whichever she chose, Tom doesn't try it again; and the first dare she takes from him after it, she thinks twice about first.
• Tell Mistress Pennock: she sends Tom on ahead to her bakery, and a few steps off from the smith's anvil Red tells her: it was her hand on the pie; whatever Tom gets, she's earned it too; her mother takes her in hand, and would want Mistress Pennock to, for this. Mistress Pennock takes them both into the bakery: Tom across her knee first (Red watching), then to the corner; then Red, as she asked; the baker's paddle to finish each. She tells Red's mother herself, that evening, and her mother has a word, but no more: a reprieve (see Evenings at home). (Mistress Pennock now knows what being Little Red means.)

The bakery inside: the oven glowing in the back wall, the kneading table, racks of loaves, sacks of flour, the counter under the half-door, a bench, and corners.

An afternoon's help, played (js/work.js): Help at the bakery (asked at breakfast, at one) is the dull half of baking, after it: Master Pennock bakes from four and sells at the door till mid-morning, Mistress Pennock at the counter till the bread's sold, and the afternoon is the clearing down and the next day begun. On the days it's asked for, Mistress Pennock has the mill run to do: she gives Red the list (Scrape out the dough trough, Scrub down the boards, Rake the ash out of the oven (the peel from its place by the oven, and back), Clear the racks, Sift tomorrow's flour, Set the sponge for the morning, Sweep out) and goes, to be back by half past three, however late Red began (a late start, less time; she's home half an hour after, or at five if Red never came). Inside, the clock runs at a minute a second, slower than the day's, as in every shift. Done before she's back, Red waits by the oven; all done, the errand's done, with her trust and At the bakery. Not all done: before Red's confided in her, no trust for it, and a quiet word that's worse than a cross one; once she has, a correction there and then, as Red asked (and she tells Red's mother herself: a reprieve at home). The door stays shut till she's back.

In the bakery, Sweep out is done with the broom that leans by the door (taken, used, put back). Mistress Pennock's corrections are given there too, on her bench: where it stands by the counter (the list not done), or brought out into the middle of the room when there are two of them to see to (the pie, Tom in the corner); the corner's the one by the door.

A head start (picked up on the day): talking to Mistress Pennock at her counter before noon (from half past eleven, Red knows she'd miss her mother's dinner if she says yes, and may say so, or say yes all the same), on any day Red hasn't been asked for the bakery's afternoon, she may ask Red to go through and make a start while she sells the rest. The shorter list (the trough, the boards, the racks, the floor), on the same minute-a-second clock, till she's sold out (ten past twelve, or forty minutes, whichever's later: time to be home for dinner at half past): more than half of it done, and she's grateful (a little trust); less, and no harm done. It's hers to walk out of, too, before Mistress Pennock's back: outside, at the counter, Red says she's sorry (her mother's dinner), and Mistress Pennock lets her go; no trust either way, the clock stood while they talk, and the rest of the list gone from her objectives.

Conversations (js/talk.js, js/story.js)

Played the way Mika and the Witch's Mountain plays them: the two of them turn to each other, opened a little toward the camera as on a stage, and the camera settles on a view that holds both. The lines come up in a box at the foot of the screen with a portrait of whoever is speaking (her face, live, close up, with the expression the line calls for) and her name on a tab; Rose's on the left, the other speaker's on the right; narration is italic with no portrait. The words type out and are babbled in that voice. Click, Space, Enter or E finishes a line, then goes on; choices come up as buttons (or 1, 2, 3).

Chapter one, the homecoming (a first draft): in the cottage, talk to her mother (E). Rose puts on her grandmother's cloak; the conversation runs from her mother noticing her face, through what's weighing on her, her mother offering to carry everything, Rose's memory of the winter after her father died, to the question of being held to account, and her mother introducing the safe word. It ends with "Now, come here, young lady." (her cloak stays on: she keeps it on, through the correction and after, until bed, since taking it off would be to be Rose again), and the correction it earned follows there and then, in the same room (as in the story).

Over the knee (js/lap.js), and the correction test (lap.html)

Her mother sits on a plain chair; Little Red lies face down across her lap, hips over her mother's right thigh, head and arms toward the floor on one side, legs on the other. Each cheek rolls round with its thigh while the hips stay put, so across the lap the back of the hips (and the drawers or trousers over it) is drawn in between the cheeks and the waist, and nothing stands up there like a tailbone (the Seat group's Small of the back, over a lap sets how far).

• A smack: her mother's hand lifts, holds raised (the wait builds dread), swings down along an arc, and lands with the palm flat on the middle of the cheek struck. It stays a moment on the skin, then comes back up for the next one or returns to rest above the small of her back. Her arm is solved every frame (shoulder and elbow bring the wrist into place, and the hand is turned flat to the skin), so it lands exactly wherever Little Red is, however she moves. With an implement (on the test page, her hairbrush), its face lands flat instead. Her mother's left hand rests between Little Red's shoulder blades.
• The correction test (lap.html), laid out like Climbing Toward Consequence's correction positions page, over the knee only:
  • Who: a corrector and who's across the lap, each chosen from the whole cast, as in the editor (the pair is remembered).
  • The correction: Smack, Run of any number, Stop, End the correction, and the safe word, named for whoever is across the lap (Rose for Red; their own where they have a profile; Red, the traffic light's, where they don't). Pace and strength step up and down. Space smacks; R is the safe word.
  • Distress: the meter, the band and the count; a summary when it ends.
  • Implement: the hand, and the corrector's own implement when they have one (Maren's hairbrush, Master Ferrier's strap, Red's own slipper for William, and so on). Anyone who isn't a corrector has the hand only.
  • Side (alternate, left, right), clothes (a skirt down or lifted, or trousers up or down; then the drawers), and the wardrobe for whichever of the two has outfits.
  • Scripted: a tier played with the corrector's own lines (js/discipline.js), the chosen implement coming out for the last stage.
  • Camera and scene (clear marks, sound, start again).
• Her reactions go through springs: a kick of the legs on the side struck, a lift of the head, and a wriggle that grows with her distress. Her face starts in a pout and follows the pain model's bands (pout, wince, gritted); each smack flickers it one on for a moment (pout to wince, wince to gritted, gritted to crying), and once she's reached the edge of resistance it's crying, held, and her voice is synthesised.
• Clothes: skirt down or lifted (gathered at her waist); with it lifted, drawers up or down (bunched above her knees). Cloth takes the edge off the sting.
• Marks: colour comes up on each cheek with the smacks, and tender skin hurts more.
• Rose (the button, or R): she says her name, and everything stops at once. Nothing more is struck, the arm comes back to rest, and her mother answers her as Rose.

About the cottage (play.html, js/play.js, js/motion.js)

Rose at home in the cottage, her mother by the hearth. WASD or the arrows walk her (relative to the camera), Shift runs (on a touch screen, the stick pushed to its rim), she slides along a wall or a fence she walks into at a slant (and when she's walking herself somewhere, she goes round what's in the way rather than grinding along it), E (or Space, Enter) does whatever's offered (in the gold chip at the bottom, which can be clicked too), Q does the other thing (puts down what's in her hands; lies down when she's sitting on the bed), C, the camera button (top right) or the wheel steps the camera between near, medium and far, J her diary, B her basket, Esc opens the menu (settings, the controls, her clothes, the other pages). On a touch screen: the stick (pushed to its rim to run), the big round button for what's offered and a smaller one beside it for the other thing, only when there is one; the controls sheet shows whichever set she's being played with. The diary, her basket and the bar for how she's holding up are top left in both, each tapped or clicked for more.

The camera, between scenes: indoors it's anchored at the middle of the room, not on her, at medium distance to begin with; outdoors it's anchored on her, she in the middle of the view, and goes with her. Either way, a drag moves it any way about the anchor, round it and up over it or down toward the floor (where it’s turned, it stays), and the camera button or the wheel for near, medium or far; on a touch screen, a pinch anywhere between near and far. Seen from the wood, any part of her grandmother's cabin between the camera and her is cut away while it's there.

The controls and menus (js/hud.js) are the same in every walking scene and follow Climbing Toward Consequence's: round glass buttons with line icons, and on a touch screen a stick under the left thumb, the action button under the right (labelled with what it'll do, greyed when there's nothing), the other action beside it and Run (held) above. The menu and the camera sit top right. Settings: the volumes, how quickly the words appear in a conversation, and whether lines go on by themselves.

• Walking and running (js/motion.js, written for any of the figures): a cycle played in place, in her own frame, as on a treadmill, timed to her speed. Each foot lands on its heel, rolls flat and up onto its ball to push off, then swings through; a foot on the ground goes back under her at exactly the speed she goes forward, and is held where it touched down until it lifts (however she turns over it), so nothing slides. The hips sit as high as the planted feet allow with those legs all but straight, easing down into each step as the heel takes the weight; they tilt toward the swinging leg, sway over the standing one and turn with the steps, and the spine levels and counter-turns the shoulders. The arms hang on springs, trailing and following through. Running is nearly three times walking pace, with time in the air: the heel tucks up, the knee drives through, the arms pump bent, she leans in. Turning on the spot she steps round; stopping, she steps her feet in under her.
• Standing: her weight on one straight leg, the hip on that side up and the other knee easy, that foot a little forward and turned out, the shoulders tilted back the other way; it changes legs every twelve seconds or so (the editor's figures stand the same way).
• In the way: walls and furniture (and the door, open) hold her back; she slides along them.
• Things to do: she walks to the right spot, turns, and reaches (crouching for low things):
  • open and shut the door (by its latch) and the chest (lifting the lid with both hands);
  • take a basket off its peg, or the jug or the loaf off the table; carry it (a basket or the jug hangs from one hand, the bowl and the loaf in both); put it on the table, on the closed chest, in the open chest, back on an empty peg (baskets), or down on the floor;
  • sit on either stool or on the bed, lie down on the bed, and get up again.

Corrections, generalised (js/correction.js, js/correctors.js, js/implements.js)

After the first. A giver's first correction of Red runs through its stages (skirt down, then lifted, then drawers, as it goes); every one from them after that, they lift her skirt before they begin, before the first stroke, and it stays up (the game keeps count per giver: save.state.corrected).

Fair day: no cloak, out of doors or in, and none in her corrections while she's in the dress: the fair dress says what the cloak does.

Anyone can take anyone in hand, in the room where the story is. Correction.run(play, { corrector, turns, watchers, context, player }):

• The corrector (js/correctors.js): who they are (a figure), their seat, the stat they mind, their lines in their own voice (drafts, to be written as the story is), and their own implement. Correctors use their hand, or their own second implement; there's no standard one. Which, and from when, is the story's to say (a turn's implement, implementFrom), never the tier's.
• The implements (js/implements.js, their pain in js/pain.js): Maren's hairbrush, Mistress Pennock's baker's paddle, Master Ferrier's strap, Mistress Abney's wooden spoon, Willie Winkie's use of Red's own slipper, from her hearth, Holt's switch, Mother Barrow's spurtle, Father Barrow's tawse, Mother Brannock's birch. Each is held in the hand, strikes with its own face, and marks and stings in its own way.
• Turns: subjects in turn across the lap, each with their tier; after a turn, to the corner if the story says (facing into it, hands on head, skirt as the story says), until their next turn or the end, then corner time, and the corrector's last word.
• Watchers: others in the room, seated on one of its seats or standing.
• Safe words, per subject and context: Red's is her own name, Rose (the octagon, or R), there only on her own turn; at the Shoe she's Rose, her word is Red, and the house's traffic lights add AMBER (or A), a check-in the corrector answers before going gentler. No corrector says the word except to answer it (a test holds every corrector's lines to it).
• The camera button steps round the lap's angles, the whole room, and whoever's in the corner.

The cottage page's menu has Try a correction: how much, her mother's hairbrush (not at all, at the end, throughout), her grandmother sitting or standing by, the corner after (skirt down or up).

Discipline (js/discipline.js)

The Correction buttons run a scripted correction in four tiers. The corrector talks before each stage and between the runs. A tier says only what's on and how many; the implement is the story's (the hand, or the corrector's own from the stage the story chooses):

Tier	Stages	Smacks
Token	over her skirt	6
Light	+ skirt lifted	20
Firm	+ drawers down	34
Severe	+ a longer, harder last stage	46

The subject's safe word (Red's is Rose) ends it there and then, and the corrector's last line is the gentle one, answering it. At "too harsh" they stop. Discipline.run(lap, tier, { corrector, subject, context, implement, implementFrom, corner, say, sleep }) returns { hits, peak, stopped, tooHarsh, done, implement }.

The pain model (js/pain.js)

Each smack adds a sharp sting (fading in seconds) and a deep ache (fading over minutes). Distress is their sum against how much she can take. The implement, strength, pace, the wait with the arm raised, the clothing and how tender the skin already is all count. Her skirt and drawers each cushion the sting.

Room editor (rooms.html)

The rooms, empty, to arrange, every interior: the cottage (the rug, the bed nook, the chest, the peg rail with its herbs and baskets, the trestle table and its two stools); her grandmother's cabin (the rug, the rocking chair, the basket of wool, the round table, Red's stool and her grandmother's chair, the dresser, the box bed); the bakery (the kneading table, the racks of loaves, the flour sacks, the bench by the counter); the inn, the biggest room of them all (Bess's chair and footstool, the counter out in the room, the barrels on their stillage and the shelves of tankards and jugs behind it, three long tables with their benches, the stair); and the forge's back room, behind the stone wall, up to the thatch, at the back of the open bay where Master Ferrier and Tom work (up the step onto the bay's floor, and through the wide plank door at its right, across from the workbench inside; two high vents under the eaves at the back; its hearth back to back with the bay's, up the one chimney): the anvil on its stump, the slack tub, the workbench and the tool rack over it, the bench under it, brought out into the middle when he sees to Tom and to her. The hearths, the doors, the windows, the bakery's oven and counter, the forge's hearth and bellows are the walls', and stay. Where the work of a shift is done (the trough, the boards, the racks; the inn's tables, its counter, Bess's chair) goes with the piece. Click a piece of furniture to choose it (a box is drawn round it) and drag it across the floor, to the half unit (Alt for free); the arrows nudge it as the camera sees the floor (Shift for five), Q and E turn it by fifteen degrees, or type where it goes and how it's turned. Views from above and from each side; Rose standing in the room for the size of things. What's on a piece (the tea things on the table, the parcel on the dresser, the baskets on the pegs) goes with it, and so do where it's sat on, put things on and walked round; and a piece goes with the wall it stands nearest (hidden with it while the camera's outside it), or with the floor. The roof, its rafters and the beams are put out of the way (everything at the eaves and over), to see the floor; Show the roof and beams brings them back. The layout is kept in the browser and the game builds the room from it; Copy layout gives it as it is, to be set as the room's own (ROOM in js/cottage.js, js/cabin.js, js/bakery.js and js/inn.js, js/forge.js; the cabin's is as arranged in the editor).

Correction layout (the toggle under the views; js/corrlayout.js): where a correction is played in the room. The giver's seat, as the scene brings it (her chair, or the bench brought out into the middle of the bakery or the forge), with an arrow the way the giver faces: dragged and turned like a piece, and everyone watching faces it. In the wood's glade (the fallen tree's clearing, in the editor's list of rooms too) the seat is the fallen tree itself, and doesn't move. Up to three places for those watching (without them, each scene stands its watchers where its story says), and a corner for corner time (without it, the room's own corners). The correction itself can be shown at the seat (her mother on it, Rose across her lap), to see the places round it. Kept for each room in this browser, and used by the game and the correction test. In the glade, every tree nearer the camera than the fallen tree across the middle three quarters of the frame is put out of the way while it's there, as a room's near walls are (walking in the wood, only the trees right on the line to her).

Character editor (editor.html, js/looks.js)

Any two of the cast stand side by side on a plain floor against a plain backdrop, idling and blinking: choose each from the Left and Right lists (the pair is remembered). All twenty-three are built: Rose, Maren and Hulda; Peter Fowler and his grandfather, Master Fowler; Tom and Master Ferrier; Mistress and Master Pennock; Mistress Abney and Bess; Master Halloran; William Dunn, the Watchman (his night watchman's garb: a short cape that leaves his arms free, set aside when he sits to correct her, and a tricorn hat) and Georgie, the miller's lad; Agnes; Holt; Wolfe (amber eyes, a long dark coat); Mother, Father and Wee Barrow; Lucy Locket; Mother Brannock and Kitty Fisher, of the Shoe. Each is built from a spec in js/toon.js (SPECS): sex, size and build, hair and beard, hat, top, waistcoat, jerkin or coat, sleeves, skirt, trousers or gown, apron, shawl, footwear, and their colours.

For each of the two you can pick:

• Outfit: Rose's is No cloak (the default), Hood down or Hood up; her mother's is Work or Fine.
• Colours: skin, hair, eyes and lips for anyone, and the colour of Rose's cloak. Choose from a row of swatches or pick any colour. Back to their own colours resets that one.
• Face: preview each expression.

Skirts, trousers: on, lifted (skirts) and down (trousers: heavier and looser than drawers, they fall and pool round the ankles, the waist and seat a loop of cloth joined round both, sagging a little between the legs), or off. Drawers: up or down, once the skirt or trousers are lifted, down or off. Pose: standing, or over the knee: the right one across the left one's knee, as the lap scene builds it; the hand landing on the left or right cheek, held still (Front is close on the seat), or soothing; and after, on the lap: held, or upright.

Shapes and proportions: every number the figures are built from, in groups (proportions, body widths, bust, seat, face, hair, clothes, outline and shading). These are everyone's baseline. Characters shows how each of the two on show differs from it: overall size, bust and skirt length where they have them, and shoulder, chest, waist and hip width, arm, leg and neck thickness, jaw, nose and eye size, and the seat's spacing, depth, width, the height of each cheek and roundness, as multipliers (1 is the baseline), and its height, moved up or down from the baseline's (0). The men's seats are narrower, shallower and less round by default, within their narrower hips, and their drawers, trousers and shirt tails follow. Back to their own shape undoes one character's changes. All of them are number boxes with step arrows (↑ ↓, Shift for ten steps). Changed values show in gold; each group resets on its own, and Copy values copies the ones you changed. They're kept in the browser and the lap scene uses them.

Views: front, side, back, faces, or turning. Changes are saved in the browser straight away, and every scene uses them.

Files

File	What it is
js/toon.js	The characters: the rig (bones), bodies, faces and expressions, hair, clothes, skinned skirts, marks; the chair
js/stage.js	Renderer, lights and shadows, the camera and its glides
js/cottage.js	The cottage: walls, frame, foundation, thatch, door and window, the furniture and everything hanging
js/mocap.js, mocap.html	Motion capture: Mixamo's idle, walk, run, strafes, turns and jump, converted from FBX and retargeted to the rig, played by js/motion.js under everything but sitting, lying, crouching, reaching, carrying and looking; the viewer plays one clip on one figure
js/lap.js, lap.html	Over the knee: the session, the corrector's arm solving, the reactions of whoever is across the lap, the cameras; the correction test
js/motion.js	Movement for any figure: walking and running with planted feet, turning, reaching, crouching, carrying, sitting, lying
story.html, js/chapter1.js	The game's page; chapter one's scenes (the cabin, the wood, home)
js/world.js	The places, the ways between them, and playing each step's scene; time, light and her place kept as she goes
js/save.js, js/calendar.js, js/reputation.js	The saved game; the day and time, curfew and light; her reputation, trust and openness
js/quests.js, js/questdata.js	The quest engine; the quest plan as data (people, phases, lines and steps, gates)
docs/quest-plan.md, docs/build-plan.md	The story's quest lines by phase; what they need from the code, and the milestones
js/cabin.js	Her grandmother's log cabin round the great oak
js/wood.js	The wood: the path, the trees, the spots, the stream, the meadow and its gate, the failing light
js/maren.js	Maren's day (Act 1): out at the farm, needlework days at home, dinner at half past twelve and her word on the morning