Jack

by Liesl Shurtliff

  “What. On earth. Are those?”

  “Beans,” I said. “Giant beans.”

  “Beans,” said Mama. Her face drained of whatever color she had left, and then I spilled my explanation.

  “I know you won’t believe me, but you have to listen. These are giant beans. See how big they are? Papa was taken by giants. The entire village was taken! Tell her, Annabella!”

  Annabella squeaked from the corner like a shy little mouse. “It has to be giants, Mama. Where could everything have gone?”

  “Did you see the giants?” Mama asked.

  Annabella glanced at me and then looked at the floor. “No. I didn’t see them.”

  “I saw the giants!” I said. “I saw them take Papa up to the sky! And these beans will grow us a ladder that leads to Papa. Jaber told me so.”

  “Jaber told you so.” Mama stared at the beans for a while, cold and blank. She had to believe me. But without warning she seized the beans from my hands and thrust them out her shattered window, into the dark night.

  “No!” I shouted.

  “Jack! Stop it! Stop your foolishness! Your papa was lost in the storm, and you won’t find him with beans.” Mama was crying now, and so was Annabella, but I was too mad to cry.

  “I saw them!” I shouted. “I saw them take Papa.”

  I tore through the hole in the house and ran to the place where Mama had thrown the beans. I searched all around, tore up the garden like a mole until I found them all. Then I dug down deep into the earth with my bare hands, turning the soil, pulling up weeds to prepare a space for my beans. A strange calm came over me as I placed the beans in the earth and covered them with dirt. Safe in the ground. I drew water from the well and poured it over the spot where the beans were buried.

  When I was done, I stayed in the garden, seething about Mama. How could she give up on Papa so easily? Why couldn’t she just believe me?

  When I came inside, Annabella was asleep, curled up like a kitten next to Mama. Mama was just sitting in her bed, drumming her fingers on something in her lap. It was Papa’s old book of giant tales. Papa never needed to read them, since he knew all the stories by heart. I did too, but the book was still a treasure passed down through the generations.

  Mama handed the book to me. “He would want you to have it,” she said, and looked away, tears brimming in her eyes. The worn leather and cracked binding was familiar in my hands. It should have been a comfort, but I knew what Mama was really saying. She didn’t think Papa was coming back. She was giving up.

  I went to bed with the book pressed to my chest, trying to crush the swelling pain underneath. I tried to comfort myself with the stories, imagining Papa’s voice in the words.

  There once was a worthy farmer who had only one son, named Jack….

  I started to cry. I cried myself to sleep wishing that when I woke up, Papa would be here.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Up the Green, into the Blue

  Snap!

  Crack!

  Thwack!

  My eyes flew open. It was morning, but my room was full of moving shadows. Something big and dark was lurking outside my window. Was it the giants? Had they come back to snatch the rest of us?

  Slowly, I crept out of bed and poked my head out the window. Something green unfurled and nearly smacked my face. I didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t look like a giant, unless giants were green.

  Thwack!

  Snap!

  Crack!

  “Aaaack!” I screamed as a long green sort of finger shot through the window and poked my face. I slapped at it and scrambled away from the window. I grabbed Papa’s book of giant tales and raised it above my head to smash whatever green monster had just reached inside my bedroom. I lowered the book and stared as the green finger split and swelled and something unfurled and flopped on the floor. It was just a leaf, but a big one. Too big to be normal.

  I remembered what was below my window. The garden. I remembered what I had planted there just yesterday. The giant beans!

  I climbed down my ladder, raced out the door and around back.

  Snakes and toads! The beans! They were swelling and growing right before my eyes. They were as tall as the house already. The beanstalks snapped and groaned as they tore at the thatch and wrapped around the stone chimney as though circling a bean pole.

  “Jack?” Mama called. “What is that racket? Who’s here?”

  Annabella raced outside, her braids flopping wildly. When she saw the beanstalks, she crashed right into me. We both stood there craning our necks. The three stalks were twisting around each other, making one giant beanstalk. It was taller than the tallest trees now.

  “Jack! Annabella! What is going on?” Mama came out of the house, awkwardly hopping along behind a chair so she wouldn’t put any weight on her broken foot. She didn’t have to go far.

  “Oh my…” She stared openmouthed at the beanstalk, still twisting and stretching toward the sky.

  “See? I wasn’t lying. Those were giant beans, and this beanstalk will lead us to the giants! To Papa!”

  Mama didn’t say anything. She just gaped upward. Then, for the first time since the giants had come, she took a look around the farm. Her jaw dropped as she saw the empty fields, the torn-up barn, the uprooted trees. The heaps of dirt and the holes from the giant footsteps, just like in Miss Lettie’s cabbage field. Mama looked back to the giant beanstalk and then lastly to the sky. I knew she wouldn’t admit it—Mama was far too practical—but I could see she was considering the possibility of giants. The seed had been planted and the idea was growing in her.

  “You’d best give it plenty of water,” said Mama. “Beans need lots of water to grow. I suspect this will need a great deal more.” And that was all she said. She took the chair and hopped back into the house.

  Annabella and I looked at each other, and then we raced to the well and drew water for the beanstalk. We poured bucket after bucket until the garden was properly drenched.

  “How fast do you think it will grow?” Annabella asked. “When will we be able to reach the sky?”

  I laughed. “You’re not going up there.”

  Annabella gaped. “What do you mean? You said the beanstalk would take us to Papa.”

  “It will take me to Papa. You’re too small.”

  Annabella’s confused look crumpled into a scowl. “No I’m not! I can climb just as well as you can!” She stomped her foot in the muddy garden, spraying mud all over her skirt.

  “But who will take care of Mama? She still needs help with her hurt leg.”

  “She’s getting stronger, though.” Annabella was determined. “Maybe by the time the beanstalk reaches the sky, she’ll be better, and I can come.”

  “If you’re sure…” I gave an exaggerated sigh. “It will be dangerous, though. The giants could stomp you flat! They could cook you in a stew, bake you into a pie, or peel the skin right off your bones like a chicken. You want that to happen?”

  “I’m not afraid,” said Annabella, but her eyes were wide. Her resolve was weakening. Just to be thorough, I gathered a bucket of snakes and toads and dumped the whole thing directly around the base of the beanstalk. The next morning when we came to water the beanstalk, a toad hopped right on Annabella’s foot, and then a snake slithered over the other one. She dropped the bucket of water and ran away screaming.

  No problem a bucket of snakes and toads can’t fix.

  I watered the beanstalk every morning, and it grew uncommonly fast. Sometimes I could see it growing before my very eyes, slowly swelling and creeping skyward. It was like the beanstalk was seized by some magic, like it knew it did not belong in this world and so it stretched and grew toward its own land. By the end of the first day, I could barely see the top of the beanstalk, and by the second, the tips of the beanstalk seemed to graze the clouds and the base was as thick and large as a tree trunk.

  On the third day, bean pods swelled, and after a week, they were as tall as me, some even taller
. I cut a bunch down and built a fort out of the beans at the base. I’d live in it until the beanstalk reached the sky! I showed my bean fort to Mama and then wished I hadn’t.

  “Oh, Jack! We’re saved!” She clapped her hands together at the sight of the beans. “You wonderful boy—you made a good trade after all!”

  “I did?” I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I guessed she liked my fort.

  “Of course! These beans will feed us all winter!”

  I felt my face go as green as the beans. Eat them? Snakes and toads, I hadn’t thought for a moment that we would actually eat the beans. Gross.

  Mama made me go up the beanstalk and harvest all the beans that were fully grown. Before the day was done, our cellar was piled to the ceiling with nothing but giant green beans, and Mama started cooking again. She boiled the beans, pickled them, dried them, mashed them into soups and cakes. She even made a bean porridge for breakfast. Blech! I thought dirt and worms would taste better. I was almost ready to try it.

  “Why couldn’t it have been a giant apple tree, or a blackberry bush?” I said, rolling a giant boiled bean around on my plate.

  “Too thorny,” said Mama. “Imagine a thousand daggers coming at you every time you tried to pick a berry.” She ate a spoonful of bean porridge and grinned like a little girl. It was the first time I’d seen her smile since Papa had gone. Of course she was happy, now that we had enough food for the winter, but I got the feeling she was also enjoying my misery—and especially the fact that I had no one to blame but myself.

  I slept inside my bean fort that night, and it reminded me of the times Papa and I had camped out under the stars, beside the great oak tree. Papa would tell the tale of the giant who found Grandpa Jack asleep beneath a tree and carried him off to his castle to eat him.

  “What if a giant comes and finds me here?” I would ask.

  “Then I’d protect you,” said Papa.

  “What if they take me away?”

  “Then I’d come and find you,” said Papa.

  But it all felt different when the giants took Papa. That had never been in the stories. The giant always took Jack, never someone he really loved and cared about. Never the one person he needed more than anything in the world.

  I woke in the middle of the night to rain. It trickled through the cracks of my bean fort and sprinkled on my face. I rolled over, and it got in my ear. I sat up and held out my hand. The rain didn’t trickle off in little streams—it sat on my hand in solid clumps. I smiled. Dirt.

  It was time to climb.

  Heart racing, I grabbed Papa’s axe and tied it around my waist with some rope. I had my sling and a pocketful of stones. I had the beanstalk that led to the giant world, to Papa. I waited for nothing else. I did not say good-bye to Mama and Annabella. I left no message. They would figure out soon enough where I had gone.

  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!

  CHAPTER SIX

  A Giant World

  The 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?