Giant-Sized Problems
We are spinning so fast that the world and the people around me are a complete blur. I feel like we are being stretched like taffy, and there’s a whizzing sound in my ears growing so loud that I can’t hear my own screaming. Just when I think I can’t stand it a moment longer, the bubble slows down and begins to deflate before dropping softly onto the ground.
It bursts, and we all tumble out.
Traveling by bubble is a lot different than traveling by magic bean.
Ollie promptly loses his lunch. “What in the name of Grimm did she just do to us?”
“Saved our necks.” Jax holds his head in his hands as he slowly sits up. “I think. I’ll know once the world stops spinning. Are we back at school?”
“I think so. Is everyone all right?” Words feel strange on my lips, and I’m shivering. I look around, trying to get my bearings. These trees don’t look familiar and the ground is really squishy, like there’s been a lot of rain. We seem to be on a hill.
Kayla springs right up. “That was incredible! Your grandmother could be fairy queen. I don’t know any fairies that can travel by bubble! That’s an upper-level skill most of us can’t do. Once, my mother formed a bubble, but it only lasted a second before it burst. Your grandmother used it to send us all the way across the ocean and the kingdom to…school?” She frowns. “This doesn’t look like school grounds.”
Maxine bites her lip. “I don’t think we’re home. This terrain feels odd.” Maxine bounces up and down and almost falls. “Careful! The ground is really uneven.”
“I think her magic might be wonky,” Jocelyn says. “Who knows if we’re even in the Hollow Woods right now.” Jocelyn stands up, readjusts her cloak, and looks around.
“Why would it be wonky?” I know I just met my grandmother, but I feel a tad protective of her. “We told her where we needed to go.”
“Yes, but she hasn’t been back in Enchantasia in years,” Jocelyn reminds me. “What if she had the coordinates wrong? We could be in any forest from here to Oz or Avalon.”
“Quick!” Kayla says. “Try using your untapped fairy skills to figure out where we are.”
“How do I do that?” I ask skeptically.
“I don’t know.” Kayla’s wings pop out and flutter madly. “Clairvoyance isn’t one of my things, but it is your grandmother’s, so you should have it. Concentrate! Can you see the future? Where are we?” Everyone looks at me hopefully.
I close my eyes, exhale long and slow, and think. Where are we? I have no clue. All I see is blackness, which makes sense because my eyes are closed. Okay, Gilly. Try again. Think of the future? We are… We are… “I have no clue where we are.” Kayla sighs. I spin around, looking for a normal sign we’re exactly where we should be, but I don’t see the turrets of Fairy Tale Reform School in the distance. I kick the dirt, frustrated. “This doesn’t look like school. What if Jocelyn is right, and we’re totally in another kingdom? We have to get back before the Fire Moon.”
“Maybe we should spread out and try to find a way out of this forest so we can get a better idea of where we are.” Jax tries to stay upright but keeps tripping. It almost feels as if the hill just got steeper.
Ollie pulls out his sword. “Although if this is the Hollow Woods, we don’t want to go too far alone.”
“Oh my gnome.” AG clutches her stomach. Her uniform is grass-stained and covered in tiny soap bubbles. “My parents forbid me from ever setting foot in the Hollow Woods. Or any wood, really. They don’t even like hollow trees.” She starts to hyperventilate.
“Don’t worry,” I stumble, feeling unsteady on my feet. “If it’s the Hollow Woods, we’ve been here before.”
“I’ve been here more times than you,” Jocelyn says and loses her balance.
“What difference does it make how many times you or I have been here?” I pick up my quiver-and-arrow pack and place it on my shoulder again. “The Hollow Woods is not dangerous…if you know how to navigate it. And we do.”
“We did it once,” Jax reminds me.
“We’re practically experts!” I insist. I don’t add how lost we got in here last time or how we faced down a Bandersnatch. Sometimes it’s better not to share every detail. “Let’s get going. We need to move fast and get back to school.”
“We might not be anywhere near school!” Jocelyn says again.
Kayla touches her neck. “Yeah, Gilly, my neck is prickly like something is wrong. Do you feel that too?” she asks hopefully. “Any sensation at all?”
I shake my head. “Nope.” Kayla looks disappointed.
“Everyone stop talking right now!” AG shouts, her breath coming fast. Her eyes are wild. “Kayla is right! Something is very wrong here.”
We all look at her. AG never yells at anyone. She must be really worked up. Traveling by bubble will do that to a person.
“I don’t care if you’re practically royalty,” Jocelyn snaps. “No one talks to me like that.”
“AG’s right. There is something strange about this place,” Maxine backs up a few paces and disappears. I hear her scream.
“Maxine!” Kayla flutters over and disappears over the other side of the hill. I didn’t realize it was that steep.
“This isn’t a hill!” AG says, and I watch as hair starts to sprout on the back of her hands and her mouth starts to elongate. “My senses are telling me this mound is alive.” The whole hill starts to rumble. “Don’t move! You’ll wake the… Awhoo!” AG falls to all fours, and her yellow dress begins ripping as her limbs grow. (She’s going to be so upset. That party dress is her favorite.) Claws grow out of her hands and feet, and her nose becomes a snout. She sniffs the air, gives another howl, and disappears over the other side of the hill.
Wake the… What in the name of fairies does AG mean?
I hear a loud roar, and I know immediately what my nonexistent fairy skills have blatantly missed. “Everyone follow AG! This isn’t a hill, it’s a giant!”
I start running and get tossed backward as a giant rises from its slumber. As it stands up, we all go sliding down its backside. I see the ground coming closer at alarming speed and can do nothing to stop it. Ollie tumbles past me along with Jocelyn, while Jax shoots downward like a silver bullet. At the last second, I see Jax’s rope hook onto the giant’s pants. He comes to a jarring stop as he hangs from the giant’s waistband.
“Catch it!” I hear Jax cry.
I scramble to grab the rope, straining to hold it and not fall. Jax and I hang on for dear life as the giant begins to move and emits a loud roar. Please don’t squish my friends. Please don’t squish my friends.
Whoosh! I see the giant’s large hand reach down and try to grab me and Jax. We swing away just in time. Whoosh! His other hand reaches for us. We kick off on the rope again, swinging out of reach. This isn’t good either. We’re directly in the giant’s path. If he grabs our rope and pulls us upward, we’re going to be his lunch. Somewhere in the distance, I hear a wolf howl. Then I see a fireball come rocketing straight toward us. It comes dangerously close to singeing my thigh. The giant roars again, lifting one leg and getting thrown off balance.
“We need to get down!” Jax shouts to me. “On the count of three, we swing and I cut the rope. One…”
“Cut the rope?” We must be forty feet off the ground.
“Two!”
“Jax, we’re too high up!”
Whoosh! The giant’s hand reaches for us again.
“Three!” Jax cuts the line, and we start to free-fall. I bash into the giant’s thigh, then hit his muddy knee as I continue to tumble downward. The ground is coming dangerously close when I feel Kayla’s hands on me.
“Gotcha both!” she says, holding one of us in each of her hands. She starts to glide away, and a shadow crosses her face.
“Watch out!” I cry as the giant’s hand knocks into us. The three of us spin off course, landing in a bush where the others are hiding.
“Are you all right?” Maxine helps us up. AG licks my hand. “We thought you were goners.”
The giant roars in frustration. Then I hear another roar in the distance. And another. This giant is not alone, and unlike the giants in Cloud City, forest giants are not so friendly. Their size alone is scary enough, but they also hate intruders and aren’t usually willing to listen to reason.
Jocelyn throws her hands up. “Great! Now we’ve woken a tribe of sleeping giants. We don’t have time to fight them off. We have to get to FTRS.” She conjures a fireball. “Maybe if I start a small fire, they’ll back away.”
Maxine smacks her hand away. “No! You can’t start a fire in a forest! You’ll burn the whole place down. We just have to talk to them sensibly and say, ‘Giants, we’re a bit busy right now, trying to save Enchantasia and all, and it would be wonderful if we could tango another day.” She grins. “Do you think that will work?”
“No,” we collectively reply.
The sound of stomping gets closer, the ground rattling beneath our feet. It sounds like an army of giants is headed our way.
I grab an arrow from my quiver and place it in the bow at the nocking point. I pull back and Maxine smacks my hand, ruining my aim.
“What are you doing? You can’t hurt a giant! Think of Erp. And Jack. We promised Jack we’d never hurt another giant.”
Ever since Jack learned the giants he met at the top of the beanstalk weren’t the villains he made them out to be, he’s been trying to change the kingdom’s views of them. He even has weekly meet and greets with Erp, a giant who helped us in Cloud City. Most kids are still too terrified to go near him. When you’re friends with someone as tall as a house, it can be intimidating.
“But giants native to the woods are a lot different from ones who were raised at the top of a beanstalk,” Jax reminds her.
“It doesn’t matter! Giants are giants.” Maxine sets her lip. “We’re not hurting them.”
“Even though this group is headed our way to eat us?” Ollie points to a large tree in their path. The giants flick it, and it topples as easily as if they were brushing lint off their boots.
“Well, how are we going to get away from them without fireballs or arrows?” I ask in exasperation. “We can’t hide out here forever! Stiltskin could already be on his way to school.”
Jocelyn conjures up another fireball. “I’m firing one.”
“No!” Maxine jumps in front of Jocelyn’s hand. “It’s not right!”
The ground shakes even harder and knocks Maxine to the ground. Kayla and Ollie hold on to each other.
“Give me a boost into this redwood tree so I can get a better look at what we’re up against,” I tell Jax. He makes a hold for my boot so I can hoist myself up.
“You’re going to fall,” Kayla warns me, her wings fluttering wildly. “Try focusing on wings, and maybe yours will appear!”
I’m not even going to attempt that one. Instead, I focus on my footholds. The higher I go, the better the view. Halfway up the redwood, I see the giants moving in a slow pack. “There’s five or six of them,” I yell down to the others. “Way more than we’ve faced in the past. We need an escape plan if we can’t fight them.” I look left and see a river, but we’ve got no flotation devices. I look right and see more trees…and more giants moving in our direction. I look behind me, and it’s more bad news. More giants, more trees.
I don’t see FTRS anywhere.
Grandma Pearl, if we meet again, we need to work on your sense of direction.
Whiz!
Something shoots past me, almost slicing off my nose. What was that? A butterfly? Hummingbird? Baby dragon?
Whiz! Whiz! Whiz!
I cling to my tree branch as something fast, light, and bright heads straight for me. I duck just in time and see an arrow lodge in the branch inches above my head. An almost translucent rope is hanging from it. Humpty Dumpty, what is that?
Whiz!
Something much larger than an arrow is barreling down the line, coming straight for me. I pull myself up to the next-highest perch just in time to see someone slide down the rope and land on my branch. An older boy with fair hair and bright-blue eyes flashes me a killer smile. He’s wearing a leather vest with matching leather boots, and his outfit blends in expertly with the surrounding forest. On his back, he carries a bow and a quiver of arrows.
He grins. “Aha! So it is you, Gillian Cobbler! She was right, after all.”