Jack (6 page)

I started to climb, quickly at first, and when the sun began to peek up from the horizon, it was like I was racing it into the sky. Who could climb the sky faster, Jack or the sun? Who could climb higher?

Every now and then I looked down to see my world getting smaller and smaller, until our farm was nothing more than a little square, our house just a dot.

I climbed for what felt like hours, and then I heard a rumbling.
Oh no, the giants have seen the beanstalk!
I froze, wondering if I should climb down or speed up and try to get to the top. The rumbling came again, louder this time, and very near. It was my stomach! Ha! I was starving. No wonder I could barely climb. I should have brought food with me, but in my excitement and rush I hadn't thought of it. I supposed it didn't matter all that much, since I was climbing the same food we had at home.

I wedged myself in a crevice next to a giant bean. Then I took my axe and split open the pod. I nibbled
on a bean just until I was no longer starving, and then I tossed the rest and watched it fall down and disappear. I couldn't see our house and the far-off village didn't seem like my home anymore. Just Below.

Feeling stronger, I started to climb again, higher and higher, until I met the sun, and then the sun started going down. I had climbed nearly all day. It was a long way to the sky.

Eventually the clouds hovered above my head. They looked as warm and soft as thistledown, so I plunged into the fluffy white and gasped. The clouds were cold and wet! It was like a milky ocean. I could still breathe, but I couldn't see—not even my hand in front of my face—and I completely lost my sense of direction. Which way was up? Which way down? I clung to the beanstalk, shivering as the cold wetness seeped down into my bones. Finally, I tipped my head back and spat. When the spit came back down in my face, I knew which way was up again. I climbed a little faster.

At last I pushed through the top of the clouds and came to the Blue, which wasn't just blue, but a barrier of sorts. The top of the sky, the end of my world, the beginning of another.

The Blue was a soft, shimmery curtain. I reached a finger out and poked it. It jiggled like jelly but resumed its glossy smoothness. The beanstalk seemed to be growing upside down out of the Blue. I took out my axe and stabbed at it. It split open and dirt sprinkled down on my face. Beyond the Blue was a ceiling of dirt, stretching as far as the eye could see.

The beanstalk bent and twisted between the dirt ceiling and the Blue until it found an opening that allowed it to grow upward. A hole so wide it could fit a giant. This must be the hole the giants had come down through. It looked endless, with no light above, and my muscles ached with the thought of more climbing.

“Don't give up now, Jack,” I said to myself. “You haven't even gotten to the giants yet. Take courage!”

I climbed through the hole and up the beanstalk. The spot of Blue below me began to darken until I could no longer see it. It must be night, but then at last a pinprick of light appeared above me. The top!

I ignored the scream of my arms and legs and climbed faster. The opening at the top was small, just big enough for the beanstalk to push through, but far too small for a giant. It must have been covered up somehow.

At last I emerged from the hole. I pushed through some leaves and landed facedown in the dirt, heaving and coughing—and laughing.

Ha, ha! I made it! I was in a land beyond the sky. Giants, beware!

T
he first thing I saw in the giant world was the sky. It was just like the one in my world—big and blue, streaked with clouds—only the sun was in the wrong place. It was sunset down Below, but clearly it was a fresh dawn here. I guessed my day was this world's night, and my night was this world's day. Otherwise, everything seemed quite normal. Clouds, dirt, trees, rocks…

Whoosh!

Dragons!

A dragon screeched and swooped down at me, talons outstretched.

I stumbled back into the beanstalk hole and wedged myself between the twisting vines. The dragon tore at the stalk and leaves with its dagger talons and curved beak. It flapped its wings, and a giant feather fell down through the hole. That's when I realized that it wasn't a dragon. It was a giant bird. An eagle or a hawk. The bird screeched and shook at the vines. I curled into a ball and clutched at my ears. I'd been in the giant world for only a minute and I was about to be torn apart by a giant bird. It wasn't fair! The tales of Grandpa Jack never said anything about giant birds.

The bird screeched again, released the beanstalk, and flew back into the sky. It circled high above, waiting for me to emerge. After a few minutes it gave up and soared out of sight in search of some other edible creature. I stayed in the tangle of vines a while longer.

I crept out of the hole slowly, looking side to side, up and down for any sign of predators. Now I knew how a mouse must feel. My heart beat as fast as a mouse's, too. Perhaps mouse hearts beat so fast because they're always frightened of owls or cats.

I scurried to a tree and crouched behind it. The tree trunk bent and swayed. Weird. These trees didn't have rough bark but were waxy and ribbed, like celery. The tops didn't have leaves but were round and white and fluffy like…dandelions. They were giant dandelions.

Of course. This wasn't just a world where giants lived. It was a giant world. I guess I should have figured that out by the giant beanstalk.
Everything
was giant! The hawks and the grass and trees and—whoa!—the bugs.

A wood louse the size of a squirrel lay dead beneath one of the dandelions. It was rolled on its back with its many legs all shriveled and contorted. Even dead it was terrifying. I imagined the delightful scream from Annabella if she were to find
that
in her bed!

Some distance away I saw a real giant tree, so I scurried over to get a better view of things. I couldn't reach the branches, of course, but the giant bark made perfect hand- and footholds for climbing, like a series of paths on a wall. The tree was sticky with sap, which got all over my hands and made my nose and eyes itch with the spicy smell. A beetle the size of my head crawled out from under the bark. I held still as it scuttled over my hand, tickled my arm with its wriggly antennae, and disappeared around the other side of the tree.

Once I was high enough, I twisted around to see.

A whole city spread out before me. Giant houses and shops lined the streets. Big plumes of smoke rose from chimneys as tall and wide as my house. There were wagons the size of whales, and giant horses pulling them. And there were giants, not just one or two, but dozens and dozens, all milling about like ordinary people, except…giant.

“Ho, ho, villainous giants! None shall escape the wrath of mighty Jack!” I tried to speak the way Grandpa Jack did in the tales. Gallant and brave.

Directly across the road there was a bakery with a giant loaf of bread and pie painted on the sign, and it reminded me of Baker Baker and his bakery that had been taken. I wondered where it could be now. What
did giants need with a tiny bakery when they had a giant one of their own?

A giant emerged from the bakery, dressed in fine robes and a plumed, poufy hat. He was stuffing his face with a pie. Dark juice slid down the sides of his mouth. My stomach twisted, wondering what exactly was in that pie. Blackberries? Blueberries? Or people-berries?

A giant peddler pushed a cart through the streets, calling out his sales for the day in a deep, booming voice that vibrated in my chest. “We got roots! Mushrooms! Crickets! Only ten gold pieces for a dozen!”

Ten gold pieces for crickets? I could catch a hundred in ten minutes for free. But maybe crickets were rare in the giant world and full of luck or something, because the peddler was thronged with giants, and they all opened their purses full of gold and poured it into the peddler's hands. One giant man took a cricket right away and popped it into his mouth! He crunched the cricket between his giant teeth. His face twisted up and he didn't seem to think it tasted all that good, but he ate two more on the spot and patted his belly when he finished. “That's better,” he said.

Giants eating crickets…at least it wasn't people-berries.

Speaking of people, I didn't see anyone my size. But there were so many giants! Way more than nine. There were big man giants with horses and wagons, woman giants with baskets and carts, and child giants. I'd never considered that there were woman and child giants before. All the giants in Grandpa Jack's tales had been
brutish men. Ogres. But man or woman, ogre or not, one of these giants had taken Papa.

“Which of you brutes took my father? I'll chop the villain's head off!”

No one seemed to hear.

Many of the giants were moving uphill, away from the shops. I watched them go up and up and up some more, and—aha!—at the top of the hill there was a giant castle. So enormous I couldn't see the ends of it. Great towers rose into the sky, glistening in the morning sun like gold. In fact, it looked like they really were gold. Every part of the castle glowed with golden light, and the windows sparkled like great shining lakes. Papa had to be there. In the tales, the giants always kept their human captives in castle towers or dungeons.

I would probably have to face many giants. Maybe even more than Grandpa Jack. But that didn't matter. I was born for this! I could conquer them all with my axe and my wit and bravery.

I raised my axe with a flourish. “Beware, wretched ogres! Ye shall fall by the mighty hand of Jack!” With a sudden crack, the bark I was holding on to broke off the tree, and I tumbled to the ground.

One step closer to my destination.

I
didn't think it wise to reveal myself to the giants when there were so many at once. So I tried to stay hidden behind rocks or grass as I followed the road toward the
castle. I soon realized that the giant world was incredibly barren. There were only a few patches of grass in the dusty ground and very little of it green. Whatever giant shrubs or flowers I came upon were either shriveled or full of holes and wilting as though ill. I noticed, too, that the trees had few leaves, and their branches seemed to sag. It looked like the land was in a drought, except I saw plenty of streams and puddles, and the warm air told me it wasn't winter. I guessed the giant world was just brown.

I climbed and climbed and climbed, and yet I seemed to make very little progress up the mountain. The castle was so high and far away. There had to be an easier way to get there.

I watched the giants wend their way upward on carts and horses and by foot. I couldn't see much more than boots and skirts and wheels. The child giants were easier to see, since they were closer to the ground. They had big hungry eyes and great sharp teeth that gnashed open and shut with a fearsome appetite.

A giant little boy spotted me. “Ooh! Pixie! Pixie!” He charged after me with fat hands outstretched. The boy's mother grabbed his arm and yanked him away. “No, Gunther! Don't touch the pixies. They'll bite you!” Gunther stuck out his lip in a pout, but his mother carried him off. I let out my breath. Safe. Whatever pixies were, I was glad that giants didn't like them and I looked like one. There must be creatures in this world that we didn't have Below.

Just then a strange creature waddled right by me. He
was much smaller than the giants, maybe the size of a cat to them, but much bigger than me. He was twice the height of Papa and several times as wide, with stout legs, a round, chubby face, and a fat, bulbous nose like a squash.

“Message for Ferdinand! Message for Ferdinand!” the creature chanted in a raspy voice. Whatever he was, he could talk and he didn't look vicious or threatening. Maybe I could ask him for help.

“Excuse me, sir!” I called, but the creature didn't stop. He kept running and calling, “Message for Ferdinand! Message for Ferdinand!” I supposed the message was really urgent, but a few minutes later another of the creatures waddled by. This one looked to be a girl, her hair in pigtails. “Message for Bertha! Message for Bertha!” she chanted.

“Excuse me!” I called. “I need some help, please! Please could you help?” Now that I'd noticed the creatures, they were everywhere, but it seemed like they couldn't hear me. Another one passed, this time bearing a message for Gus, and then another for Isabelle. All their messages seemed to be terribly important, but even the ones who were not chanting about messages wouldn't stop when I called for help. Unless…

“Hey!” I called. “I've got a message! Message!” Sure enough, one of the creatures waddled straight to me. This one had a little button nose and a wide mouth, like a toad. He wore tattered rags and no shoes. He looked down at me and blinked. “Message?” he said.

“I'm looking for my papa. He's small, like me. Can you help me find him?”

The creature just stared at me, then repeated my words exactly in a croaky voice. “I'm looking for my papa. He's small like me. Can you help me find him?”

“Ummm…he was taken. By…a giant?”

“He was taken by a giant?” he asked.

“Yes. Do you have any idea where he could be?”

“Yes. Do you have any idea where he could be?”

“Stop repeating what I say and just answer me!”

“Stop repeating what I say and just answer me!”

“Hey, pea brain, do you know anything?”