Jack Page 2

  “What are they like?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “The giants.”

  “Big,” he said.

  “And? What else?”

  “Loud.”

  I folded my arms. “Have you really seen a giant? Or are you just pulling everybody’s leg?” I bit my tongue. I probably shouldn’t have used that expression. Jaber just stared at me, then he looked to the sky.

  “Looks like dirt. Going to rain dirt soon.”

  “Dirt? Why would it rain dirt?”

  Jaber looked at me now, his eyes all dark and mysterious. “There’s another land up there above all that blue. And land’s made of dirt. So when the giants open up their world to get to ours, what do you think is going to happen? Mark me, if it starts raining dirt, you run for your life.”

  Without another word, he picked up his cart and hobbled down the road, singing a song about some boy named Tommy.

  Tommy boy, Tommy boy,

  Full of lies and mischief.

  Tommy boy, Tommy boy,

  Angerin’ the mistress…

  The excitement was over, so I walked home, back to the fields and the boring work. Every now and then I looked up. The sky was clear blue, not a cloud—or a giant—in sight.

  “Stop staring at the sky,” Papa scolded.

  But I couldn’t help it. I looked once more, and something fell into my eyes.

  Just a sprinkling of dirt.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Boom, Boom, BOOM!

  “Are the giants going to come for us now?” Annabella asked that night at supper. “Are they going to take our food and our house and steal us away?”

  Mama and Papa looked at each other across the table. I’d heard them fighting earlier. Papa had mentioned the giants and Mama could be heard shouting something that included the words foolish, nonsense, and hogwash.

  Mama smiled weakly at Annabella. “No giants are coming, sweet. It was lightning that took the bakery. Unlucky, but unlikely to happen to us.

  “It wasn’t lightning,” I said. “What about what Jaber said? How the giants took houses and buildings and entire villages.”

  “You mustn’t listen to Jaber,” said Mama. “He’s not right in the head.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Just because he has a wooden leg? Just because he likes to tell stories? That doesn’t mean the giants aren’t real. What about Grandpa Jack? What about all the giants he killed?”

  Mama looked at Papa. He sighed. “Jack, we have no way of knowing if those stories are true, and the truth is, I’ve never seen a giant. No one has. Not anyone living, that is.”

  “But we’ve got to do something,” I said. “If the giants are real, we could be next!”

  “I’ll hide,” said Annabella with determination. “I’m good at hiding.”

  “There’s no hiding from giants,” I warned her. “They can smell you from a mile away.”

  “That’s enough, Jack,” said Mama.

  “They’ll hunt you down, snatch you right out of your bed.”

  Annabella squeaked and ducked under the table.

  “Jack, I said stop!” said Mama.

  “First they’ll eat your flesh and then grind your bones to make bread. A niiiice golden loaf of Annabella Bone Bre—”

  “Enough!” Papa pounded on the table. Everything went still. Papa was pale and trembling, his hands in tight fists. “That’s enough talk.”

  “But if giants—”

  “Eat your beans,” Papa said between clenched teeth.

  I may not be a good boy, but I’m not stupid. I took a bite of beans. I took a few more bites, slipping some beans into my pockets so I wouldn’t have to eat them all.

  Annabella came back from under the table. We ate in a cold silence for several minutes, until Papa broke it with the news that he’d be spending the night in the barn.

  “Milky White’s going to birth her calf tonight.”

  Mama nodded. “Good. At least we’ll have milk through the winter.”

  “And the calf should bring a good price come spring,” said Papa. “Might even give us a little extra.”

  “Sure would be nice to have extra,” said Mama.

  I tried to squish a bean between my fingers, but it slipped and hit Annabella on the forehead. She started screaming like it had been a boulder and not a bean.

  “Jack!” shrieked Mama.

  “It was an accident!”

  “He threw it at my head!” cried Annabella.

  “It didn’t hurt, you big baby!”

  “Jack, go to bed now.” Papa stood and pointed at the ladder to my loft.

  One thing I don’t understand is why I get in the same amount of trouble for making mistakes as for being bad. I even get in trouble for things I can’t control, like giants. Makes being bad all the more reasonable, if you ask me. I kicked my chair out from under me and yanked on Annabella’s braid. She howled, but at least now she had a reason.

  “Henry, do something!” said Mama.

  Papa tried to grab me, but I slipped by him and ran out the door.

  “Such a naughty boy,” I heard Mama say. I ran past the barn and climbed the great oak tree at the edge of our fields. There was a pond below, and from up in the tree it looked like a giant footprint, with a rounded heel on one side and the narrow tip of a boot on the other. We called it Giant Foot Pond. Papa used to tell me it was made by the first giant who came to our land. It was said that he devoured a whole herd of cattle, so Grandpa Jack tricked the giant by luring him into a ditch and hit him on the head with a hammer. That story was one of my favorites, and I believed it was true. I believed all the stories.

  I always thought Papa believed them, too.

  Once, Papa had taken me to the seaside where there were cliffs a hundred feet high and filled with caves.

  “A giant’s lair if I ever saw one,” Papa had said. The whole journey felt like we were on a quest for giants, just Papa and me. It made me feel special. Great, even.

  So when he said the giants were just stories, it felt like he was ripping a big chunk out of me. I was Jack, named after my seven-greats-grandpa Jack, who had conquered nine giants. If giants weren’t real, then what was so great about being Jack?

  Papa went to the barn to take care of Milky White, and Mama came to the door and called for me, but I ignored her. Finally she gave up and went inside. I pulled out my sling to do some target practice. I flung the beans from dinner high up into the sky, each one a little higher than the last. Once or twice I thought they’d gotten stuck up there in the clouds, but they all came down eventually. They landed in the dirt, where they’d probably grow into more beans that Mama would make me eat. I stopped throwing and just leaned against the trunk, swinging my legs until my eyes grew heavy.

  Boom.

  I woke with a start and nearly fell out of my tree. What just happened? I guess I fell asleep in the tree. Probably not the safest bed.

  It was full dark now. A misty moon shone behind the clouds. There were no lights on in the house and only the glow of a single lantern in the barn.

  MooooOOOOOoooo!

  Milky White must be calving out now. That must have been what woke me.

  Boom.

  A vibration traveled up the tree and buzzed in my bones. I looked up. The clouds roiled and the sky rumbled liked a hungry stomach. There was a flash. Lightning. Thunder.

  It started to rain, just a sprinkling at first, and then it got faster. Harder. Heavier. It stung my skin as it came down. I held out my hand and caught dark specks and clumps. It was dirt.

  The dirt fell in spurts, like someone was throwing it down on us the way Mama threw grain to the chickens. Dirt pelted the barn and house. Inside, it probably sounded just like heavy rain, but I had dirt on my head and in my eyes.

  Dirt shower.

  The clouds were bulging and twitching like something was trying to get out. Or in.

  Boom! CRACK!

  The sky split open like a linen sack. Light poured through the
hole, and something long and thin unraveled toward the ground. Something else followed. A foot. Then there were two feet, two legs, two arms, and a head. The dark shadow of a creature started to climb down the rope—out of the sky. The shadow got closer and closer, bigger and bigger, until it was skimming the treetops and then—

  BOOM!

  A giant landed right in the middle of our wheat.

  He was twice as tall as the oak tree and wide as the barn. His arms and legs were like great tree trunks, his feet as big as wagons. Flung over his shoulder was an empty sack.

  I clung to the branches of my tree with trembling limbs.

  Crack!

  With a flash of light, the sky split open again. More dirt showered down, and a second giant emerged. He climbed down the rope and—

  BOOM!

  —landed next to the first giant. This one had more sacks and a bundle of crates slung over his shoulder.

  The first giant looked around and sniffed. He bent down and scooped up a pile of wheat in one hand. He sniffed it and then stuffed it into his sack. He scooped the next pile and the next, until he had taken it all. A whole summer of work, gone in less than a minute. A whole winter of food.

  The second giant did not seem as interested in his surroundings. He just stood there until—

  MoooooOOOOOooooo!

  Baaaaaaaaa!

  Boom, boom, boom!

  —he stomped over to the neighboring pasture, where there were cows and sheep in the fields.

  He picked up a cow. The cow mooed and wriggled her legs like a bug on its back. The giant shoved her inside a crate. He then took the sheep by handfuls and the cows one by one, scooping them up like baby mice and runty kittens. Into crates they went, bleating and mooing.

  Bok, bok, bok-berGEEK!

  The hens were clucking wildly. The second giant stomped toward them and ripped the henhouse off the ground. He looked inside with one eye. He grunted and stuffed the whole thing into his sack.

  The first giant was now ripping up the rest of the farm. He plucked trees from the ground just like carrots. He sniffed at them, picked at some of the branches, and then either stuffed them inside his sack or tossed them aside. I held my breath as he drew closer. Should I climb down and risk being crushed? Or stay in the tree and risk getting uprooted along with it?

  The giant tore up another tree, not too far from me. He sniffed it and tossed it away, then turned down the road toward the village. I could just see the outline of him bending down to rip things out of the ground and stuff them in his sack as he went. A tornado with hands and feet. At least he was moving away from me.

  Boom!

  The tree shook as though a violent wind had rushed upon me, only there was no wind. The other giant! I hadn’t been paying attention to him. His fist wrapped around the trunk, and his foot stomped down right alongside the Giant Foot Pond, almost the exact same size and shape.

  Crack!

  The giant yanked the tree out with one hand. I clung to the branches, whooshing up, up, up in the air. Soon I was level with the giant’s face. Teeth the size of dinner plates sliced down just inches from my head. The giant crunched on the wood and leaves. He spat it out, then tossed the tree away. I sailed with it, clinging to the branches as the tree crashed down on our roof and ripped into the side of the house. I smacked my head on something and got scratched on all the branches. Someone screamed. Inside the house.

  Mama and Annabella. I pulled myself up from the branches, ignoring the throbbing pain in my head. Were they hurt? Had the tree crushed them?

  The giant stomped toward the house. No doubt the cries had alerted him to a potential meal.

  MoooooOOOOOoooo!

  The giant paused near the barn, searching for the cow he had missed. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled around, sniffing. My heart pounded. My hands grew clammy.

  The giant tore off the barn roof. Planks cracked and flew in all directions.

  MooooOOOOOooooo!

  I needed to distract him. I had to get him away from Papa. I rummaged through my pockets and pulled out my sling and a green bean from dinner. It was all I had. I swung the bean around and around and let it fly…. The bean landed in the giant’s ear. He didn’t move. It wasn’t big enough to bother him.

  MoooooOOOOOoooo!

  The giant dug through the barn like he was searching for crawly critters under a log. A smile stretched over his face. He reached inside and pulled out the newborn calf. It mewled pitifully. But that was not all. Something else was clinging to the calf. Extra legs dangled from its middle. Papa was going up and up with the calf, too high to let go.

  No. Not Papa.

  I climbed down the tree as fast as I could. “Papa!” I shouted. “Papa!”

  “Jack!” Papa searched for me, still clinging to the calf. He couldn’t see me. “Take care of your mama and sister, Jack!” And with that, the giant stuffed Papa into his pocket.

  “Papa! Papa! Hey, giant! Take me too! That’s my papa! Take me too!”

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The giant couldn’t hear me over the crash of his own footsteps. The other giant was coming back now, his sack bulging with the sharp corners of crates. They both returned to the ropes.

  I searched for a stone—one big enough to hurt a giant—and whirled my sling, but the giants were too far away now. Too high. They got smaller and smaller until they disappeared in the clouds, with my papa in a giant pocket. There was a flash, a showering of dirt, and then…

  BOOM!

  Boom.

  Boom.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sir Bluberys

  The sky closed, and another dirt shower poured over my head.

  “Papa!” I shouted. “PAPAAAAAA! Hey, giant! Come and get me! Don’t you want me too? I’m Jack! You’re supposed to take me.”

  I jumped up and up and up. I climbed to the loft of the roofless barn and jumped as high as I could, but it wasn’t high enough.

  Rope. If the giants could come down here with ropes, then maybe I could climb up to the sky on one.

  I waded through the straw and rubble of the barn until I found a rope. I also found a big hook in a jumble of Papa’s tools and tied it to the end. I climbed back up to the loft and swung the rope around and around with the hook on the end and threw it as high as I could. It sailed up and up toward the dark sky. I thought it might catch onto the moon, but then it came down with a thud. I tried again. I swung it faster and threw it harder. I did it again and again until my arms were so weak I could hardly swing the rope.

  I couldn’t reach the top of the sky. I couldn’t get to Papa.

  “Help!” called a tiny, pitiful voice. Annabella! I had nearly forgotten about Mama and Annabella! They were still in the house, with a tree sticking through the side. I ran toward them. The tree had crushed one corner of the roof and torn through the wall next to the door. I crawled through a gap between the branches. Inside, Annabella was on the floor, sobbing next to Mama, who was trapped under a pile of wood and rubble.

  “Jack,” said Mama. “Oh, my boy! Thank goodness you’re safe.” She tried to lift herself up but fell back. “Where’s your papa? Where’s Henry? Can you get him for me?”

  I shook my head and looked down at the floor. “He’s gone.”

  Mama fell silent, and then her eyes got all shiny and her chin began to tremble.

  “Papa’s gone? Gone where?” said Annabella.

  “The giants took him,” I said. “And the newborn calf.”

  “Jack, please. Not now,” Mama pleaded.

  “But…didn’t you see it? The giants threw that tree!” I pointed toward the hole in the house. “They came down from the sky and took all our animals and our food and…and…Papa!”

  Annabella’s hands flew to her mouth. “Are the giants going to eat him?”

  “No! I’m going to find him first.”

  “I’ll help. I can find him, too,” said Annabella.

  “You’re not big enough,” I said.

>   “I am so big enough!” she shouted.

  “Enough, both of you,” Mama groaned. “Please, no talk. I need your help. I need to get this wood off my leg.” Mama ground her teeth and tried to sit up. Her face was white as wool.

  I tried to lift the pile of wood off her, but my arms were limp and weak from all my throwing. “It’s too heavy.”

  “One at a time, Jack,” said Mama. “Start with the top and work your way down.”

  I lifted one piece and slid it off the top of the pile. I lifted another piece and another and another until I was sweating and my arms were shaking, but eventually I dug Mama out. Her leg was purple and swollen, and a big bleeding gash ran down her shin to her ankle. Annabella and I both cringed and sucked in our breath.

  “Help me up, Jack.”

  I offered my arm, but when Mama tried to move her leg, she screamed.

  She released my arm and took slow, steady breaths through her teeth. “I think it’s broken,” she said. “Annabella, I need you to be a strong girl and help your mama.”

  Annabella came to the other side, and together we were able to lift Mama and help her to the bed. She whimpered as we propped her leg up on some pillows. Annabella inspected Mama’s leg as though she were a doctor. “I don’t think it’s broken too badly, Mama. I’ll boil some water so we can clean the cuts.” Annabella quickly went to work. She built a fire, boiled water, and tended to Mama’s leg, while I just stood there feeling numb and weak and hollow. All I could think of was Papa.

  “We must search for your father,” said Mama. “He could be nearby, injured. He could be stuck under a branch, or the wind might have carried him high up in a tree. Maybe he can’t get down.”

  That much was true. It was pretty hard to get down from the sky.

  “Jack,” said Mama, “you must go to the village and ask for help. Gather a search party. Everyone and anyone willing to help.”