CHAPTER 1
A HANDFUL OF MAGIC
“What’s taking so long?” Jack’s mom yells.
Jack stares into the empty milking bucket and shakes his head. “Ma’s not gonna like this,” he mumbles, so that Milky White can’t hear.
MOOOOO! she bellows as if she did hear.
“It’ll be OK, Milky,” Jack says, patting the cow’s scrawny side. But he’s not sure it will be. Milky hasn’t produced a drop of milk in days.
Not wanting to face his mother, Jack drags his feet as he heads toward the house. When he gets there, his mother peers into the empty bucket. She lets loose a loud sigh.
“Selling milk was our only source of income,” she cries. “How will we survive?” Jack’s stomach grumbles in response. Neither of them have had much to eat lately, other than some watery soup.
“I guess there is only one thing to do,” Ma says. She looks to Milky White out in the pasture. MOO! the cow bellows again, knowing something unpleasant is about to happen. “Since Milky is done giving milk, it’s time to sell her.”
Tears well up in Jack’s eyes. “Do we have to?” he asks. “I’ll take care of her.”
“We can’t afford to keep an old, dried-up cow,” his mother replies sternly. “Take her to market. Trade her for something else we can use to earn money. Perhaps some chickens or a sheep.”
Head down, Jack walks over to Milky and ties a rope to her halter. “Let’s go, ol’ girl.” Then they begin the long, winding trek into town.
He rounds a bend and hears a loud “Psssst!” A man in a fancy hat stands alongside the road, motioning Jack over to him. “Good morning,” the man says.
“Morning, sir,” Jack replies.
“Where are you off to, lad?” the man asks.
“To market to sell our cow,” Jack sniffs.
“You won’t get much for a scrawny thing like her,” the man says. “How about we make a trade instead?”
“What kind of trade?” Jack asks.
The man reaches into his pocket. “Why, for a handful of these. You’ll never be hungry again…”
If the man offers Jack magic beans, press here.