CHAPTER FOUR
The
Giant Killer
Once upon a time, there was a beanstalk.
It started as a tiny shoot, peering up from the black soil where the bean had been planted, tender and green in the bright moonlight. Next it was a plant, small but sturdy. Then it was the size of a young tree.
All in a matter of seconds.
Soon, the beanstalk was as thick and as tall as an oak. And still it grew and grew and grew. Thick branches began to shoot out from its trunk, one every few feet, twisting upward around the great green stalk.
A little boy named Jack looked at a little girl named Jill.
“Don’t do it,” warned a three-legged frog named Frog. “Don’t even think about it.”
Jack took hold of a thick branch in his hands. He pulled himself onto the stalk. The branch held his weight easily. Above their heads, the beanstalk climbed and climbed and climbed, far out of sight.
“Come on,” Jack said. “Let’s go find that crazy old lady’s glass.”
“Care—ful . . . care—ful . . . careful . . . careful . . . careful, careful . . . careful careful . . . carefulcarefulcarefulcareful . . . WATCH OUT!”
Jill grabbed hold of the sprout just above her head and pulled herself up. The frog clutched desperately at the brown blanket with his toes, staring down at the tiny dot that used to look like Jack’s house. The sun was just rising, slanting its yellow rays over the misty landscape below. Jill reached out her hand for the next sprout.
“Care—ful . . . care—ful . . . careful . . . careful . . . careful, careful . . . careful careful . . . carefulcarefulcarefulcareful . . . WATCH OUT!”
Jill pulled them up to the next sprout and turned to the frog. Her words were very clipped when she said, “If you don’t shut up, I will drop you.”
“Right,” said the frog. “Sorry,” said the frog. “Okay,” said the frog. He tried breathing.
“Why don’t you look up?” Jill suggested. “Instead of down?”
“Up? Up! Yes,” said the frog. “Look up.” He looked up. Then he glanced back down at the green fields, the little house, the tiny specks of cattle in the distance. “Care—ful . . . care—ful . . .” Jill gritted her teeth and concentrated on not hurling the frog to his death.
Jack was sweating, though the air was much colder up here than it had been on the ground. He looked down at Jill, and then way, way below her, to the buildings of his village. They looked tiny. So tiny. He swept his eyes out across the miniature landscape. The castle was off in the distance, tiny turrets rising like a gingerbread fort. There were swaths of mottled woods shrouded in mist, with shining rivers winding through them. He took a deep breath.
He had been right. The bean was magic. The boys had been wrong to laugh. Marie had been wrong. Jack turned and gazed into the belly of white clouds overhead.
“Where does this end?” Jill called from below.
“Are you tired?” Jack called back.
“Tired of this frog having a heart attack every time I reach for the next branch.”
“Carefulcarefulcarefulcareful . . .”
Jack pointed at the clouds. “I don’t know. Up there?” Jill nodded.
The thick cloud cover seemed to grow bigger and bigger above them as they climbed. Jack approached the belly of the sky, and wisps of water blanketed his face, leaving trails of dew on his cheeks and neck.
Water vapor began to clog their lungs. Jack felt like he was choking. Jill took heaving breaths. A few more feet, and they could see nothing. Gray, gray all around them, as if this part of the world had no color at all, and only a faint wetness and a cutting coldness and a swaying back and forth, back and forth.
“I can’t see!” the frog cried. “I can’t see and it’s cold and it’s wet and I can’t see! I can’t see and I don’t want to DIE!”
Jill’s teeth were chattering. “Frog,” she said, “be quiet. Please.”
“We’re going to die, we’re going to die, weregoingtodieweregoingto . . .” the frog began repeating.
The gray around them was becoming less gray and more white. The cold was not so cold, the wet not so wet. Up, and up, and suddenly Jack felt an unexpected warmth on his face, as if he were getting close to the stove in his kitchen. The gray was now all white, and the white was becoming wispier and wispier.
And then Jack’s head emerged from the clouds.
He gasped.
Jack did not blink as he climbed up to the next branch, nor as he reached his arm out onto the blanket of clouds that surrounded him, nor even as he found that the clouds held him up. He did not blink once. He just stared.
Behind him, Jill pulled herself upwards, her arms shaking with strain, the sweat pouring down her face. She gave one last heave, and then she was above the cloud level.
She saw Jack, standing on the clouds. And then she saw what he was staring at.
“Oh . . .” she said.
Stretching out far, far into the distance was a line of towering white cliffs, undulating in and out before an endless expanse of the purest, deepest blue she could ever have imagined. The white cliffs, a thousand feet high if they were an inch, were topped with green tufts of high grass. Below the cliffs, between them and the pure blue sky, ran a long, smooth cloud beach, against which the blue of the sky gently broke like waves.
Jill gazed down the perfect white sky beach. She felt dizzy. It went on, quite literally, forever.
Jack, Jill, and the frog knelt among the clouds. They had walked for an hour down the strand of sky, marveling at the strangeness of it. But now they had stopped, for they had come upon something even stranger.
Just ahead, enormous men were punching each other, repeatedly, in the face.
“What are they doing?” Jill whispered.
A great, fat, bearded man clenched his fist, wound up, and knocked the teeth out of another great, fat, bearded man’s mouth.
The great, fat, bearded man who had had his teeth punched out staggered around for a few moments, wiped the blood from his face, clenched his fist, wound up, and returned the favor.
This continued for a good many minutes. The children watched in horror.
“They look huge . . .” Jack whispered in awe.
“Giant . . .” Jill agreed.
“Not giant,” whispered the frog. “Giants. Those are giants.”
Neither child asked how the frog knew this, for as soon as he had said it, they knew it was true.
“I’ll go talk to them,” whispered Jack.
“WHAT?” cried the frog.
“What?” hissed Jill, not quite as loudly.
“Maybe they want to be my friend,” Jack murmured.
Jill and the frog looked at Jack like he was crazy. They were just about to tell him so, in fact, when he stood up and started for the giants.
“Jack!” Jill spat. “Stop!”
“Come back!” cried the frog.
But Jack was already walking toward the giants as if in a trance.
He had not gotten more than a few paces closer, though, when the giants suddenly wiped their bloody faces on their sleeves, turned, and trooped up a tall, thin, white staircase that led directly into a hole in the face of the cliffs. In a matter of moments, they were gone.
Jack hurried forward. Jill, reluctantly, picked up the frog and followed him.
Little Jack found himself at the base of the tall, narrow staircase that led into the cliff. He could see, at the top, a round door. Above the door ran gold lettering which read, THE CAVE OF HEROES. Before the door stood a tall, thin giant with a gaunt face and a long beard and a shining shirt of mail.
Jack gazed up at him. “Hello?” he called.
The tall, thin giant did not stir.
“Can I come up?” Jack called again.
Jill arrived at his side. “Jack!” she hissed. “What are you doing?”
But Jack was staring, fixedly, up the narrow staircase.
Jack stepped onto the first stair. The sky suddenly shook with the booming voice of the gaunt giant.
To enter here ye must be brave,
and do what no man dare:
Enter into our killing cave
And face to face encounter fear.
Little Jack nodded his head. “I’m brave!” he called up to the giant.
Jill said, “Jack! Be quiet!”
But Jack took another step up the stairs.
In response, the giant guard boomed out:
A band for heroes only—
But join us, brave one! Try!
Many before have tried to, too,
And one by one each one has died.
“I can do it,” answered Jack.
“ARE YOU CRAZY?” the frog shouted. He looked to Jill. “Does your cousin have a problem or something?”
Jack took another step up the stairs.
Again, the guard bellowed to the sky:
Who shall submit his life to us?
Who shall sever his life’s left hand?
Who shall place his final trust
In our unbreakable band?
“I will!” cried Jack.
“What are you doing?” Jill exclaimed, grabbing him by the sleeve. But Jack jerked his arm away and took another step up the stairs. And then another. And then another. Up, and up, and up, until he was standing directly in front of the giant. Jack came up to the middle of his thigh.
“What is he thinking?” whispered the frog, staring in abject terror.
Jill could only shake her head.
Do you have any idea what Jack is thinking right now?
No?
Me neither.
But of course, when I was Jack’s age and saw people I took for giants, I never understood half the things I did either.
Suddenly, the gaunt giant guard seemed to notice Jack. He bellowed, “Who volunteers to taste fear and feel death?”
“I do,” Jack replied, in his bravest voice. “Me. Jack.”
Jill and the frog could only watch in horror.
“Jack, will you subject yourself to fear?”
Jack swallowed hard. “Yes,” he said.
“Will you enter the band and never flee, even to the point of death?”
Jack inhaled swiftly. Jill stared.
Jack gazed at the giant’s long face, his gray beard, his dead eyes.
Please, Jill thought. Don’t.
“I will,” said Jack.
“Then enter,” said the guard. And he turned and led Jack into the towering white cliff.
Jack stood in a great hall. It stank of the sweat of enormous men. The walls were hung with tapestries that showed giants slaying dragons and giants destroying cities and giants making off with damsels in distress. In the center of the hall stood a huge round table. Seated at the table were two dozen giants.
“Well, what have we here?” one of the giants bellowed, rising to his feet. He wore a thin golden crown on his enormous, shaggy head. He had a long brown beard, tiny teeth in blue gums (some of which, Jack could tell, had recently been knocked out), and small, blinking eyes. He, and all the other giants seated around the table, peered curiously at little Jack.
“The boy, Jack the Small, has asked to join the band,” announced the gaunt giant guard.
“Wonderful!” bellowed the one who wore the crown. “And that one?” he asked, and he waved fingers as thick as sausages at the door. Jack spun around. Standing at the top of the stairs, panting and staring, was Jill.
“It followed Jack the Small up the stairs,” said the guard.
“That’s Jill,” said Jack. “My cousin.” He smiled at her.
Jill thought, I’m going to kill him.
“Wonderful!” the crowned giant bellowed ecstatically. (Giants are always bellowing; sometimes they do it ecstatically and other times darkly and other times imperiously; it’s just very hard not to bellow when you’re a giant. You understand.) All the other giants beat the wooden table with their powerful fists. “Be welcome! I am King Aitheantas. And these are the giants of the Cave of Heroes.” Then he pointed his huge sausage fingers at each one and named them. Jack didn’t catch many of the names. The guard was called Meas. There was an enormously fat one called Brod, whose stomach tumbled out over his belt in giggling lobes. And there was a skinny, young-looking one with big front teeth, whom King Aitheantas called Bucky. Bucky smiled at Jack. Jack returned the smile.
“Now,” bellowed King Aitheantas, “you wonder what giants such as we might want with such a pygmy as thee?”
In fact, Jack had not wondered. But Jill said, “Yes.”
The king announced, “We do not judge courage by size, do we?”
“No!” bellowed the giants. Jack grinned. Bucky flashed him a thumbs-up.
Yes, “thumbs-up” existed Once upon a time. Nowadays it means, “Good job,” or, “You’re okay with me.” Back then, it generally meant, “My friends aren’t going to kill you.”
“But we must know,” continued King Aitheantas, “if you are brave. You must pass harrowing tests if we are to let you join the band.”
Jack said, “I will pass them.”
“What happens if he doesn’t?” Jill demanded.
King Aitheantas raised his eyebrows at Meas, the guard. Meas bellowed imperiously, “He dies. And so do you. The secrets of the band shall not be revealed to the world!”
Inside Jill’s blanket, the frog fainted.
“First test, boulder throwing!” bellowed King Aitheantas.
“Huzzah!” bellowed the rest of the giants.
Meas left the hall to get the boulders.
The giants stood up from the great table and came and crowded around Jack, greeting him warmly. They shook his hand and slapped him on the back and welcomed him to the band.
“He’s not a member yet!” Aitheantas reminded them.
“A formality! A formality!” one of them bellowed with a smile, pounding Jack on the back until he fell over.
The giants’ hair was long and tangled, and some wore beards or great mustaches, while others were clean shaven. All had big rough noses and lips, and small, squinty eyes. They blinked a lot, as if their eyesight were poor.
Brod, the fat one, shouted, “Show us a muscle!” Jack obliged and Brod laughed and slapped him on the back, knocking him over again. Bucky took on a conspiratorial whisper and told Jack a joke and they both laughed, even though Jack didn’t get the joke at all. Bucky shot Jack a grin and pointed at him with his finger. Jack grinned and pointed right back.
Soon, all the giants were grinning at him. “Oh, you’ll be fine!” they bellowed. “Fine! Quite an impressive pygmy after all!”
And, all of a sudden, Jack didn’t feel so much like a pygmy anymore. He felt, in fact, like he had always hoped to feel among Marie and the boys, and never had.
He turned and flashed a smile at Jill.
But little Jill had her arms crossed and was watching the scene from under furrowed brows. Jack thought he could see the frog, hiding under the blanket, trembling.
Then all the giants moved off to one side, and Jack saw that Meas had placed three boulders in the center of the hall. Not just any boulders. Enormous boulders. Humongous boulders. Boulders roughly the size of Jack’s house, sitting there in the middle of the great hall. Jack’s eyes bulged from his head.
“Not so bad, eh?” bellowed Bucky.
Jack glanced at Jill. She shook her head as if to say, “I told you.”
A giant with thick, muscular arms walked up to the first boulder, bent at the knees, wedged his huge, meaty hands under the great stone, and heaved. The boulder leaped into the air, rose thirty feet above the giant’s head, and then fell back to the floor with a deafening crash.
The giants roared in approval.
Another giant walked up to the second boulder. He wedged his great thick hands beneath the boulder, bent his knees, and heaved. The boulder shot forty feet into the air and then slammed back to the floor, shaking the entire hall.
The giants erupted with bellows of glee.
Jack stared at the boulders. He looked around at the giants’ faces. They were grinning at him. He swallowed hard and approached the third boulder.
He bent his knees.
He pushed his hands under it as far as they would go.
He lifted.
He lifted some more.
He lifted even more than that.
The boulder, of course, did not budge. At all.
His arms and back and hands aching, Jack stepped away from the great rock and looked around.
The giants were not smiling any longer.
“Go ahead,” said King Aitheantas. “Throw it in the air.”
Jack’s throat felt dry. “I can’t,” he said.
“You’d better,” bellowed Aitheantas, “or your life is forfeit.”
Jack winced and tried to wipe away the sweat that was pouring into his eyes. “What does ‘forfeit’ mean again?” he asked.
“It means you die!” cried Bucky. “Now lift it!”
Jack hurriedly stuck his hands underneath the boulder. He bent his knees. He heaved.
And heaved.
And heaved.
Nothing.
When he staggered away from the stone this time, the giants were staring at him balefully. “You said you were brave!” bellowed Aitheantas.
“I am!” cried Jack, his voice wilting in his throat. “I’m just not strong enough!”
“Courage is strength! Strength is courage! Boy, your life is ours!” Aitheantas cried.
“Wait!” shouted Jack. “Wait! Let me try again! Let me try another test!”
Aitheantas had started moving toward Jack. But the little boy’s pleading cries made him pause. Slowly, he said, “Shall we let him try another test?”
The hall was deathly still. At last, Brod said, “Let him break sticks!”
“Huzzah!” bellowed the other giants.
Aitheantas nodded. “Then break sticks he shall. Meas, fetch the sticks.”
Jack exhaled. They saved me, he thought. I can break a few sticks. And he looked at Jill as if to say, “See? They’re my friends after all.”
Jill glowered at him and slowly shook her head from side to side.
When Jack saw the sticks, he nearly fell over. They were tree trunks. Three tree trunks. Bound together with thick, heavy rope. Meas deposited them in the middle of the chamber. Then he rolled the boulders away.
“Go ahead, boy!” bellowed Aitheantas. “Break ’em!”
Jack walked reluctantly up to the tree trunks. He gazed at them. He whispered, “Do I have to?”
“Oh, yes,” said Aitheantas.
In a very small voice, Jack asked, “Can I just give up now and leave?” He sounded like he might cry.
“Oh, no,” said Aitheantas. The hall was totally silent now. The giants’ tiny eyes followed Jack closely.
Jack reached out his arms and tried to wrap them around the tree trunks. They barely reached halfway around. He tried to sit on the trunks. That did nothing. He got up and jumped on them. They didn’t even creak.
Jack’s hair was soaked with sweat, and his lips were trembling. The giants’ faces were dark and terrible.
“Well,” said Aitheantas, “you know the rules.”
“No!” Jack whispered. “Let me live! Please!”
“Oh, we’ll let you live,” said Aitheantas.
“You will?”
“Yes. Until after dinner. Then we’ll kill you and eat you for dessert.”
“HUZZAH!” bellowed the giants.
Jack sat huddled in a corner, crying quietly. Jill’s arm was around his small shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he whimpered.
“What were you thinking?” the frog hissed through Jill’s blanket.
Jack buried his head deeper in his arms.
But Jill was watching the giants. Her eyes traveled to the door. It was locked and barred. She looked back at the giants, with their huge bellies, their thick faces, and their tiny, watery eyes.
They sat around their enormous table. Heaped upon it was a feast of fowls: geese and hawks, kites and eagles, merlins and jays; roasted, panfried, boiled in blood, chopped up, blackened. The smells of roasted flesh and dripping fat wafted through the hall.
The giants were just about to tuck in when Bucky said, “I am about as hungry as any giant has ever been, I reckon.”
At this, Brod, the very fat giant, pushed back from the table and chuckled. “Well, Bucky, that sounds like a challenge to Brod.”
And, because no giant-hero can turn down a challenge when offered, Bucky replied, “If it’s a test you want, it’s a test you’ll have. Can you eat more than me?”
Brod laughed and grabbed his huge stomach.
“Your belly’s big,” replied Bucky, “but that just means I have more room to grow!”
The other giants huzzahed the brave words and banged on the table. But King Aitheantas said, “Bucky, you’re a whelp, and Brod, you’re a coward to challenge such a whelp. If you can outeat me, then I’ll be impressed.”
“Or me!” shouted another giant.
“Or me!” bellowed another. Soon all the hall was a cacophony of giant voices, all crying to participate in the challenge. Meas went off to get something called the Bowl of Never Ending, for the tableful of fowl would have been no more than an appetizer to a challenge such as this.
Jill gazed at the giants howling for the commencement of the challenge. Then she took the frog out of her pocket and handed him to Jack.
“Give me your belt,” she said.
“What?”
“Now.”
He looked at her like she was crazy. But Jill was still staring at the giants. As he took off his belt, Jill wrapped her ratty brown blanket all the way around her, and then she took Jack’s belt and cinched it so tight she could barely breathe. Jack watched her, befuddled. Jill stuck out her chin and walked to the giants’ table.
“Excuse me,” she announced. “Can I accept the challenge?”
All the giants turned and looked at her.
The only sound in the sudden silence was Jack whispering, “Uh . . . Jill?”
King Aitheantas’s face slowly broke into a wide grin. “Well, look at that! Why didn’t you say she was the brave one, Jack?” Jack’s face went red.
The giants roared with approval and pulled up a chair for the little girl.
“What’s she doing?” the frog hissed frantically. Jack shook his head.
“Eat till you burst,” Brod said to Jill.
“Or until you do,” she answered, and all the giants shouted and banged the table and pointed their thick sausage fingers approvingly at her.
“She’s the courageous one!”
“She’s a winner!”
“Let’s see what the pygmy can do!”
Meas came back with the Bowl of Never Ending. It was an enormous wooden bowl that was never empty. Unfortunately it was always full of porridge, and the porridge generally had a sickening, burned taste, so the giants avoided eating from it when they could. But only the Bowl of Never Ending would suffice for such a challenge as this. Whoever ate the most platefuls without throwing up won. Meas heaped each plate with bird meat, until no fowl was left on the table. Then, with an enormous spoon, he poured a sickeningly large dollop of porridge on top of the fowl. The porridge steamed and stank like something burning. Brod licked his lips. Jill felt like she might gag.
What follows is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard in any tale I have ever come across.
I considered cutting it completely from this record. I feel sick just thinking about it. Writing it down for you was, shall we say, a harrowing experience.
But, as I promised to tell you the true story of Jack and Jill, I must include what follows.
You, though, have no obligation to actually read it.
“A haon!” shouted Aitheantas, and the giants all picked up their spoons. “A dó!” he cried, and all the giants put down their spoons and gripped the sides of their plates. “A trí!” he bellowed, and all the giants poured their meat and porridge straight down their gullets. They slammed their plates down, and Meas filled them all in the blink of an eye. The giants lifted their plates to their mouths and poured another helping down their throats.
Jack turned to look at Jill. She, too, had a second plateful before her. She picked it up and began pouring it over her open mouth. But, Jack noticed, most of the porridge did not go into her mouth. In fact, none of it did. She seemed to be licking it up with her tongue, but as Jack watched he saw that she was actually pushing it out onto her face. From there, it slid, hot and terrible smelling, down her neck and into the ratty brown blanket. She slammed her plate down like the rest of them and started again.
Jill poured another plateful over her face and down her shirt. Around the table, giants gobbled the revolting stuff down. Only Brod seemed to be enjoying it.
Slam! More porridge pouring down the giants’ gullets, more porridge sliding down Jill’s neck.
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! The porridge was now visibly collecting in the brown blanket, hanging over Jill’s belt in what looked for all the world like a jiggling belly.
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!
Jill smiled as she poured more of the sickening glop over her face and down her neck. The giants, on the other hand, started to look ill.
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!
Twenty servings in, Bucky had begun to slow down. Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! After twenty-four, he looked positively green. Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! After twenty-eight, Bucky turned and threw up all over the floor. The smooth, velvety vomit spread over the flagstones. Its odor suffused the hall and made Jack gag.
“Bucky is out!” cried Meas. The other giants let out a muffled cheer and continued pouring the sludge-like porridge down their throats.
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!
After forty helpings, two giants turned and threw up at exactly the same time, their chunky vomit mingling on the floor. “Goleor and Barraoicht are out!” Meas bellowed.
Bucky was staring at Jill. “How is she still eating?” he asked. But no one was listening.
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!
Now giants were throwing up all over the place. Chunks, globs, nuggets of bloody, fatty vomit coated the flagstones, the table legs, the giants’ legs.
“Leithleach out!” Meas bellowed. “Feall out!” “Aitheantas out!” One by one, each giant erupted like a volcano of half-digested pink meat and gray porridge.
The upchuck began collecting in a large pool under the table, and then began to spread out over the floor, like some gooey, primordial lake. The giants were slouching in their chairs, covered with silky brown sludge, groaning. But Jill kept pouring the porridge over her face and letting it slide down her neck. Brod was still eating, too. But he had begun to slow.
Slam . . . Slam . . .
Slam . . .
Wobble . . .
Brod stopped with a plate full of porridge in front of him.
“Brod?” Meas asked. All the giants leaned forward and looked at the enormous slab of meat known as Brod.
“Uhhhhghhh.”
“Do you give up, Brod?” Meas wanted to know.
“Uhhhhghhh,” said Brod.
“Well?”
Brod threw up all over the table.
“Jill is the winner!” announced Meas.
Jill stood up triumphantly. Jack cheered his head off. The frog did little fist pumps in Jack’s pocket.
The giants stared at Jill. The blanket had stretched out into the largest stomach any of them had ever seen. Even bigger than Brod’s. It hung down over her belt, all wobbly and gelatinous.
And then, the silence was cut with the word “Cheat!”
Bucky was pointing at her, his face red. “She’s a cheat!”
Aitheantas glared at her. “I believe she is,” he said.
“She didn’t eat that porridge!” said Bucky. “She couldn’t have.”
“I don’t believe she could,” said Aitheantas. Brod threw up on the table again.
“You don’t believe me?” Jill cried. “You dare question me?” Her voice was fierce, frightening. “I will show you the food in my belly, if you will show me the food in yours.”
“Mine’s mostly on the table,” said Brod.
“I challenge you all to show me the food in your bellies!” Jill bellowed.
Aitheantas rose to his feet. A cunning smile played across his lips. “If you, my little pygmy, can show us the food in your belly, we can show you the food in ours.”
Jill turned to Meas. Very slowly, very clearly, she said, “Bring us knives.”
I don’t believe anyone is reading right now. I assume everyone has just skipped to the next chapter. I hope so.
If any of you are indeed still reading this . . . well . . . good luck to you.
Meas disappeared and returned in a moment, carrying enough long, sharp knives for every giant in the hall, and one for Jill. Jill grasped hers in her hand. “Show me your food!” she cried.
“Jill!” Jack cried. “Stop!” The frog peered out of his pocket.
Jill raised the knife above her head. Then she brought the knife down and buried it in her stomach. It entered her body just above the belt; from there she drew it up the length of her enormous belly.
The frog fainted again.
Porridge poured out all over the floor. Inside Jill’s shirt was a mess of brown tatters, fleshy porridge, and bird bones. Jack stared. Between the ratty brown of the blanket and the disgusting mess of meat and bone and porridge, it looked a whole lot like human entrails.
The giants all squinted their tiny eyes at Jill and her dissected shirt.
“I can do that!” Bucky cried. And he plunged his knife into his stomach and drew it from his belt to his throat. Blood and porridge poured out onto the floor, and then Bucky fell down. Dead. His eyes were wide, and his corpse lay half submerged in vomit.
“So can I!” cried Leithleach. And he, too, gutted himself, spilling his blood and viscera and porridge, and then collapsing on top of them.
“Me too!”
“So can I!”
“That’s easy!”
And one by one, each giant-hero cut himself from gullet to gizzard, and an explosion of blood and guts and partially digested meat and porridge poured all over the floor of the hall. One by one, each giant collapsed into the blood and vomit. The floor was six, now eight, now ten inches deep with blood and guts and food. Each time a giant fell, the steaming, putrid pool rippled.
Aitheantas was the last. “I’m not sure I can,” he said, looking uncertainly around at the carnage.
“You have to, King,” Meas said. “You accepted the challenge.”
“There’s no way out of it?” Aitheantas asked forlornly.
Meas shook his hoary beard. “None,” he said.
Aitheantas looked balefully at Jill. Then he took a deep breath, clutched his knife tightly in his hand, and cut a long gash from below his belly button to the top of his neck. Porridge and guts and blood poured out of his enormous body, and then he tumbled like a felled tree to the floor. The pool of pink and brown muck around him rippled, and then grew still.
Jill pulled off the long, stretched, tattered, and filthy blanket to reveal her equally filthy shirt.
“Well,” said Meas impassively, “that was a neat trick.”
“Thanks,” Jill replied.
Jack stared at the carnage around him, trying to figure out what had just happened.
“Are you going to let us go?” Jill asked the gaunt old guard.
“Certainly,” he replied. He stuck out his giant, bony, sallow-skinned hand to Jill. She shook it. “I hated those brutes,” he said. “They got exactly what they deserved.” Then Meas shook Jack’s hand, patted the frog on his little head and, wading through great lake of giant blood and vomit, showed them to the narrow staircase out of the cave.
“Wait,” said Jill. “Do you have the Seeing Glass?”
Meas’s dim eyes seemed to glow brighter for a moment. “Ah,” he said. “Is that why you came here?”
“It was,” said Jill. “Until Jack forgot.”
“I didn’t forget,” Jack mumbled, turning red.
“It isn’t here.” Meas’s voice replied. “But it is indeed a treasure worth seeking. The greatest power, it is said, resides in that Glass. A piece of true magic, as strong and pure as any in the world.”
“Do you know where it is?” Jill asked.
“We are as high up as this earth goes, save Heaven. The Glass, last I heard, was in the deepest pit of the earth, save Hell. You might try there.”
“How do we get there?” Jack asked.
Meas shrugged. “Ask the goblins.”
“Goblins?”
Meas nodded his great gray head. “But be careful. Giants are brutal. Goblins are cunning. Do not trust them too far.”
“How do we find them?”
“I don’t know. I have never left this cave.”
The children gazed up at his long, sad face. “But there’s no more band, right?” Jill asked. “Can’t you leave now?”
Meas sighed. “There will always be a band. As long as there are giants, there will be fools who will follow them.”
Jack was about to ask what he meant, but Meas turned around and muttered, “Now where did I put that bucket?”
Jack walked quietly, sullenly, across the linen-white clouds under the towering chalky cliffs. Jill followed with the frog.
Jill and the frog talked on and on about what they had just seen and done.
“And did you see how Bucky just grabbed the knife and jammed it into his stomach?”
“And Aitheantas’s face when he realized what was happening?”
“Meas was actually pretty nice!”
“I’ve never seen anything so disgusting in my life!”
“You were pretty great, Jill,” the frog said.
“Yeah,” Jack cut in, his first word since leaving the cave. “Great.” He didn’t sound happy at all.
Jill looked over at him. “What’s with you?” the frog demanded.
“I could have done that,” little Jack insisted. “I could have saved us.”
Neither Jill nor the frog said anything.
“And it was so obvious what you did. I can’t believe they were so dumb to fall for it!” Jack looked very angry. His dark eyebrows made a sharp downward arrow, and his cheeks were flushed.
The wind blew in off the wide blue sky. The sun was setting behind the cliffs, throwing long shadows over the beach. Somewhere far below them, they could hear the call of gulls.
“You went in there,” said the frog to Jack. “It’s your fault. And Jill saved us.”
“You’re an ugly girl and a stupid three-legged frog!” Jack shouted at them, and without warning he sprinted ahead.
“Jack! Jack!” the frog called after him.
“Let him alone,” Jill said sadly.
Jack ran, and the wind blew across his face.
Why? he thought. Why does this keep happening? The boys in the village, the giants, Aitheantas, Bucky, Marie . . . it’s all the same. It will always be the same. Hot tears of humiliation streaked down Jack’s cheeks and blurred his vision. He ran, and ran, and the wind was strong, and growing stronger, and then suddenly it was very strong indeed.
Jill and the frog suddenly could not see Jack anymore. “Jack!” Jill cried. She started running after him. Suddenly, she felt the clouds under her feet fail.
Then she saw Jack. He was doing just what she was doing.
He was plummeting toward the earth.
Jill tumbled and tumbled and tumbled through the air. The frog was screaming, but Jill felt oddly calm. Then, beneath Jack, Jill saw a smooth, green hill rising to greet them. Beside the hill was a little town, and beside that, the sea. As Jill tumbled, the hill and the town grew and grew and grew, and she thought, That will be a nice place to land.
Then she did land there, on top of that green hill, and it hurt very much. But she was not done tumbling. She tumbled all the way down that big green hill, until she landed in a heap at the bottom, next to Jack.
Jill sat up, laughing. The frog had gone from screaming to whooping for joy. “We’re alive!” he shouted. “Thank God! We’re alive!” Then he stopped. He saw Jack.
Jack was not laughing. His face was white and still, and there was blood pooling in the green grass under his head.
Jill got up, saw they were on the outskirts of the town, and ran screaming for the nearest house.