“What?” the queen shouted at her mirror.
“Who is more beautiful than I am?”
“Snow White, My Lady,” the mirror said.
The queen was very angry.
“Everyone says Snow White is so pretty!
She’s so nice, so perfect!
Well, they will stop saying it soon!”
That night the queen met a hunter in the village.
He carried an ax.
The queen whispered in his ear.
Then she slipped some gold coins into his hand.
The next day Snow White walked through the village.
A stranger grabbed her.
“Let me go!” Snow White cried.
It was the hunter.
He threw Snow White onto a horse.
“Ya!” he cried as he jumped on.
The horse reached a dark forest.
Snow White saw black, tangled branches.
Then something else caught her eye.
An ax hung from the hunter’s belt.
Snow White gulped.
“Please, sir! Let me go!
I haven’t done anything wrong!”
Tears slipped down her cheeks.
The hunter sighed and stopped the horse.
“You poor child,” he said.
“Go. But don’t ever return home.
The queen wants you dead!”
Snow White gasped. “Why?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the hunter said.
“Just go!”
Snow White disappeared among the trees.
“Poor Snow White,” the hunter thought.
“She will never survive in this forest.”