Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird (6 page)

Jack, who thought he was in a kitchen, staggered back, overwhelmed by the size of the kiln. "That's one big oven, lady giant," he said.

"Yes," Effie said. This "lady giant" business was becoming annoying. She shoved him in and slammed the door.

But she didn't latch it, so that he could breathe. From the crack along the edge, Jack watched as Effie's father walked into the room.

"Are you just getting back?" her father asked again.

"No," Effie said, hastily tying on an apron to cover her party dress. "I came in here for wood to get the kitchen fire going for breakfast."

Her father sniffed the air. "What's that I smell?" he asked. But he knew what he smelled—he smelled beer; he just wanted to know where the smell was coming from. "Is that you?" he demanded.

"No, Father," Effie said.

He sniffed her, but the beer smell didn't seem to be coming from her. "It better not be you," he warned.

Meanwhile Jack, in the oven, thought,
Oh, no! He can smell me! He must be a man-eating giant.
Jack began to work out his last will and testament.

Effie picked up two pieces of split log and left, bringing them into the kitchen to start the breakfast fire.

Her father stayed in the workshop, rechecking the glaze on the cups and bowls and jugs that had come out of the kiln the day before.

Jack realized that he didn't own anything worth leaving to anybody.

There was a loud crash from the kitchen. Jack heard Effie cry out, then there was the sound of glass breaking and the frantic squawking of a chicken. "You get back here," Effie shouted.

"Effie?" her father called.

Jack saw Effie come back into the workshop, holding by the legs a flapping, squawking, feather-shedding hen. "She did it again," Effie said, shaking the hen. "The miserable little beast. I took off my gold bracelet before I started working and this ... this ...
THING
... ate it."

Her father pried open the hen's beak. "I can't see it, Effie," he said. He took the hen from his daughter and plunked her down on the table. "Lay," he commanded.

The hen protested some more.

"
Lay!
" he shouted.

And then, to Jack's amazement, the hen laid a golden egg.

"You wretched thing," Effie told the hen. "I liked my bracelet better." And to her father she said, "We should have
her
for breakfast and be done with."

"Now, now," her father said. "She was a gift from my brother." He let go of the hen, who ruffled her feathers and half flew, half ran to the shelf along the back of the table.

Leaning forward to see through the crack where the door didn't meet the oven, Jack saw the hen brush against a cloth-draped object that stood about as tall as Jack's arm was long. From this mysterious-looking object there came a sound somewhere between human voice and musical notes, as though the hen had jostled ... what? Something magical, Jack was sure.

Just while Jack was wondering why someone would keep a magical musical anything bundled up in the kitchen, Effie said, "And that singing harp! A gift from your sister. We need to get a better class of relatives."

A gold-egg-laying hen!
Jack thought.
A dinging harp!
He thought of how, minutes ago, he had come to the realization that he didn't own anything worthwhile. Wouldn't his mother stop complaining that he didn't have a job if he owned a gold-egg-laying hen? Wouldn't his friends be impressed by a singing harp?

"Now, now, Effie," Effie's father said again. "We can't just throw them away. Come Christmas I'll wrap them up in pretty paper and give them away as door prizes at the Potters' Guild Christmas party."

"That's four months away," Effie protested.

"So long as we keep the harp covered," her father said, "and we're careful not to leave gold lying around—"

But Effie wasn't finished. "And what about that magic cauldron-of-plenty your aunt gave us that never runs out of food," she demanded, "except the only food it has is pickled liver? I'm always tripping over that thing."

"Well, you don't need to keep it in the kitchen," her father said. "Here, I'll help you move it...."

Jack watched as the two of them moved out of the room, then he turned his attention to the wonderful hen. It was settling down on the shelf, looking ready—in Jack's estimation—to lay another egg. It wasn't fair, he thought, for the giants to have so much good fortune when he had none. He leaned against the oven door for a better look, and the door swung open and Jack fell out.

The hen began to cluck nervously.

"
Shh,
" Jack said.

But this only made the hen think he was a snake, and she squawked even louder.

Jack came closer, still going "
Shh,
" intending nothing more than to try to hush the hen, but now the singing harp became nervous, too. From beneath its cloth draping it asked in a silvery, musical voice, "What's happening?"

"
Shh,
" Jack said again. "I'm not supposed to be here. You'll get me in trouble."

And then the harp, being a clever harp, knew what that meant. "
THIEF!
" the harp cried. "
THIEF! THIEF! THIEF!
"

From down the hall Effie's father echoed, "Thief?" and Jack thought,
Well. Why not?
So he grabbed the hen with one hand and the singing harp, cover and all, with the other and jumped out the window, landing in the garden.

Jack took one step, tripped over an ivy vine, and went sprawling. He tucked the hen and the harp in close to him under his jacket so they wouldn't get injured and rolled down, down the hill until he came to rest with his face pressed against the bars of the gate by the street.

He got to his feet, dizzy and bruised but still holding on to both hen and harp. He looked over his shoulder and there was Effie's father running toward him, holding a huge black cooking pot and calling, "The cauldron, the cauldron, too!"

Sure that if he wasn't fast enough he was going to get eaten, Jack squeezed through the bars of the gate and took off down the street.

After a while he couldn't hear the sound of pursuing footsteps anymore, and when he looked over his shoulder there was no sign that he was being followed. But just in case, he never slowed down. He ran and ran, all the way home, bursting through the kitchen door just as his mother was sitting down to breakfast.

"Jack!" she said, seeing him covered with twigs and dirt. "What's happened?"

Jack flung himself into a chair, panting loudly.

"I thought you went to town to look for a job," ‹his mother said.

"I did," Jack gasped between wheezing breaths. "And I found one, too. I'm a cow salesman."

"
Cow salesman!
" his mother cried. "What kind of job is that when we only have one cow?"

"Oh," Jack said. "Good point."

His mother rested her head in her hands. "I hope you at least got a good price for her."

"Ahm..." Jack said reaching into his pocket. He came out with a handful of lumpy, beer-encrusted beans.

"That's disgusting." His mother pulled on his sleeve until his arm was hanging out the window and shook the mess off his hand. "You were gone a whole day and night, and all you come home with is a handful of beans?" she shouted.

Jack wished his mother wouldn't be so loud; his head felt as though it was about to burst like a dropped egg. Which reminded him ... He reached under his jacket and pulled out the hen, which he set on the table.

His mother looked at him skeptically. "You traded our cow for a chicken?" she demanded.

Jack shook his head, which he shouldn't have done, not with his headache, then he said, "No. The beans must have been magical beans. They grew into this incredible ... well, I guess it must have been a beanstalk ... which reached up, up, up ... to a city in the sky."

"A city in the sky," his mother repeated.

"Giants lived there," Jack continued. "The lady giant tried to help me. She hid me in the oven. But the man giant could smell people. He was going to eat me."

"
She
put you in the oven," Jack's mother said, "But
he
was the one you were afraid of?"

"And they had this hen that lays golden eggs and this harp"—Jack pulled the cloth-draped harp out from under his jacket^ "that sings. I barely escaped with my life. The giant was chasing after me with a cooking pot."

"You
stole
these things?" Jack's mother cried in horror. "Did I raise my son to
steal
things?"

"They didn't want them," Jack protested.

"A hen that lays golden eggs and a harp that sings—
and they didn't want them?
"

Jack squirmed. But before he could think of how to answer, the hen clucked loudly, sat down, and laid an egg. A perfectly white, perfectly ordinary egg.

Jack's mother just looked at Jack.

Jack sighed. "I guess I forgot to mention that you have to feed the hen gold before she lays golden eggs."

"But we don't have any gold," his mother pointed out.

"But we will." Jack pulled the cover off the harp. "People will come from miles around to hear this. They'll pay us. Sing, harp," he commanded.

And the harp did.

In loud, off-key, gooey, sticky, ear-shattering, eye-watering, fingernails-on-blackboard notes.

Jack's mother put her head down on the table and covered her ears. "Stop," she cried. "Make it stop."

Jack threw the cover back over the harp.

Eventually the harp stopped singing.

"Oops," Jack said.

Jack's mother raised her head, then looked frantically at the door. "Jack!" she said. "What was that noise? Is that the giant outside?"

Jack leapt to his feet, listening, though he hadn't heard anything.

His mother said, "You better take the ax and check."

Jack got the ax from beside the door.

"Look in the barn and all around the yard," his mother advised.

"All right," Jack said.

While he was gone, his mother changed the locks.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
let down your hair.
See it shine; see it bounce.
No split ends.
Strong enough to climb up:
For the right price,
you, too, can have hair like this.

Once upon a time before there were toll bridges, there were troll bridges.

One day three billy goat brothers were munching on the tall, sweet grass on the south side of a river, when the smallest and youngest ot the billy goats happened to look up and notice that the grass on the north side of the river was taller yet and looked even sweeter. So the smallest billy goat headed off across the bridge, his tiny hooves going
click-click
over the wooden boards.

When he got halfway across, however, a long, skinny, hairy hand reached out from underneath the bridge and grabbed hold of his leg.

"Mmmm," a troll voice said, and the smallest billy goat could hear the smacking of troll lips. "This looks like a tasty treat for a midmorning snack."

"Oh, please don't eat me," the smallest billy goat pleaded. "I'm so small and skinny, it would hardly be worth the effort of eating me."

"A mouthful is better than none," the troll said, dragging the smallest billy goat closer and closer to the edge of the bridge.

"Yes, but," the smallest billy goat said, catching a glimpse of yellow troll eyes and sharp troll teeth, "my older brother, who's much bigger than I am, is right behind me. If you eat me, he's sure to see, and he'll never come across. If you let me go, you can eat him."

The troll looked over the smallest billy goat's shoulder and saw that there was, indeed, a somewhat larger billy goat approaching. The troll licked the smallest billy goat's leg but then let him go.

The smallest billy goat trotted across the bridge as fast as his skinny legs would carry him.

The middle billy goat—who was middle both in size and age—had noticed the tall, sweet-looking grass on the north side of the river, and now he saw his brother was there. So the middle billy goat headed off across the bridge, his medium-size hooves going
tap-tap
over the wooden boards.