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 a.s.sume 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 h.o.a.ry 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 b.u.t.ton 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 impa.s.sively, "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 Gla.s.s?"
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 Gla.s.s. 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 Gla.s.s, last I heard, was in the deepest pit of the earth, save h.e.l.l. 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 G.o.d! 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 gra.s.s under his head.
Jill got up, saw they were on the outskirts of the town, and ran screaming for the nearest house.
CHAPTER FIVE.