CHAPTER THREE
Jack and Jill and the Beanstalk
Marie had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.
Marie had a little lamb whose fleece was black as coal.
“Stop following me!” shouted Marie.
Everywhere that Marie went, Marie went, Marie went,
Everywhere that Marie went the lamb was sure to go.
“Get away from me!”
It made the children laugh and play, laugh and play, laugh and play,
It made the children laugh and play to see the lamb follow.
“Nobody wants you here!”
In a little village on the outskirts of the kingdom of Märchen, the boys had invented this song. They sang it every time they saw the little lamb. And every time they sang it, everyone would laugh.
Everyone, that is, except a little boy named Jack.
Jack, you see, was the lamb.
Once upon a time, many years before, a prince left the Castle Märchen, left his kind father the king and his bratty little sister the princess, and went out to live among the poor folk.
He did not want to live a soft life, with servants and bedspreads and tiny spoons for tea. He wanted to live a vigorous life, a hard life: to milk his own cows, chop his own wood, buy and sell like a peasant-man does. And so he did. And he lived like that for many years, until his hands grew hard as his life.
He married a fine woman, and she had a child—with big dark eyes and curly hair as black as coal. But then the woman passed away, and the man was left all alone with the little boy. He tried to raise that boy with all the vigor and hardship that a peasant’s life required.
He tried, and tried, and tried, but it didn’t quite work.
The boy, you see, was a dreamer.
“Where are the chickens?” his father bellowed one day. “Where are all the chickens?”
“I wanted to see them fly, Papa!” the little boy said. “But they don’t fly too good. And then a fox ate them, ’cause he was hungry.” The boy smiled up at his big, strong father. His father felt little veins popping all over his forehead.
Another time, the boy put on his father’s finest clothes and went swimming in the lake. Without knowing how to swim. The boy, luckily, was saved. The clothes, on the other hand, were not.
Yet another time, the boy invented a song. It went, “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.” Because the boy’s name was Jack. Then he actually tried to jump over a candlestick. He knocked it over. The house burned down. Completely.
As the years went by, Jack remained a dreamer. But he became something else, too. He became a follower.
A few years after the candlestick incident, the little boy walked into his (new) house weeping. “Jack!” his father cried, “Jack! What’s happened?” Jack’s eyes were red and swollen, and his cheeks and arms and neck and ears were all red and bumpy and swollen, too. Jack, still crying, told his father that the boys from the village had given him a plant that would make him strong as an ox and brave as a lion. All he had to do was rub it all over himself. So he did. But it hurt and itched and he didn’t want to be strong as an ox and brave as a lion if it hurt this much. Jack’s father put Jack in a tub of ice water. “Before you rub a plant all over yourself, boy,” his father told him, “make sure it isn’t poison ivy.”
It was after this incident that the famous song was invented:
Marie had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.
Marie had a little lamb whose fleece was black as coal.
“Stop following me!” shouted Marie.
Everywhere that Marie went, Marie went, Marie went,
Everywhere that Marie went the lamb was sure to go.
“Get away from me!”
It made the children laugh and play, laugh and play, laugh and play,
It made the children laugh and play to see the lamb follow.
“Nobody wants you here!”
Marie was a tall boy, with a sharp face and bright eyes, and he was the bravest, strongest, funniest boy in the village. If Jack could have been anyone in the world, he would not have been king of the kingdom of Märchen. He would have been king of the boys in the village. He would have been Marie.
Wait, you’re telling me that “Marie” is a boy?
Yes. You see, in German countries, like the kingdom of Märchen was, boys are often given two names. And sometimes, the second name is Marie, or Maria. There is a famous poet named Rainer Maria Rilke. He is a boy. Well, he was a boy. Now he is dead.
Anyway, yes, I’m telling you that “Marie” is a boy.
One day, Jack’s father called Jack to his side. “Do you know what tomorrow is?”
Jack nodded. “My birthday.”
His father asked, “Would you like your gift now?”
Jack clapped his hands and jumped into his father’s lap. But his father gently pushed him away. “Boy,” he said, “it’s going to be your birthday. I think it’s time you started acting like a man.”
Jack nodded and slowly crawled down off his father’s lap.
“Not just a man, Jack. I think it’s time you started acting like your own man. Taking more responsibility. And not following those boys around so much.”
“I don’t follow them around,” said Jack. “They’re my friends.”
Jack’s father sighed. “Anyway, money is tight. Perhaps you’ve noticed. You see, the cow—”
“Milky!” said Jack.
“Yes, you call her Milky,” his father conceded. “Money is tight because the cow is not giving milk anymore. We have to sell her.”
“No!” cried Jack.
“And I’ve decided that your birthday present is the opportunity to be your own man: to take her to market all by yourself, and to sell the cow.”
“I don’t want to sell Milky!”
Jack’s father’s face grew dark. “You’ll sell her,” Jack’s father said, “for no less than five gold pieces. You’ll do it all by yourself. It’ll prove that you’re a man—your own man.”
Jack clenched his jaw. I’ll be my own man, he thought.
“Happy birthday,” said his father.
The sun was just beginning to filter through the black pines and a rooster was crowing his head off on a nearby farm and the ragwort and the heather were rustling against each other in the wind when Jack led Milky off of his father’s land and onto the road. He was taking Milky to market all by himself.
Jack and the cow walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. Milky lowed from time to time, which made Jack sad, but he just kept telling himself, “Today you become your own man. Happy birthday. Today you become your own man. Happy birthday. Today you become your own man . . .”
As Jack got closer to town, he saw many people on the road: a woman with geese all around her, honking and flapping; a man with a crooked back carrying broomsticks as crooked as he was; a tanner with stiff brown hides clacking with each step.
As the tanner passed by, he eyed Milky. He slowed his pace. He nodded at Jack.
Little Jack saw what he was carrying and jerked his head away.
Those were cow skins.
The tanner shrugged and walked on ahead.
Jack kept moving toward the market. After a while, he heard a strange sound behind him. It was like a rattling and a clunking and a shouting all at once. It was coming from down the road. Jack turned and looked.
He could only see a cloud of dust. But he could hear the shouting more clearly now:
“Potions, elixirs, snake oil, gin!
Tell me what ails you and give me a min . . . ute.”
And then, out of the cloud of dust, emerged a broken-down cart with faded banners and rattling glass bottles on a hundred tiny shelves.
“Potions, elixirs, snake oil, gin!
Tell me what ails you and give me a min . . . ute.”
Jack turned and stared at the wreck of a cart. In the driver’s seat sat a greasy man with a long black ponytail. He wore a flowing, floral shirt, faded from the sun and the dust of the road. His face was round like a baby’s, and his eyes were pale blue.
“Potions, elixirs, snake oil, gin!
Tell me what ails you and give me a min . . . ute.”
He’s not very good at rhyming, thought Jack.
And then, Jack saw, behind the cart, a group of boys from the village, pointing and laughing. They chanted, “Potions! elixirs! snake oil! piss!
Trade with this nut and your money you’ll miss!”
Jack thought, That’s better.
And then Jack saw who led the band of chanting, taunting children. Marie.
“Potions! elixirs! snake oil! piss!
Trade with this nut and your money you’ll miss!”
The boys laughed and laughed, and Marie threw his head back and shouted it at the top of his lungs. The man in the cart didn’t seem to notice.
The hulking, jerking cart pulled up beside Jack and Milky, and the man leaned out. He smiled at Jack. He was missing many teeth. “You’re not selling that cow, are you?”
Jack shook his head no.
But the man grinned. “How much are you asking?”
The boys stopped chanting. Jack could feel Marie’s gaze on him.
Be your own man, Jack thought. And then he said, “Five gold.”
The boys began to laugh. “For that sack o’ bones?” Marie bellowed.
The ponytailed man jumped down from his cart. He slapped Milky’s side. “She give milk anymore?”
“No,” said Jack. And then he thought, I probably should have said yes.
“Hmm. No milk. Scrawny as an old broom. And a hide like this wouldn’t go for half a piece.” He grinned at little Jack. “Tell you what I’ll do. Nobody at market’ll pay a penny for this cow. She’ll cost more to feed than she’ll ever pay out; that’s why you’re selling her, I reckon.” The man looked knowingly at Jack.
Jack shrugged.
“Thought so,” leered the man with his oily, gap-toothed smile. “So I’ll give you a swap instead. It’s a good swap.”
Jack held on to Milky’s neck and narrowed his eyes. Marie and the other children gathered closer, grinning at one another.
The man announced, “I’ll swap my finest magic bean for this poor beast.”
There was silence on the long, dusty road.
Then someone suppressed a snicker.
The man leaned in close to Jack and said, “I tell ya, this bean will produce a beanstalk that’ll grow straight to the sky. All you’ve got to do is plant it and tend it.”
One of the village boys laughed out loud.
Jack was about to tell the man no—and then Marie said, “That’s not a bad deal.”
Jack swiveled his head at him.
The other boys stared, too.
“No,” said Marie. “Really. Most of what he sells is junk. But those beans . . . Those are something.”
Jack felt suddenly confused. He looked back at the man. In his dirt-encrusted hand sat a single white bean.
“It looks like a regular bean,” said Jack.
Marie laughed. “It takes a real man to tend a bean like that.” He turned to the salesman. “To the sky, you said?”
The man said, “That’s right.”
Jack asked Marie, “You think I should buy it?”
“I don’t know if you can handle it,” Marie replied.
“Oh, I can.”
“I’d be impressed. But I doubt it.”
Jack passed Milky’s rope to the salesman. Then he held out his hand. The man closed the bean within it. He smiled with his round baby face and winked one pale eye at Jack. Then he hopped up on his cart, switched his horse, and rattled on into town, with Milky trailing behind.
Jack watched them go. Then he turned, beaming, back to Marie.
Marie smiled at him—and then let loose a roar of laughter.
Jack’s own smile faded.
The other boys joined Marie in his hysterics. They were slapping their knees, laughing so hard they wanted to cry.
They were not the only ones who, all of a sudden, wanted to cry.
The village boys had decided to follow Jack, instead of the man with the cart. “Jack took a cow to the market fair . . .” they chanted.
Jack’s face was hard and set as he walked toward home. Dusty tear-trails streaked both cheeks.
“Jack took a cow to the market fair,
Met him a swindler on the way there!”
He had chased down the man on the cart and asked him to trade back. The man had laughed at him at first. Then he had hit him with his horse switch.
“Jack took a cow to the market fair,
Met him a swindler on the way there!
Dumbest boy you’ve ever seen,
gave his cow up for a bean!”
Jack glanced over his shoulder. Marie led the other children in the chant, waving his fingers back and forth to keep time. Jack wiped his eyes with his sleeve and hurried home.
Jack’s father did not listen to his story. He took one look at the bean in the little boy’s hand, shouted at the top of his lungs a word that I cannot print here, and then flung the bean straight out the window. Jack went scurrying after it.
He crawled around on his hands and knees in the yard, his eyes brimming with tears.
Inside the house, his father banged doors and cabinets and occasionally shouted that word that I cannot print.
As the sun was dipping below the horizon, Jack finally found the bean. He sat by it and watched the sky light up a hundred colors. Purples and reds and oranges that had no names, as far as Jack knew. He felt as if he were burning in them. He could barely breathe. Every time his father slammed another door, he shuddered.
Happy birthday, he thought. Today you could have become your own man.
And then, at the edge of his father’s property, Jack saw a small form crest the hill. It came toward him slowly, shufflingly. Jack watched it approach. It seemed to be a lump of brown, with two dirty human feet sticking out the bottom. It waddled right up to where Jack was sitting.
“Hello,” said Jack. “What are you?”
“Your cousin,” said the lump. “Dummy.”
And the lump sat down on the grass beside Jack. It began to molt. The brown fell back from its head. The brown was actually just a filthy blanket, Jack could see now. Jill, also filthy (but, I should add, now wearing clothing), had been hiding under it. She smiled at him wanly.
“I had a bad day,” she said.
Jack smiled in a scrunched up way. “Me too,” he said. “It was my birthday.”
“It was my mom’s half birthday.”
“I got in trouble. Really bad.”
“Me too.”
“What’d you do?”
“I went out in front of the whole kingdom naked.”
Jack tried to stifle a laugh.
“Hey!” Jill said.
“Why did you do that?”
Jill shrugged. Then she said, “What’d you do?”
“I traded Milky for a bean.”
Jill laughed out loud.
“The bean’s magic,” Jack insisted. “Wanna see?” He held it up. The moon illuminated it. It did look magic.
“It isn’t magic,” said Jill.
Jack looked at it. “No,” he said. “I guess not.” Suddenly, inside the house, Jack’s father slammed something and again shouted that word I’m still not printing. Jill put her arm around Jack’s shoulders. He returned the favor.
Besides being cousins, you see, Jack and Jill were best friends. Whenever one visited the other, they played imaginary games and told each other stories and made up stupid jokes together. And, every once in a while, when they really needed it, they put an arm around the other’s shoulders.
“Oh, I want to introduce you to someone,” said Jill.
She reached into her brown blanket and produced a frog.
“Ooh!” cried Jack. “A big fat frog!” And he grabbed the frog and held him up.
Jill tried to stop him, but Jack was too excited. “He’s big and he’s fat and he only has three legs!”
Then Jill said, “Jack, I think he’s peeing on you.”
Jack shouted and dropped the frog. Jill looked down at the plump little amphibian. “I’m sorry, Frog,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he replied. “Boys will be boys.”
Jack stared at the frog, then at Jill, then back at the frog. “Did he talk?” said Jack. Then he said, “And did you just apologize to him? He peed on me!”
“Yes,” said Jill. “You shouldn’t be so rough with him.”
The frog smiled up at Jill and said, very simply, “Thank you.”
Jack stared at the frog and his mouth hung open. At long last, he said, “That’s amazing.”
“See?” Jill said to the frog, “I told you he’d like you.”
“In that case,” said the frog, “Jack, I am sorry for peeing on you. We frogs don’t have many defenses, you know.”
Jack laughed and smiled kind of sideways. “That’s okay,” he said. “Little boys don’t either.”
And just like that, the three of them became fast friends.
And had the day ended there, it would have been a very eventful day indeed.
But it did not end there.
If it had, much suffering, much bloodshed, many tears would have been avoided.
In fact, if you’re the kind of person who does not like to read about suffering and bloodshed and tears, why don’t you just pretend that the day did end there, and close the book right now?
On the other hand, if you’re the kind of person who does like reading about suffering, and bloodshed, and tears . . . well, may I politely ask, “What is wrong with you?”
Just then, at the edge of Jack’s father’s land, there was a rustling in the trees. Jack and Jill and the frog turned toward the sound, and then, in unison, they all shivered.
Standing at the edge of the property was a tiny woman, no taller than a child. Her posture was hunched, and her hair was wispy white. But her face was smooth as a baby’s, and her pale blue eyes shone through the murky dusk. As she walked toward the children (and the frog), both Jack and Jill had the uncanny sensation of recognizing her. Though neither could quite place where from.
The frog whispered, “There’s a creepy old lady walking toward us.” He burrowed down into Jill’s blanket.
When the old woman stood right beside them, she still had not said a word. There was a sudden wind, and her thin cloak fluttered. Jack realized how dark it had become. Jill felt cold.
The frog whispered, “Now there’s a creepy old lady standing right next to us.”
And then, the creepy old lady spoke.
“Had a bad day?” she asked. Her voice did not match her body. It was high and light and lilting, almost like a child’s.
Jack and Jill stared at her, silent, mesmerized.
The frog whispered, “Now there’s a creepy old lady talking to you.”
Jack looked up into the strange, childlike face. “Who are you?”
“We have many names,” said the old woman. The wind blew harder.
“We?”
“And we know many things. Especially about the children ’round here. You might say it’s our job.”
“Who’s job?” said Jack.
The old woman brought her face right down beside the children’s. Her pale blue eyes sparkled. “Ours,” she said.
And then she said, “We’d like to do something for you.”
Jill asked, “What?”
“We’d like to change your very lives.”
The frog whispered, “Now there’s a creepy old lady scaring the bejeezus out of me.”
But Jack said, “You wanna change our lives?”
“Yes, Jack. What if everyone liked you and admired you? Especially that tall boy. What’s his name?”
“Marie,” Jack replied.
“Yes. Marie would admire you. And, better yet, he would like you. He, and the whole world, would really, truly like you.”
There was a pause. Crickets sang through the darkness. Finally, Jack said, “You can do that?”
“Surely can,” replied the old woman.
Jill squinted her eyes uncertainly.
“And you, dearie,” the old woman smiled at her. “How about we make you into the most beautiful girl in the kingdom? Would that please you?”
Jill caught her breath.
“Her? Beautiful? Not possible,” said Jack. Jill hit him.
The old woman chuckled. The darkness was becoming heavier, but her pale eyes shone all the more brightly.
Jill looked from Jack to the old woman. At last, the little girl said, “You can’t really . . .”
“But I can, my dear. If you wish it. Do you?”
Jill stole another glance at Jack, and then she nodded fiercely. Even after the silk, and the procession, she wished for this. More than anything.
“Good,” said the old woman. “You won’t be sorry. Now, before we grant you these gifts, before we change your very lives, you’ve got to agree to do something for us in return. Nothing too onerous. A small favor. Just so we’re even.”
At this moment, under the spell of the old woman’s words, Jack and Jill would have agreed to anything.
“We just need you to run and fetch us a glass.”
“A glass?” asked Jill.
“That’s easy,” replied Jack. “Where is it?”
“Well,” said the old woman. “It’s lost. It’s been lost for a little while now. But if you can find it, Jack, we will make you admired, and Jill, we will make you the beauty of the kingdom.”
“You swear?” Jack asked.
The old woman’s grin stretched across her wide, smooth face. “I swear on my very life,” she said. “Now will you swear on your very lives to get us this glass?”
“Okay,” said Jack.
The old woman looked at Jill. “And you?”
“Don’t do it!” the frog hissed from deep inside the blanket.
Jill hesitated.
The old woman, in a voice as low as the wind, said, “If you swear to get that glass, I will swear to make you as beautiful as you have ever dreamed of being.”
And then Jill said, “Okay.”
The woman turned her pale, glowing eyes on Jack. “Now, my boy, will you give me that bean?”
“How did you know about . . . ?” Jack stammered.
The woman smiled and held out her hand. Jack, watching her carefully, placed the bean in her wrinkled palm. The bean glowed in the bone-white light of the moon.
“Give me your thumbs,” said the old woman. Jack and Jill stuck out their thumbs. The old woman plucked one of her thin, silvery hairs from her head. Then she took the end of her hair and poked Jill’s thumb with it. Jill winced. A bead of blood appeared. The old woman did the same to Jack. Then to herself.
Then she scooped a handful of earth from the ground with long, hard fingernails, and placed the white bean, still shimmering by the light of the moon, in the earth. She held her thumb over the bean. She motioned for the two children to do the same. They did.
“I swear on my life,” she said.
“I swear on my life,” said Jack.
“I swear on my life,” said Jill.
Three drops of blood spattered the white bean. Then the old woman covered the bean again with black soil.
“As soon as I’m gone,” she said, “this beanstalk will grow to the sky.”
“What?” said Jack.
“And when it does,” the old woman smiled, “you must climb it.”
“Why?” Jill objected.
“To find the glass!”
“Your cup is in the sky?” said Jack.
“It’s not a cup,” the old woman corrected him. “It’s a glass. A looking glass. A mirror. In fact, it is called the Seeing Glass, and it is very old, and very important. In fact, it might be the most important and the most powerful looking glass in the history of the world.”
Jack and Jill stared at the old lady like maybe she was a little bit insane.
Then Jill asked, “And it’s in the sky?”
The old woman, to the children’s great surprise, laughed. “I don’t know! It has been lost for a thousand years!”
“What?” cried Jack. “So what if we can’t find it?”
“You swore on your life,” said the old woman. “If you can’t find it, you die.”
“What?” cried Jack again.
“What?” cried Jill.
“What?” cried the frog from inside Jill’s blanket.
“What do you think swearing on your life means?” the old woman exclaimed. “Silly gooses.” She smiled at them sweetly. “Get the Seeing Glass, or you will die. And now, good-bye!”
And without another word, the old woman made a movement toward the trees—and was gone.
The frog poked his head out of Jill’s blanket and looked up at the children.
“That,” he said, “was stupid.”