Jack

by Liesl Shurtliff

  Where was Annabella? I didn’t see her anywhere. My chest started to pound. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep! The pixies could have gotten her. “Bells?” I called.

  Something rustled in the branches, and I crouched down, fearing another pixie attack. Now I understood why Bruno was so scared of them.

  “You’re awake!” chirped Annabella. She climbed down from her perch. Leaves stuck to her back, and her skirt was torn and muddied. Her feet were bare and her hair was so tangled she looked wild enough to be a pixie. In her hands she held a rope braided out of giant blades of brown grass.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Oh. I was bored while you slept. I thought it might be useful for something. I don’t know.” She coiled it up, slung it over her shoulder, and looked down at her feet.

  “I lost my shoes in the pond,” she said wiggling her toes. “But I sort of like it.”

  My left foot was bare, too. The swelling had gone down, so instead of a ball, it looked like a loaf of rising bread dough. I kicked off my other shoe. Now we were both barefoot, ragged, and dirty.

  I looked at the sky. The sun was straight overhead.

  “How long did I sleep?”

  “An hour, maybe two.”

  My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten for a full day.

  “I’m hungry, too,” said Annabella, “but I waited for you before I ate.”

  “That’s silly,” I grumbled. “Besides, there’s a famine, remember? We’ll have to do without food until the castle.”

  “There must be some food. What do the animals eat?”

  “Worms, flies, beetles…little girls.”

  Annabella sighed. “What a pity. I was hoping the pixie bite might have knocked some sense into you. Here.” Annabella pulled a giant bean out of her apron.

  “Ick! I don’t want beans!”

  “I suppose I could find you a worm. Or did you say you preferred beetles?”

  “Har, har,” I said. “I’ll just wait. There’s lots of good food in the castle.”

  “Jack, you’re injured and hungry. Eat.” She waved the bean in my face. It was bloated from being in the foul swamp water. I closed my eyes and grimaced, but my stomach screamed at me, so I took the bean. I nibbled it. Ech! As if beans weren’t bad enough, this one had the added flavors of swamp and toad. I forced down a few bites, just enough to lessen the pangs of hunger.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “Jack, your leg—”

  “I’m fine.” I broke a long stick off the bush and used it like a crutch, dragging my injured leg on the muddy ground. Every step hurt like an axe chopping at my leg, but I had to keep going.

  We kept moving, slipping on the mud and tripping over dead branches and rotting leaves.

  “So the famine…,” said Annabella. “That’s why the giants took our crops?”

  I nodded. “Tom says it’s a curse.”

  “Who’s Tom?”

  “A boy who lives in the castle kitchen. He’s loads of fun, but not very much help when you need it.”

  “So a lot like you?” Annabella said with a smirk.

  I threw the rest of the bean at her head. “Anyway, he says the giant land is under some kind of curse and that’s why there’s a famine.”

  “A curse,” Annabella mused. “Well, we’ll just have to break it,” as though that were as simple as snapping a twig with two fingers.

  I told Annabella about my adventures so far, from getting chased by a cat to falling in the pudding to stowing away in a shoe. She chuckled and gasped and yelped in all the right places, and I almost felt like Papa, telling the stories of Grandpa Jack. The only difference was that Grandpa Jack probably would have conquered a few giants by now, and I hadn’t come even close. I’d only managed to not get killed—and that hadn’t been easy.

  “His name is King Barf?!” Annabella laughed when I told her about the giant king.

  “He has lots of gold. Oceans of it. And a pet hen that lays golden eggs whenever he wants.”

  “Real gold?”

  “Yes. All the king has to do is say ‘Lay!’ and the hen lays a golden egg as big as a barrel!”

  “That’s funny, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “Well, it seems like in a famine, regular eggs would serve the king better.”

  “But gold can buy lots of food,” I argued.

  “Not if there isn’t anything to buy. Not if nothing is growing.”

  I started to protest and then stopped. What Annabella said was so simple and true. When I saw the king’s gold, I figured he could buy anything he wanted, but you can’t buy food that’s not there. You can’t buy food that isn’t growing. That’s why they were stealing it from us. But what could we do about it? If there was a curse on the land, how could we stop it?

  My leg was throbbing now. I was short of breath and soaked with sweat.

  “Maybe we’d better stop and rest again,” said Annabella.

  “No. We’ve wasted too much time already.” There was so far to go. We weren’t even halfway up the hill, and I couldn’t stop imagining all the things that could have happened to Papa since he’d left in the king’s shoe.

  I gritted my teeth and pushed on. Annabella amused herself by racing ahead and climbing the brown stalks of dead flowers while I hobbled to catch up. She sat atop one such stalk, arranging her skirt so it looked like a blossom.

  “What a poor land this is,” she declared. “It’s not just the food—everything has stopped growing. The trees, the grass, even the flowers. It must be a terrible famine if flowers cannot grow. What do you think is wrong with this place?” she asked.

  “I told you. There’s a curse.”

  “But what kind of curse?”

  “Maybe a pixie curse,” I said. “They’re probably destroying all the crops with their screeching voices and venomous fangs.”

  “Don’t be mean, Jack. I’m sure it’s not the pixies.”

  A gust of wind blew, and Annabella swayed on her stem. Dried leaves flew up in the wind and rustled around, so I didn’t hear anyone approaching. I didn’t hear any footsteps until a giant foot crashed down, right in front of me. It wore a familiar shoe, freshly stitched and polished from the cobbler’s shop.

  Martha! Oh, what luck! I’d be back in the kitchen in a wink! But luck was not on my side that day. I forgot about my log-leg and fell flat on my face when I took a step. But Martha had seen Annabella.

  “Oh, a flower!” Martha exclaimed. “I haven’t seen a buttercup in ages. I do hope this is a good omen.” She bent lower to sniff the blossom, which was really Annabella. “Oh! Oh my, what’s this?” I buried my head in my hands as Martha plucked the “flower” and lifted it up. She squealed with delight. “An elf! A beautiful girl! Oh, how I have wished and wished for a little girl, and here you are, born right out of a flower. This is a good omen indeed!”

  Annabella shrieked as Martha started to walk away.

  “Martha, wait!” I called after her. “It’s me, Jack—I mean Tim! Wait for me!” But my voice was lost to the wind, and soon I could no longer see them.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  King Barf’s Ambassadors

  Martha’s footsteps led the way to the road, and I soon caught sight of the familiar procession of giants, animals, and wagons.

  I hobbled as fast as my sore leg would carry me and hid beneath a dry leaf on the edge of the road. A skirt brushed past and I successfully grabbed hold of it, but almost immediately the woman looked down and caught sight of me. “Nasty pixie, get off!” She shook her skirt so violently, I was flung into the middle of the road. I dodged a gnome and grabbed ahold of a boot, but there was no buckle or laces to hold on to, so with each footfall I slid down and down some more until I was back in the mud.

  A wagon was coming. I waited until it was about to pass, and then I leaped onto the wheel. I clung to a spoke as the wheel carried me up and around. I got a little queasy but moved steadily up the hill.

  The wagon stoppe
d near the castle, with me upside down at the top. I slid down the spoke to the hub and hopped to the ground.

  Eeeaaagghhhh! I kept forgetting about my log-leg.

  The castle grounds were bustling with life. A gnome ran past shouting out a message for Bart the blacksmith, and then another went the other way with a message for Frieda. Lords and ladies assembled in their finest gowns and robes embroidered with gold. In another part of the courtyard, workers and peasants were gathered. Many of them craned their necks and whispered excitedly. Perhaps there was to be a royal ball, or an important visitor coming. Curious, I hobbled between skirts and feet and hooves.

  “I hope they got a good haul this time,” said a giant woman. “I’ve had nothing but gruel these past weeks. We’ll have to eat the last of the chickens soon if we can’t find anything else.”

  “Someone tried to buy our goat for a sack of gold,” said another woman, and her companion laughed as though that were the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard.

  “I said to him, ‘Do I look daft? What use is gold to me?’ I chased him from the door, but the goat’s not giving milk anymore, so it seems we must sell her or eat her.”

  “Eat her quick before someone steals her,” said a third woman. “We got all our chickens stolen, and now there’s no meat but the worms and beetles in the ground. I’m ashamed to say I’ve taken to eating ’em like a common troll!” The woman sniffled a bit.

  “There, there, Fran. Don’t you cry. There’s no shame in that. But laws! My belly aches for a bit of meat and potatoes.”

  “Even them tiny potatoes,” said the first woman. “No one but the king and his men know where to find ’em.”

  “I don’t care what size they are, so long as I can eat ’em.”

  “Look! It’s coming!” someone shouted as a wagon approached, pulled by two sallow horses. Cheers erupted from the crowd. The wagon was stacked high with bulging sacks and crates and baskets, and hungry giants swarmed forward, tugging at the canvas that covered its contents. They pushed and shoved, and their squabbling was so loud I had to cover my ears.

  The driver of the wagon stood and cracked a whip. He scowled at the crowd, and I recognized him at once. It was none other than the queen’s brother Frederick. Bruno was there, too, slouched down with his head in his hands—the perfect picture of misery. They were both covered in dirt, so it was clear enough where they’d been.

  “Give us food!” cried a woman. “I need grain and potatoes!”

  “My cows have stopped giving milk! Give me cows!”

  “My chickens no longer lay eggs! I need chickens!”

  And then a hundred voices were crying out at once. They crowded the wagon like a pack of hungry wolves, until Frederick again cracked his whip and drove them back.

  “I am Frederick, ambassador of King Barf—er, Bartholomew.”

  A few people in the crowd snickered at his slip of the king’s nickname, but Frederick boomed over them.

  “If you want food, you must pay hogage—”

  “Homage,” mumbled Bruno.

  “That’s what I said, you must pay hordage to the king, who in his noble greatness will give you sullinance.”

  “Sustenance,” corrected Bruno again.

  “—sorcerance in this time of great greed, I mean need. Come to the Golden Court tomorrow morn—”

  “Tomorrow?!” cried the woman who had been eating worms and beetles.

  “But we’re hungry now!” other voices rose in protest.

  Frederick cracked his whip again and they quieted. “Come tomorrow morning and bring your tribute of gold to His Majesty King Bartholomew Archibald Reginald Fife!”

  Angry shouts rang out again. Frederick cracked his whip and the wagon moved onward—but not before I could climb onto the wheel. I allowed the first turn to carry me up to the wagon bed, and I hopped onto a ledge as the wagon entered the inner wall of the castle. The gate closed on the angry mob, leaving them to press against the bars, begging and crying for food like hungry children.

  I tumbled into the cart atop a wooden crate filled with sheep. They were baaing hysterically and running into the wooden slats. I could hear other animals, too—clucking chickens, snorting pigs, and lowing cattle. There were turkeys, geese, and goats, all caged in barn-sized crates stacked on top of each other, or penned inside of actual barns that had been ripped out of the ground. And all around were mountains of onions, cabbages, carrots, beets, radishes, pumpkins, squash, wheat, and barley, and other plants and foods I couldn’t even name. They must have robbed a hundred villages.

  In one corner of the wagon there looked to be an entire apple orchard, ripped right up by the roots. It would take a dozen elves just to harvest the apples. And speaking of elves…

  A metal birdcage contained hundreds of men, women, and children. They clung to the bars as the wagon bumped and rattled along, looking lost and frightened beyond speech. They probably thought they were about to be eaten—chopped into a stew or a pie, or even roasted whole. Was this how Papa had come to this world? Caged like an animal headed to the slaughter?

  I climbed down from the crate and worked my way toward them through hills of potatoes and squash. A little girl about Annabella’s age spotted me and pointed.

  “Look!” she said. “There’s a boy! He’s not locked up!”

  The prisoners all gathered close to the bars, their faces lighting up with the faintest hope.

  “Boy!” called a man. “Can you free us? Can you get us out of here?”

  Grandpa Jack had been known to free the prisoners of giants, but this cage had no door.

  “How did you get in?” I asked.

  “Up there.” A man pointed to the top of the cage, where a big metal plate was latched down. “We’ve all tried to climb up, but none could get more than a few feet.”

  “I’m good at climbing.” I tried to pull myself up on the bars and then yelped as pain shot down my leg. Stupid pixies!

  Well, if I couldn’t climb, surely I could break the bars. I reached for my axe, but it wasn’t there. I tried to remember the last time I had it. The pixies. I must have dropped it when they attacked me.

  The wagon lurched to a stop.

  “We’re doomed,” said a woman. “We’re going to be eaten!”

  “No, you’re not,” I said, trying to calm them. “I’ve been in here, and no one will eat you.” I recounted to them what Tom had told me when I’d arrived.

  “You mean…we’re their slaves?” asked a man.

  “In a way,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

  “I want to go home,” whimpered the girl, and she buried her face in her mother’s lap.

  “There is no more home,” said a man. “They’ve taken everything from us, including ourselves.”

  The back of the wagon was opened, and servants began unloading the crates and baskets. I could hear Frederick directing them where everything should go, which was mainly to the kitchen, of course.

  The people inside the cage whimpered and clung together.

  “Everything will be all right.” I tried to sound brave and reassuring, like a hero should. “We’ll beat the giants.”

  “Will we?” said a man. “I don’t see how.”

  Suddenly two giant hands reached into the wagon and picked up the cage full of people. I crouched low in a basket of pumpkins and peeked through a knothole in the side of the wagon. Frederick swung the cage in front of his face.

  “Bwahahahaha!” He laughed maniacally and made ghoulish faces at the elves, who screamed and rattled the bars.

  Bruno approached from around the cart. “Hand him over,” he demanded.

  “Who?” Frederick lowered the cage.

  “You know who. Sir Bluberys.”

  Frederick scratched his head as though confused. “Sir Bluberys? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Oh! You mean your dolly.”

  “My knight!” said Bruno. “You said you’d give him back after the raid.”

  Frederick grinned male
volently. “You know, Bruno, you’re really getting too big to play with dolls. I thought it was for the best to…relocate your friend.”

  “What did you do with him, Frederick! What did you do!” Bruno lunged, and Frederick jumped back, swinging the cage wildly about. The elves screamed and slammed against each other and then tumbled in the other direction as Bruno lunged again. Frederick merely laughed and shoved his brother. Bruno stumbled and splashed in a puddle.

  “You said you’d give him back.” Bruno sniffled, wiping mud and tears from his face. “You promised.”

  “Stop your sniveling, you big baby. All elves are the property of the king. You’re lucky I didn’t tell on you. And won’t His Goldness be pleased to see these elves!” Frederick leered into the cage. The elves yelped and clung to one another.

  “What is to be done with us, giant?” said a man. “What does this king have planned?”

  “He’s going to eat you and grind your bones to bread! Bwahahahaha!”

  The elves broke into sobs as Frederick carried them away. And Bruno trailed after him with muddy tears streaming down his face.

  I watched all this from a basket of pumpkins, too small and weak to do anything about it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Tales of Tails

  “Look at my three beautiful children—Tom Thumb, Tim Thumb, and now tiny Thumbelina.” Martha clapped her hands together. “I’ve never felt so happy in my life!”

  Martha had not stopped chattering from the moment I’d arrived. My disappearance had been totally forgotten in the excitement over Annabella…or Thumbelina, as Martha called her.

  Martha picked all three of us up and squeezed us to her chest. Annabella looked at me as though pleading for me to save her. I just smiled. And then Martha plopped us into the washbasin.

  “So dirty!” she said, dousing us with sudsy water. “And we’ll have to make you new clothes. Tim, dear, your pants are torn to bits. Did you get in a fight with the pixies?”

  After we were half drowned, Martha pulled us out of the water and dried us off, then she went to her sewing basket and pulled out some pants and a shirt and shoes for me. I would have been grateful, seeing as my own clothes were practically falling off, except the pants were red on one side and yellow on the other, and the shirt looked like it had been knit out of dried grass and dyed purple, probably with berry juice. It smelled kind of fruity. And the shoes…well, they had bells on the twirly tips.