Jake and the Giant Hand

by Philippa Dowding

He waited, but his grandpa was silent. “Aren’t you going to say something? Grandpa?”

  But it was suddenly like his grandpa couldn’t hear him. His whole face changed. He looked completely blank, like a white stone himself. He plunked down on the grass beside Gus and just sat there staring at Jake.

  “Grandpa? Are you okay?”

  After a long while his grandpa answered him, very quietly. “Jake, go fetch me a drink of water, please.”

  Jake nodded and rushed across the field into the kitchen. His heart fell: the water dispenser was empty. He’d used up all the water on the stupid lemonade. He hesitated for a moment. Go to the horse-head pump and take ten minutes to pump out a glass for his grandpa? Or load the water dispenser with a new bottle?

  The new bottles were in the basement, in a cold room. They weighed almost as much as he did, and it would take forever for him to get one up the basement stairs and into the dispenser. He might not even be strong enough to load it into the dispenser, even if he could get it up the stairs. He’d never done it before.

  Jake chose the horse-head pump. He grabbed a plastic cup and ran outside. He pumped, and pumped, and pumped, until finally a cool jet of pure water burst out onto his feet. Some of it got into the cup. He pumped and pumped, until he thought his arms were going to break.

  Finally, he pumped a full cup of water. Jake carefully walked around the barn and back to his grandpa with the too-full plastic cup, trying not to spill a drop.

  His grandpa gulped down the water then wiped his mouth. He looked better. He managed a squinty smile and got to his feet. He groaned a little as he straightened his knees and picked up Maggie’s forgotten reins. Maggie snorted and pulled her head up. Her leather harness squeaked as she stomped her front legs.

  “Okay, Jake. Just try to be more careful. No more post holes. Let’s take Maggie into town. Ice cream?”

  Jake nodded and followed his grandfather and the horse. As he walked past the fateful post hole, he gasped.

  It was full of dirt. His grandpa had refilled the hole. He must have done it when Jake went to get him the water. Jake looked at his grandpa’s back as he climbed into the cart behind the old horse.

  Why did his grandpa fill in the post hole? What on earth was DOWN THERE?

  Chapter 10

  Mrs. Cody Isn’t Talking

  Jake and his grandpa took the horse and the cart into town. Maggie clopped slowly along the leafy streets. She held up traffic, but no one seemed to mind. A “Slow Moving Vehicle” sign was on the back of the cart, so people knew to be careful.

  The town Jake’s grandpa lived near was a sleepy little place most of the time, but in late summer the main street was filled with tourists. People strolled down the pretty boulevard eating homemade ice cream and buying farm antiques. Every afternoon in August, musicians played on the bandstand at the middle of the park.

  Today, three men in kilts were playing bagpipes.

  The sound made Jake think of drowning cats, but the tourists seemed to like it. Teenagers were sitting on tree boughs; little kids were on their dads’ shoulders. Everyone wanted to hear the bagpipes. Jake wasn’t sure why. He could remember the men with bagpipes, the tourists strolling along on a pleasant summer afternoon eating ice cream, ever since he was little.

  Jake’s grandpa slowed Maggie to a stop in front of the town pharmacy. He gave Jake some money and told him to go get them both ice cream. Jake hopped out of the cart and crossed the street.

  The ice cream store was next to the library, and both places were really busy on such a hot day. Jake decided that was probably because both places had air conditioning. Jake waited in line and got two ice cream cones, both vanilla. He and his grandpa were exactly the same in some ways. As he walked back past the library with the ice cream, his heart skipped a beat.

  A big sign on the library steps said, 100 YEARS OF OUR HISTORY! COME IN TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH BEHIND SOME OF OUR TALLEST TALES.

  Jake looked across the street. His grandpa was sitting in the cart, talking to another old man. Gus sat beside him, too hot to move, and Maggie hung her head in the sun, looking sleepy. They didn’t see Jake.

  Jake ran up the library steps and poked his head inside. It was quiet, cool, and dark in the library, and it smelled of books. He looked around and spotted a display case near the librarian’s desk. It had a sign that read 100 YEARS OF TOWN HISTORY! There were some photos and books on stands, too. He walked over for a closer look.

  There were newspaper clippings and ancient pictures of farmers with old-fashioned farm equipment.

  One photo was of a huge pumpkin beside a smiling farmer. The caption read, “Charles Bywater grows 200 lb. pumpkin!” Another photo was of an enormous black horse beside a woman who looked tiny standing next to it. The caption read, “Mrs. Albert Hodges breeds national champion, 18-hand stallion.” Another photo was of an old, stooped man in a long jacket, holding garden shears. “Local Girl Goes Missing in Gardener’s Maze,” the headline read.

  Wow, this town IS strange.

  Then Jake stopped at a story with a photo of a beautiful golden retriever dog beside an old, rich-looking man. The headline read, “Local Man Killed Looking for Dog.”

  What a beautiful dog, Jake thought.

  Jake kept scanning, then his eyes stopped at a newspaper clipping that made his heart thump harder.

  The headline read, “Mrs. Edwina Fingles Missing, Presumed Dead.” It was dated December 12, 1908. There was a photo of a sad-looking little old lady in a bonnet. Jake read the first paragraph of the story:

  Edwina Fingles, 76, has been missing for four days. Her son, Thomas Fingles, contacted local constables after he visited his mother and found the house empty and the back door swinging open. According to her son, Edwina loved the fields and the swampland at the back of the farm. Residents should contact the local constabulary if they see any sign of Mrs. Fingles.

  Jake gulped.

  Swampland? Little old lady gone missing?

  Something touched his shoulder.

  Jake screamed.

  “Young man, shhh!” said a stern-looking lady. She had a name badge on. It read, MRS. CODY, LIBRARIAN.

  “You must be Jake McGregor,” she said. “I know your grandparents well. I was best friends with your grandma when we were schoolgirls. I spent a lot of time on your grandpa’s farm when I was a young woman. I knew your mom, too, when she was little. How is she?”

  “Ummm. Hi, Mrs. Cody. My mom’s well, thanks, we live in the city now. Sorry I screamed, but you scared me,” Jake said.

  “Yes, scary stuff, isn’t it?” Mrs. Cody said, pointing at the newspaper clipping of Edwina Fingles. “Poor Edwina, she was never found. They say she just wandered off and got lost in the …”

  Don’t say swamp!

  “… swamp.”

  Jake gulped again and nodded. “Yeah, I heard that story.” Then he thought of something. “But what about the story of the giant hand? That story about the giant corpse hand turning up in a field around here a long time ago?”

  Mrs. Cody shifted her weight, crossed her arms, and leaned against the board with the newspaper clippings. She was a big lady, so she blocked the board completely. She looked down at Jake and grew stern again. “That’s just a spooky old ghost story, Jake. No one ever said that was true.”

  She really did look scary. But Jake wasn’t satisfied.

  “But you did, you said it was true, on a ghost walk last year. My friend told me.”

  “Well, there are stories, and then there are stories, Jake. Do you see a newspaper clipping on the wall about a giant hand?”

  Jake looked at the wall, but Mrs. Cody was leaning against pretty much all of the clippings, blocking them from his view, so he couldn’t check.

  She went on: “Don’t you think a giant hand in someone’s field might make it into the newspapers? And where would a giant hand come from? Did it fall out of the sky? And where did it go? No, that’s just ghost walk scary talk, nothing real about that story. Just
put that out of your head.”

  Jake was about to protest when Mrs. Cody pointed at his ice cream. She said, “No food allowed in the library, Jake, sorry. You’re melting onto the floor. Be sure and say hello to your grandpa for me.”

  Mrs. Cody was right. The ice cream was running down Jake’s hand. He had no choice but to leave. He thanked the librarian and headed back out into the heat.

  He peeked back at her just before he left the cool library for good, and gasped. When she thought no one was looking, Mrs. Cody pulled a newspaper clipping from the board and tucked it into her pocket.

  Jake couldn’t believe his eyes! What was she hiding?

  Chapter 11

  No Flies on Us

  The next morning, Jake went to his swimming lesson. It actually wasn’t that bad. The other kids were pretty nice, and the teachers were teenagers so they weren’t too strict. Jake was surprised when the hour-long lesson was over.

  The rest of the day he played with Gus in the front yard, visited Maggie in the barn, and rode his bike up and down the lane or into the field. His grandpa didn’t mention building the shed again.

  The big auger shone in the sun.

  In the middle of the hot afternoon, a mini-bike roared up the lane. Jake looked up from reading in the hammock on the big front porch and waved. Kate was driving, and Chris waved back from behind her. Kate parked the tiny machine.

  “Hey, guys.” Jake lifted himself a little from the hammock.

  “Hey, Jake,” Chris said. He wrestled his blond head out of his skull helmet. “You want to come fishing? We’re going back to the creek.”

  Swamp!

  “Um, okay. Now?”

  “Yeah, go ask your grandpa.”

  Jake shifted from the hammock and slowly swung his feet onto the porch.

  Kate pointed over at the stakes laid out in the shape of the abandoned shed. “Hey, what’s that auger doing over there?”

  “My grandpa was building a shed.”

  “Was?”

  “Yeah. He kind of lost interest. I’ll be right back.” He went to look for his grandpa and found him napping in his bedroom. Gus lay on the floor. He thumped his tail at Jake but didn’t move.

  Jake made a “shhhh” at Gus, then left his grandpa a note on the kitchen table.

  “Grandpa, I went fishing with Chris and Kate. Back for dinner. Jake.”

  He went and got his bike from the barn, then the three friends headed back toward the creek. They found a perfect spot under the trees beside the little stream. The twins set their rods, then Chris brought out a bag of trail mix he made: peanuts, granola, raisins, and sunflower seeds.

  “That was a crazy story about the giant hand,” Jake said, his mouth full of trail mix.

  Chris rolled his eyes, but Kate nodded. “I know. Mrs. Cody scared us when she told it last year at the ghost walk.”

  “What’s a ghost walk, anyway?”

  “Well, you walk around and tell ghost stories at haunted or creepy parts of town,” Kate said. “And believe me, our town is super-haunted and weird. At least judging by the number of creepy stories Mrs. Cody told us.”

  “Where were you when she told the story about the ghost hand?” Jake asked.

  “Oh, I think beside the library. Some of the stories were about places too far away to visit, or too mysterious, or they didn’t really know exactly where something happened. They’re just strange stories she wanted to share.”

  Jake shivered. “There’s a whole bunch of newspaper clippings in the library about creepy stuff.”

  “Like what?” Kate asked.

  “Some of them were about huge horses and giant pumpkins and things. Then one was about an old lady, Edwina Fingles. She got lost in the swamp, way back in 1908 or something.” Jake looked sideways at Kate.

  She nodded. “Yeah, that one seems kind of true, doesn’t it? Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t around here. This town is a little weird.”

  This time it was Jake’s turn to nod. No kidding!

  “There weren’t any newspaper stories about a giant hand, though,” he said quietly. “And when I asked Mrs. Cody about it, she acted really … sneaky.”

  Kate laughed. “She’s really nice, Jake! What do you mean ‘sneaky’?”

  “I’m not sure. She used her body to block all the clippings I hadn’t seen yet. When I left, I’m sure she snuck one of the clippings off the wall.”

  “Weird,” Kate whispered softly.

  Jake said, “I want to go back to the library. Do you guys think you could get your dad to take us tomorrow?”

  The twins nodded. “Oh yeah, he always wants us to go to the library.” Kate rolled her eyes.

  Chris piped up, “I have books to take back. Let’s go tomorrow for sure. It’s supposed to rain, anyway.”

  “Good,” Jake said, then he thought of something else. “Hey, have you guys ever seen white rocks around here? Like really white, white stones deep down in the ground?”

  Chris shrugged. “White rocks? Nope. Kate?”

  Kate thought for a minute. “No. Dad dug a huge hole last year for the new kitchen sunroom, but there weren’t any white stones down there. Why?”

  Jake didn’t answer right away. “Well, I saw this really white stone in the bottom of a post hole my grandpa and I dug.”

  “Where?” Kate asked.

  “Near the auger you saw. It was a hole for the shed, for a post. I actually fell in the hole. Gus dragged me out.”

  Kate shrugged. “No white stones around here, Jake. If you want, we can help you look for more.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Oh, and what about flies?”

  Kate shrugged again. “What about them? It’s farmland. There are always lots of flies around a farm. They like cow poop.” She looked at Jake like he was crazy.

  “No, I mean big flies, like really big flies. Flies the size of birds that make a sound like a chainsaw?”

  Kate laughed, and it was Chris’s turn to look at Jake like he wasn’t making sense.

  “No, that’s crazy talk Jake. There are definitely no flies around here the size of birds. I think we would have noticed them.” The twins looked at each other briefly, like they were a little worried about their friend from the city.

  Kate cleared her throat. “The fish aren’t biting,” she said. “Let’s go back. I’m starving.”

  The twins and Jake rode back toward the farmhouse.

  When they were gone, a giant fly buzzed over the riverbank. It dropped into the grass where they had been sitting and found a sunflower seed. For a moment, a horrible gobbling and sucking sound filled the air.

  Then the fly buzzed lazily back into the woods.

  Chapter 12

  What Does Grandpa Know?

  Jake sat looking over the field. The sun was going down, and it was quiet and peaceful. Jake’s grandpa was smoking a pipe in a lawn chair nearby, reading the paper.

  Jake stroked Gus’s head. “Grandpa?” he finally said.

  His grandfather put down his paper and looked up. “Yup?”

  “Grandpa …” Jake wasn’t sure how to continue.

  “Somethin’ on your mind there, Jake?”

  “Well, it’s just that the other night at Kate and Chris’s, Kate told this crazy story.…”

  “… about a giant hand?” his grandpa finished. When Jake looked surprised, his grandpa said, “Chris told me when I came to remind you about swimming, remember?”

  “Oh yeah, he did mention it, didn’t he? Well, it’s just that Kate seemed so sure it was true and Chris seemed so sure it wasn’t. And then at the library yesterday, I met Mrs. Cody … she says hello, by the way … and I asked her about the giant hand, and she really seemed like she was hiding something. She put one of the newspaper clippings in her pocket when she thought I wasn’t looking. I was just wondering if you ever heard that story … about the giant hand?”

  His grandpa sighed. “You know, Jake, you probably shouldn’t believe everything you hear. And Mabe
l Cody is a lovely lady, great friends with your grandma and me for years, but she gets the kids all riled up with those ghost walks every summer. Just ask yourself this, Jake: how would a giant hand turn up in someone’s back field? Where’d it come from?”

  “Yeah, sure, I guess. But you have heard the story, though?” Jake went on. He was determined to get his grandpa to tell him what he knew. His grandpa sighed and leaned his old head against the back of the chair.

  “Yes, Jake, I’ve heard that story. It’s an old scary story from around these parts. But honestly, a giant hand? Who thought that up? Look, like I said, this town is weird. People are bored, they don’t have much to do, so they think up crazy stories to spook each other with. Poor old Edwina Fingles goes missing, and suddenly we have a swamp creature. But a giant hand? I’m with Christopher Cuthbert on this one. Just nonsense.”

  His grandpa stretched and sighed. Conversation over.

  “Go get the backgammon board and we’ll have a game out here before the sun goes down.” Jake went inside to get the game board. But he could have sworn that his grandpa changed the subject a little too quickly. He didn’t even try to start one of his crazy “did-I-ever-tell-you-about-the-time” stories.

  Which wasn’t like him. It wasn’t like him at all.

  Chapter 13

  Access Denied

  The next day was rainy. At ten o’clock Mr. Cuthbert’s big black van pulled up and Jake climbed in. He waved goodbye to his grandpa and Gus waiting beside the road.

  Chris and Kate were sitting in the back seats, so Jake got the front seat beside their dad. He couldn’t help but notice that Chris sat beside a huge stack of books. Kate didn’t seem to have any.

  “Are those the books you’re taking back?” Jake pointed. It was a huge pile.

  “Yeah. They’re mostly about ancient Egypt, but there are a few Hardy Boys stories in here, too.” He picked a book out of the pile and handed it to Jake. The blue cover read, The Hardy Boys: The Twisted Claw.