By DEVIN WEEKS

Staff Writer

POST FALLS — The carefree, loveable boy who never ages takes on a ghoulish persona in Post Falls eighth-grader Morgan Abbott's version of "Peter Pan."

In this eerily altered tale, Peter Pan is transformed into "Peter Pain."

"The twist of my fairy tale is a simple one — I turned the hero character evil," Morgan said. "In the Disney version, he is cheerful and pure. In my story, I still gave him a cheerful demeanor, but he is in no way pure. In my story, 'Peter Pain,' I describe a scene where a Lost Boy is put to rest by a box full of acid. Also, at the end, I reveal that this was all a vision of what is yet to come, implying that Peter Pan hunts for more children to lure into his trap."

Morgan and her peers stretched their writer brains to the dark corners of their minds for the 2018 Twisted Fairy Tales writing competition. The contest is a part of the Elements of Horror unit that has been taught to PFMS eighth-graders for four years.

"It came about through one of our instructor’s experience in college comparing Grimm’s Fairy Tales with current fairy tales," said English teacher Paul Mauel. "Obviously, Grimm’s tales were rooted in storylines that were not unlike the R-rated scary/horror movies of today."

Morgan said she chose to twist "Peter Pan" because it's a story that is set apart from other tales and doesn't focus on a princess.

"It is one of my favorite stories, but one of the more forgotten ones," she said. "We all know exactly how 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' and 'Beauty and the Beast' play out. But 'Peter Pan' can leave us thinking on what really happened."

Kaleb Jacobs twisted "Beauty and the Beast," an experience that taught him more about the story as well as the importance of knowing how to use different writing elements.

"Honestly, I really enjoyed letting my mind wander into another world," he said. "I lost myself in the story and just wrote what was on my mind and was very happy with the outcome."

Elexis Spier chose to twist "Sleeping Beauty." 

"I liked that I could make the story my own in a way by changing the events in any way I would like," she said.

David McDonald, who twisted "Little Red Riding Hood," said this experience taught him to "go beyond the limits that someone sets and make your own limits."

"I learned that there is no limit to our imagination and that us as kids don't really have limits when it comes to writing," he said. "I liked that we could twist the way we wanted, not the way someone else wanted us to, and we didn't have a limit on how long it could be."

PFMS 2018 Twisted Fairy Tales winners:

Second period:

First place — Trinity White

Second place — Ariana Heiss, Caryn Peterson

Third place — Addison Larson

Third period:

First place — Morgan Abbott

Second place — Alyssa Krause

Third place — Crystal Thompson

Fourth period

First place — Sawyer Thompson

Second place — Kaleb Jacobs

Third place — Kody Skewis

Fifth period

First place — Tyler Dean

Second place — David McDonald

Third place — Kailey Cramer

Sixth period

First place — Elexis Spier

Second place — Hailey Reuter

Third place — Gage Davenport