- Once there was a fine-looking boy named Little Eight John. He looked fine. But he didn't act fine. He was mean as mean there was.
Little Eight John is a children's folklore story written by Jan Wahl, published in 1992. The story focuses on the titular main character, a young African-American farmboy in rural North Carolina who dresses fine and well, but his behaviour is anything but. His mother tells him to not kick at the toad frogs or else bad luck will strike his family. Little Eight John ignores the warning however and kicks at the frogs regardless, resulting in their cow producing no milk and his baby sister suffering from Colic, Little Eight John however just laughs at the misfortune and continues to disobey his mother, causing more afflictions on his family which he always just laughs off. Eventually however, after one too many acts of this behaviour, the string of bad luck doesn't aim for his family... but Little Eight John himself.
This story provides examples of:
- All Just a Dream: The part where Little Eight John (as a pile of jam) is nearly wiped off by his mother is implied to be this.
- An Aesop: Behave yourself and always obey your mother and/or father.
- Asshole Victim: Little Eight John himself who not only ignores his mother's warnings but repeatedly pokes fun at his family when his behaviour causes bad luck onto them. He gets punished eventually by being turned into a spot of jam.
- Big Bad: Old Raw Head Bloody Bones, who appears at the climax of the story to punish Little Eight John by turning him into a bit of jam.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Little Eight John is quoted as such at the start of the story, dressing fine but his behaviour is far from "fine".
- Eldritch Abomination: Old Raw Head Bloody Bones is rather hard to look at, especially in the Wil Clay illustrated version where he appears as a large ghost with a hideous goblin face and bones in his melting arms.
- Heel–Face Turn: Little Eight John finally learns his lesson when Old Raw Head Bloody Bones punishes him, promising to always obey his mother from now on.
- Karma Houdini: Averted. Whilst Little Eight John does get off scot free from start to near end, he finally gets his comeuppance when his continued behaviour summons Old Raw Head Bloody Bones.
- Kick the Dog: Little Eight John just laughs when his baby sister contracts colic.
- Kids Are Cruel: Little Eight John isn't flat-out evil, but he does laugh and make fun of his family for all the bad luck he is causing them.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After causing so much grief to his family and disobeying his mother once more, Little Eight John is finally punished for all his wrongdoings when Old Raw Head Bloody Bones appears and turns the boy into a spot of jam.
- Tempting Fate: Little Eight John's mother tells him to not have the Sunday Groans, "for fear of Old Raw Head Bloody Bones". As expected, Little Eight John disobeys and complains through the whole of Sunday. Cue the aforementioned beast appearing and turning the boy into jam.
