Jake also stayed away from the library for a while, although he was always polite to Mrs. Cody whenever he saw her on the street. She was polite too, but Jake knew better than to ask her about the giant hand. Or about anything else, for that matter.
See, Jake had figured out the truth about the giant hand. He wished with all his heart that he hadn’t, that he’d left well enough alone and not pushed his grandpa to tell him what was down there, under the secret soil of the green field. He wished he could un-know the truth about the fourth cold room on the left, too.
But truth is a funny thing. Once learned, there is no way to unlearn it, short of amnesia.
So for Jake, there was no going back, no way to forget the truth about the hideous, dismembered, unmentionable THING buried deep in his grandpa’s field. The giant white hand that really was somehow lying there beneath the field, a horrible truth hidden in the dark.
You’re probably wondering, what happened to the bizarre giant gold wedding ring hidden in the farmhouse basement? That I can’t answer, not for sure (see how unreliable I am!). Although I can tell you that Jake eventually had all the cold rooms removed and the damp old basement renovated and updated to be brightly lit, clean, and pleasant.
Jake inherited the farm, you see, and times being hard and jobs not easy to come by, he moved in when his grandfather died many years later. It was a beautiful farm, after all, and Jake McGregor became a successful farmer. He married a lovely girl (no one you know) and had a big family with six children. Jake was a great farmer and a wonderful father and husband.
There was a strange story circulating for a while about him digging madly in the back field one night. Someone said they saw him and his eldest son rolling a giant golden circle into the field by moonlight. Then they buried it. These are the same people who will tell you that they saw him from time to time, digging back there, particularly when times were tough and money was scarce. They’d see him in the moonlight, raising a shovel or turning an auger after a poor harvest, for instance.
But no one had any proof, so I can’t tell you if that part of the story is true or not. It is true that Jake McGregor was always a wealthy man. When other farmers struggled, he always seemed to have gold in abundance, which he took to the bank in exchange for cash. His family was always well fed and well dressed, and once a year he made a modest donation to local shelters, children’s groups, and the library always got a little something, too.
Make of that what you will. There are some secrets that even I can’t answer. I can’t tell you absolutely everything, now can I? What would be the fun in that?
So now you know the story of Jake McGregor and the giant hand. Despite the horrible truth, he grew up wealthy, happy, and wise.
There were only two things that were a little odd about Jake.
One: He always carried a golden fly swatter with him, everywhere he went (even though the giant flies that plagued the farm for years when he was younger were long gone).
Two: He would sometimes stop you in the middle of a conversation and ask with a crazy look on his face, “Do you hear a BUZZZZZ?”
Also by award-winning author Philippa Dowding
The Lost Gargoyle Series
The Gargoyle Overhead
What if your best friend was a naughty 400-year-old gargoyle? And what if he just happened to be in terrible danger? Its not always easy, but thirteen-year-old Katherine Newberry is friends with a gargoyle who has lost his greatest friend. Gargoth’s greatest enemy is prowling the city, and it’s a race against time to find her first!
Shortlisted for the 2012 Silver Birch Express Award.
“My 10-year-old daughter read all three of the books in the series and she gives them a big thumbs up! She LOVED them!!
5 STARS!”
—Mother, Daughter and Son Book Reviews
The Gargoyle in My Yard
What do you do when a 400-year-old gargoyle moves into your backyard? Especially when no one else but you knows he’s ALIVE? Twelve-year-old Katherine Newberry can tell you all about life with a gargoyle. He’s naughty and gets others into trouble. But if you’re like Katherine, after getting to know him, you might really want him to stay.
Commended for the 2009 Resource Links Best Books, for the 2010 Best Books for Kids and Teens, and shortlisted for the 2011 Diamond Willow Award.
“This lively, fast-paced novel by Philippa Dowding moves f lfluidly from the whimsical to the fantastical and takes an intriguing detour to some dark places in between.”
—Quill & Quire
The Gargoyle at the Gates
Christopher is astonished to discover that gargoyles Ambergine and Gargoth are living in the park next door and that Katherine, a girl from his class, knows the gargoyles, as well. When the Collector steals Ambergine, it’s up to Christopher and Katherine to get her back, as long as something else doesn’t catch them along the way.
Shortlisted for the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award, the 2013 Diamond Willow Award, and commended for the 2013 White Raven Award.
The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden
Gwendolyn Golden has a bad temper and hates to read. She’s a pretty normal teenager until … one morning she wakes up on the ceiling. Along with her many average teenage qualities, Gwendolyn Golden can also fly. What’s happening to her?
Visit Philippa Dowding at
www.pdowding.com
@phdowding
/philippa.dowding
Available at your favourite bookseller
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Copyright © Philippa Dowding, 2014
Illustrations © Shawna Daigle, 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Project Editor: Diane Young
Editor: Allister Thompson
Illustrator: Shawna Daigle
Interior and Cover Design: Jesse Hooper
Cover art by Shawna Daigle
Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Dowding, Philippa, 1963-, author
Jake and the giant hand : weird stories gone wrong / Philippa Dowding.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-2421-1 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4597-2422-8 (pdf).--
ISBN 978-1-4597-2423-5 (epub)
I. Title.
PS8607.O9874J35 2014 jC813’.6 C2013-908378-2
C2013-908379-0
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
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