The Thief and the Beanstalk (Further Tales Adventures) (3 page)

Has he seen me?
Nick wondered, sinking lower into the weeds. The stranger’s gaze fixed on the ax in the tree stump, and he ambled toward it, whistling. He let the pack that was slung across his shoulder slip to the ground, and he gripped the handle. He gave it a little tug, then a stronger yank, but the ax would not budge. The wood had swollen since the day long ago when, with a final swing, the farmer sank his blade deep.

“Like Excalibur in its stone,” the stranger said, but not to himself. He spoke loudly, projecting his voice toward the garden. It was an intelligent voice—but not a friendly voice. Nick flattened himself on the ground, wishing he’d run at the first sight of the intruder.

“Come on out, boy. I saw you from up there, you know. Besides, you’re not as good at hiding as you think. I can see the path you made through the weeds.”

Nick had seen rabbits freeze in place, hoping to go unnoticed when someone approached; now he felt as they must. He knew he should bolt, because this stranger radiated danger the way a bonfire threw off heat. But he thought about it a moment too long. He heard a single footstep coming toward him, and the stranger was suddenly hurtling over the wall. Nick jumped to his feet and turned to run, but powerful hands seized him from behind—one on his arm and the other grabbing a handful of hair.

“Hold on now, pup. Mister Finch won’t hurt you. Unless you try to
run away
.” He accentuated his words by twisting Nick’s hair, so fiercely that it felt like the back of his head had caught fire. Nick stopped struggling.

“I will let go of you now,” said the man. “And I want you to turn around and look at me. If you run, I’ll just snatch you up again, so there’s no point to it, is there? Do you understand me?” Nick nodded, and the man released his grip. Nick turned to face the stranger who called himself Finch.

Finch looked Nick over from head to toe, and he seemed to approve of what he saw. “Oh, you’ll do, won’t you? Can’t weigh more than four stone, can you? Got twigs for arms—is there any strength in them?”

“What … what do you want from me?” Nick said, panting. He rubbed the arm that Finch had seized. Five bruises, one for each finger, had blossomed there.

Finch painted a broad, friendly smile on his face. “Just a little favor, that’s all. Tell me your name.”

“Nick.”

“Nick. A fine name. Is this your farm? Is this where you live?”

Nick shook his head.

“So what are you doing here, then? Are your mother and father around?”

Again, Nick shook his head.

“What about friends? Any friends around here?”

Another shake.

“That’s a shame. But you know what, Nick? I could be your friend. My name’s Finch. I’ve been looking for a kid just like you. And here you are, in the first place I looked. That makes me think it was meant to be. You see, I need a favor that only a little fellow like you can do. A big fellow wouldn’t do for this job.”

Finch flashed his smile again, but Nick’s fear grew nonetheless. Finch seemed to sense that his charm wasn’t working, and his eyes narrowed.

“Think about it, Nick. You need me, too. I know you do. See, I understand everything about you, though I never met you before this moment.

“You lost your family somehow. Did they abandon
you? No, it was the plague, wasn’t it?” Nick felt his entire body go rigid and wished he’d been able to control himself better, because Finch’s eyes narrowed further and his smile spread a little wider.

“Thought so,” Finch said. “The villagers probably burned down your house, without bothering to bury the dead. Then you were on your own, and there was nobody to take care of you. Maybe you asked passersby if they could give you a place to sleep, a place to come home to. But nobody ever did. Who needs a lost child like you in times like these, and a plague orphan at that? They had their own problems, their own mouths to feed. So they turned you away. The best they would do was toss you a scrap of bread. And you’d watch as the family hurried away, not looking back. And you were jealous of those children, with their full bellies and their clean faces and their little toys.”

Nick clenched his teeth and pressed his lips together.
I won’t let you see my face,
he thought, and he turned his back on Finch. But Finch stepped closer and whispered over his shoulder. “So you went on begging for food, wandering around, searching for a place to call home. Did a little stealing, too, didn’t you? Anything to survive. And now look at you, scavenging in an old vegetable garden like an animal. But think about it, Nick: Winter will follow. And what will you do when there’s no food to scrounge—you, with your
cheeks sunken in and all your ribs showing already? How do you keep warm when the nights are cold enough to freeze spit, and you’ve got no coat to wear, no blanket to wrap around you, no fire to cozy up to?”

Nick’s head bent low. His knobby shoulders were trembling.

“Nick, I was that way once too. Shunned. Hungry. Hunted. I figured I had a choice to make. And I chose to fight back, survive any way I could. You understand? I’ve done some wrong along the way. But the world did me a load of wrong first, and maybe I’m just paying the world back in kind.”

Nick wiped his cheeks with his sleeve, and turned to look Finch angrily in the eye. Finch leaned over a little, putting his face closer to Nick’s.

“Come with me, lad. I’ve got friends who were all just like you once. We live in a forest over that ridge. You can join us. We’ll be your family. You can stay warm by our fire. And we’ll feed you right—meat, biscuits, soup, you name it. How would a nice hot bowl of venison stew go down right now, Nick?”

At the suggestion of food, real meat, Nick’s mouth suddenly flooded with saliva. He swallowed it before it could spill out over his lips.

“There’s something you have to understand first, though, Nick. You see, we’re a band of thieves. That’s the plain truth. If you come with me, you’ll be a thief too.
Pretty soon I’ll have a little job for you to do. Nothing you can’t handle. But you have to do it, and you have to do it my way. And in our band, my way is the only way. You understand? Have we a bargain, little thief?”

Finch stuck out his hand. With his eyes narrowed into slits, he stared down, and waited to see if Nick would shake it.

“Men
, meet Nick. Our littlest thief,” said Finch. Nick stood wide-eyed in the forest clearing as Finch’s band gathered around and looked him over. This was the grimmest, fiercest collection of people he’d ever seen.

Some came out of their tents. One got up from a whetstone where he sharpened a deadly looking blade. A few just seemed to materialize from behind the trees. The big one with almost no teeth, giggling like a crazy man, seemed barely human; he looked like the embodiment of the evil that Nick only sensed under Finch’s handsome veneer. He was considering whether he could possibly escape by sprinting into the forest when the smell hit him.

It was the smell of hot food. A thick man with a black beard was standing by the fire, stirring something inside a kettle. As the cook stared back at Nick, he brought the long-handled spoon to his nose and gave it a deep, wet snort. The spoon overflowed with steaming, meaty
brown stew, dotted with yellow chunks of carrot. A few drips went off the spoon into his beard, joining the other debris that clung to the black whiskers.

Nick winced as hunger pains knifed through his mid-section. His legs shook. He felt dizzy, as if he might faint.

“Smells good, Pewt,” said Finch to the cook. “Make a bowl for our guest, won’t you?” The man named Pewt managed to nod and scowl at the same time. Nick watched, transfixed, as the big spoon went into the kettle three, four, five times, filling a wooden bowl to the rim with the thick stew. Pewt put the bowl on a crooked wooden table, where a fallen log served as a bench, then stepped back and folded his arms. Nick took one step toward the table, but Finch’s strong hand had him by the collar.

“Hold on there, lad, that stew’s so hot you’ll burn your tongue.”

“I don’t mind,” said Nick. He strained against Finch’s grip, never taking his eyes off the bowl.

“I won’t hear of it! Tell you what, Nick. Do a little favor for me, then you can eat all you want. Show us if you can climb this tree over here” Finch pointed to one of the tallest trees in the forest, the ancient oak that marked the thieves’ lair. Surely magnificent in its prime, the tree was now a knotty, rotten behemoth. Parasitic vines swarmed over its dying limbs, and black ants spat sawdust from the holes in its trunk.

Nick knew what the cruel man meant: If he didn’t
climb the tree, there would be no meal. Finch released him and stood up, putting his hands on his hips. He dared Nick with his eyes to decline the challenge.

There were some chuckles from the gang, and Finch arched one eyebrow in amusement. Nick scowled and bunched his hands into fists. He wanted to pound Finch’s smirking face, but he had a good idea of what would happen if he tried. So he turned his rage to the tree. With a scream, he ran right at it, leaped, and grabbed a low branch.

The branch was dead. It snapped off as Nick pulled himself up, and hit the top of his head with a thunk. Then his momentum carried him into the trunk of the tree. To save his nose, Nick turned his face to one side. He scraped his cheek badly on the coarse bark, before he bounced off and hit the ground.

The gang hooted with laughter. Some doubled over with mirth; some merrily slapped each other on the shoulders. The big crazy one was lying on the ground, pointing and kicking madly.

Nick held his palm to his stinging face. He looked at the tree again, plotted a safer way up using the swarming vines for grips, and began to climb. The higher he went, the less the gang laughed. He felt a rush of satisfaction as he silenced their ridicule.

Standing on a great horizontal branch, far above the gang, Nick stared down at Finch with a defiant expression.

“All the way up, boy!” Finch shouted through cupped
hands. Nick looked to the upper reaches of the tree. He had a problem now. The vines did not grow this high, and the only branch within easy reach appeared unsafe. Its bark had fallen off, exposing the pale dry wood underneath. Sure enough, when he tugged on the branch, it cracked off in his hands. He let it drop, giving it a careful nudge in Finch’s direction as he released it. Finch glared up as the rotted branch landed inches from his feet.

With that limb gone, Nick had only one option left. The next branch was higher and farther away. He couldn’t reach it without jumping. If his aim was off or his grip was weak, his life would end in a bloody crunch on the forest floor.

He heard Finch’s voice from far below. “Hurry up, Nick. Stew’s getting cold!”

Nick looked at the gang. Only the big toothless one was laughing now, his tongue lolling like a dog’s. The others stood watchfully, probably hoping for a dreadful and spectacular ending.

Nick steadied himself with one hand on the trunk beside him, bent his knees, and launched himself. For a moment that seemed infinite, he was airborne. Then the branch slapped into his fingers. His legs swung under and beyond the branch, the force nearly making him lose his grip. As he swung back, he was able to secure his handhold. He heard voices calling from below.

“That’s the way, Nick!” “Thattaboy, Nick!” Most of
the band clapped and whistled their approval.

He waited for his swinging motion to subside, then hooked his leg over the branch and pulled himself up. The rest of the climb was easy. Branches radiated like spokes from all sides, and he soon reached the top of the tree.

Nick clung to the thin trunk and swayed in the refreshing breeze that whistled over the forest canopy. The ancient oak towered over its neighbors. He looked to the west, where the sun had already set. Beyond the forest, he spied a handsome white fortress, perhaps two miles away. Then he caught the scent of the boiling stew far below him and remembered why he’d dared to climb so high.

“More, please,” Nick mumbled, the last spoonful of stew bulging in one cheek. He slid the empty bowl toward Pewt, who looked at Finch. This would be the fifth helping.

“He said I could eat all I want!” Nick reminded Pewt loudly. Finch gave the cook a single sharp nod. With a heavy sigh, Pewt ladled the bowl full again. The rest of the gang waited anxiously, to see if there would be any left for them.

Nick scraped the bowl clean, then dropped the spoon and licked the insides. He slammed the bowl to the table, leaned back, and let out a deafening belch.

A full stomach was a novelty for him, and his began
to ache. Nick walked, slightly bent, to a soft place on the ground near the fire. He lay down on his side and rubbed his protesting belly. Then exhaustion overtook him. His head bobbed and his eyelids fluttered shut.

Finch watched the whole time, with narrowed eyes and a subtle smile. He told Toothless John to fetch a spare blanket and cover the boy.

When someone woke him with a whispered warning, Nick didn’t know how long he’d been sleeping. One rough hand was over Nick’s mouth so he could not yell. The other was across the top of his head, pinning him down so he could not turn to see who was behind him.

“Don’t make a sound, Nick. If I take my hand away, you promise not to talk?”

Nick nodded as best he could in the iron grip. The man took the hand off Nick’s mouth. He left the other across Nick’s forehead and eyes, and went on quietly talking.

“Don’t try to see who I am now. I’m just here with a quick word of advice, then I’ll be off. You’re a brave one, Nick. Anyone can see that. But you’re just a boy, and boys do things that ain’t so smart. So heed these words: Whatever you do, never, ever cross Finch. Or try to leave the band. Once you join Finch, you’re his till the day you die.

“Listen to this story, lad. It’s instructional. A few years back, on a late summer night just like this, one of our gang decided he could get the best of Finch. We had
ourselves a bunch of fine jewels we’d stolen in our travels. Finch likes jewels, you know, because they’re small and easy to cart around when we move on. One morning the bag of jewels was gone—and so was this fellow, a bloke named Montescue. As angry as you might have seen Finch get, he was a hundred times as mad when he found out one of his own betrayed him. He looked more like a demon than a man that morning, I tell you.