Jack (18 page)

“Lazy cat!” shouted Annabella. She tried to spur him on like a horse, and then she tugged at his fur with all her might, but Rufus didn't respond.

He sauntered to a golden chair against the wall, leaped onto the cushioned seat, and curled up in a great furry ball.

“I guess he's tired,” I said.

Annabella started walking down Rufus's back.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Well, we're not going to find Papa here, are we?”

She had a point, so we slid down Rufus's tail. He was asleep now, and he didn't so much as twitch a whisker as we slid down the chair legs and tiptoed down the corridor. We kept to the walls and hid whenever we heard footsteps or voices.

We came to a door and slipped beneath the crack to see what was inside. There wasn't much, except a wolf-skin rug with fur so long, it came to our waists, and we trudged through it like a furry field. The wolf's head was stuffed and resting on the floor with its jaws open wide.

“It looks like it might swallow us whole,” Annabella said, a little nervous.

“Better than biting you in two,” said Tom.

The second chamber was filled with all sorts of treasures that looked dusty and forgotten. There were paintings of old nobles, piles of furniture, books, vases, and other valuable ornaments of silver and brass and finely carved wood.

“This must be where they store all the nongold things,” said Tom. “I've heard about this. King Barf hates anything that isn't gold, but of course he would never get rid of treasure.”

We searched several more chambers and found
nothing. Looking for Papa was like searching for a single wheat kernel in fifty acres of wheat, impossible, but finally we found something promising.

“These doors are gold,” I said, digging my fingernail into them. “Pure gold.”

“This has to be King Barf's chamber!” said Tom.

Yes!
My heart ballooned and then deflated in a moment. “How can we get in?” The door came all the way to the floor, no more than a sliver of space. The king had taken extra precautions, probably to keep pixies out.

“Maybe there will be a way to get in through the next room?” Annabella suggested.

“Yes,” said Tom. “A secret passageway. Castles are full of secret passages.”

We went on to the next door, which we could slide beneath. Annabella and I chattered about all the things we would do when we found Papa.

“He'll swing me up in the air,” said Annabella.

“He'll wrestle me onto the ground,” I said.

“He'll tell us a story about giants.”

“And we'll tell
him
a story about giants, only we'll be in it!”

“And you'll go home?” asked Tom.

“Yes!” said Annabella, beaming.

“And the giants will never bother you again and everything will be perfect?” There was a hint of scorn in his voice.

Annabella and I glanced at each other.

Tom heaved a sigh. “This is stupid. I'm going back to Martha.”

“But you said you would help us,” said Annabella. “You know this castle better than we do.”

Tom shrugged. “This isn't any fun, and I'm hungry.”

“Is that all you care about? Fun and food?”

“So what? You can't live without food, and if it isn't fun, what's the point?”

“To find our papa!” shouted Annabella.

“Don't you get it? Even if you found your papa and made it home, the giants would snatch you again on their next raid, or maybe they'd take your mama. Then what will you do? Go after her, too? You're wasting your time.”

I'd seen this side of Tom once before, and I didn't like it. Worse, Annabella was crying now. She hiccupped with every breath. I glared at Tom. “Go back to Martha already. You don't care about finding our papa.”

“Why should I? He's not
my
papa!”

“It's a good thing he isn't. You'd probably just let the giants have your papa and go eat a giant block of cheese to celebrate.”

Before I knew what was happening, I was on my back. Tom punched me in the gut and followed up with two blows to the face. I growled and rolled on top of Tom to punch him back. He scratched at my face and pulled my hair.

“Jack! Tom! Stop!” Annabella tugged at my arm. “Stop it! Stop it right now!”

But we didn't listen to Annabella. We kept punching and growling and scratching like two wild animals, until something else stopped us.

“Fee! Fee! Fum!”

Tom and I froze, our hands still at each others' throats. We looked up. There was the giant baby, Prince Archie, on hands and knees. His fat face was just above us. A thread of saliva dropped down from his mouth and slimed my arm. He bounced and panted like an excited puppy, and then he slapped a chubby hand around all three of us, squishing us together like wads of dough.

“Fee! Fie! Fo! Fum!” he sang.

I
took a moment to curse Great-Grandpa Jack's stories and their lack of certain details. Here I was in the presence of a giant
baby
and I was barely able to breathe, let alone chop off his fingers or nose or head. And what kind of monster chops up a baby anyhow?

But apparently the baby was not opposed to the idea of chopping us up. He raised us to his mouth where it smelled of soap and sour milk. Annabella screamed, which made the baby flinch and cry.

“Archie?” said a woman's voice. “What do you have there? Pixies! No, Archie, NO! Give them to Mama,
now!” We were ripped from the baby's clutches and dangled by our feet in the giant queen's face. Queen Opal.

“Oh! You're not pixies, are you?” she said. “You must be elves.” She brought us even closer to her face, so all I could see was my upside-down reflection in the black center of her eye. “I've never seen one this close before. Do you bite?”

“No, Your Majesty,” said Annabella.

“Do you steal? The king says elves are thieves. Did you little demons come to steal my baby?” The queen held us at a giant arm's length, as though we reeked of lies and evil deeds.

“Please, Your Highness, er, Majesty,” I stuttered. I had never addressed royalty before. “We are not here to steal anything, least of all a giant baby.”

The queen eyed us warily. “You have no wish for a baby?”

We all shook our heads. “We only want to get back what was stolen from us.”

The queen put us down on her dressing table. “And what was that?”

“Our papa,” said Annabella.

“Your papa!” She sounded genuinely surprised. “Well, that's rich. If my father were carried off by trolls, I wouldn't search for him a moment. I would celebrate!”

Annabella gasped in horror. I raised my eyebrows, and even Tom seemed a little shocked.

“Oh, you think I'm despicable for saying such a thing,” said the queen. “But you would despise your
father, too, if he cursed you and told lies about you and ordered you about like a common dog.”

“Your
papa
cursed you?” asked Annabella, and I knew she was thinking about the princesses in Papa's tales—they were always getting spells and curses put on them, but usually by evil wizards and witches, not their own fathers.

“When I was only six, my father gave me a potion to make me beautiful. He said that beauty would fetch me a rich husband. The potion did work, of course. I am quite beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful in all The Kingdom, but what my father didn't tell me was that the beauty potion contained frog tongue. It was the frog tongue that did it, I'm sure.”

“What did the frog tongue do?” I asked.

“It gave me a horrendous craving. I can't…oh, it's too awful! I can't stop eating flies!” And just like that, she snatched up a dead fly from a jeweled candy dish on the dressing table and popped it in her mouth. She closed her eyes, and something like relief washed over her face.

“I can't stand the taste of anything else,” she went on. “Bread tastes like soap to me. Even a sugar cube turns to ash in my mouth. And to make matters worse, whenever I get nervous or upset, my tongue flicks out like a frog's. See? I'm doing it now just thinking about it.” The queen flicked out her tongue a few times.

“But he didn't know, did he?” said Annabella. “Maybe he just wanted you to be pretty so you would be happy.”

“I used to think that,” said the queen. “And perhaps
if it had been his only act against me, I would have gone on thinking it. I did become a queen, after all. But you see, the king did not marry me for my beauty. He married me because he thought I could spin straw into gold.” The queen shivered as though remembering something unpleasant.

“Can you?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “My father lied to the king. I don't know what made him say it. I
could
spin, but nothing out of the ordinary—flax and wool and such.”

“What did you do?” Tom asked. He was now sitting on the edge of a silver brush, his face in his chin. Apparently this was no longer boring to him.

“I cried,” said the queen. “I thought I would be put to death for my father's lies, until a little man appeared, a boy really. A very strange boy. He said he could spin the straw into gold for me, and he did. He spun all the straw into gold, and I was so happy because not only would I live, but now I was rich! The king was so happy, he said he would make me his queen, and I thought we would live happily ever after, just like a princess in a tale.” She shuddered and popped another fly into her mouth. “I was a fool. A fool for ever trusting my father. A fool for believing the king would love me more than his gold, and a fool for allowing that demon to spin the gold. He turned out to be the worst of all, because in exchange for spinning the straw into gold, he made me promise him my firstborn child.”

“Your firstborn child? You mean the demon wanted
him
?” Tom pointed to the baby prince crawling all over
the floor. He was blowing raspberries and sending great globs of spit all over.

“Yes, he wanted Archie. No doubt he wished to eat him!” She licked her lips, snatched another dead fly, and ate it. “I know it's terrible! But I didn't know anything about babies. I didn't even have one then, so I thought, What difference does it make? I can have more children and it won't ever matter. But it did matter! It did! Archie, forgive me!” The queen lifted her child and held him tight, sobbing into his neck.

The giant baby continued to blow raspberries, only this time the globs of spit came down on us like rain. A slobber shower. Tom ducked behind the brush. Annabella took shelter in a carved wooden box, and I covered myself with a giant lacey handkerchief, until the queen snatched it off me to blow her nose.

“I'm sorry,” said the queen, wiping her tears. “It's just that somehow you little ones bring me back to that time when Archie was taken, and I thought I'd never get him back. When I felt so afraid and so…so small.”

It seemed a strange thing for a giant to say, but I guess no matter how big you are, there's always someone or something bigger than you. Even giants must feel small from time to time.

“So how did you get your baby back?” I asked.

“I guessed his name.”

“The baby's name?”

“No, the demon's name. It was some kind of talisman, I think, and when I said it aloud, it destroyed him and Archie was safe.”

“Wow,” said Tom. “I wonder if he's still around somewhere. What's his name?”

“I do not speak it,” said the queen sharply. “Do elves not know the power of a name? If saying his name made him disappear, what if saying his name again would bring him back? And if he did come back, the king would surely bargain away Archie in return for more gold. And then I would die of misery, for Archie is the only person in the world who truly loves me.”

“Surely not the
only
person,” said Annabella. “You're the queen and you're so beautiful.”

“I used to think being beautiful would make people love me. I thought the king loved me. But he doesn't. He loves only gold, and when he discovered I could no longer give him any, he cast me off like an old shoe and found another way to get what he wants. Oh how I hate gold! If I could destroy it all, I would!”

I noticed for the first time that there was not a bit of gold in the entire chamber. The blankets and tapestries were blue with silver tassels, and all the furniture was plain wood without a single gold ornament. The table we were sitting on had lots of jars and bottles, the carved wooden box, and a few jewels, but no gold.

The queen loathed gold because it stirred painful memories. She understood what it meant to have people you love taken away from you.

“Your Majesty,” I said, “we love our papa, and he got taken from us. With your help we'd have a better chance of finding him. Won't you help us?”

“I don't see how I can.”

“I think you could,” I said. “You see, my papa escaped the cobbler's shop in a shoe. A golden shoe—”

“Well, it wasn't mine! The only person in the world who's fool enough to wear a gold shoe is— Oh…I see. You're talking about the king, aren't you?” The queen's face fell. “Oh, dear.”

“What is it?” Annabella asked.

“Oh, nothing…. Only…”

“Yes?” I asked.

“Well, a day or two ago I heard the servants talking about an elf who was caught stealing the king's gold—”

“Our papa would never steal!” said Annabella, indignant.

“Of course not. It's just that…the king found an elf inside his wardrobe…”

We all fell silent. My stomach plummeted.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“I don't know. That's all I heard.”

“Then you must ask the king!” I said. “We must go to him at once and tell him to give our papa back! He'll listen to you, won't he?”

“Oh, no. The king doesn't care what I have to say. I'm afraid it might be too late.”

Annabella gave a strangled sob.

Too late.
I swallowed the words like sharp knives and they cut me all the way down.

“Your Highness,” said Tom, “with all due respect, you don't know that it's too late. You could at least ask
him what he did with the elf, couldn't you?” I stared at Tom. Was he mocking me again? I didn't think so. He seemed in earnest.

“Oh, no,” said the queen. “No, oh, no, no, no. I'd have to go to the Golden Court to see His Royal Majesty, and I cannot abide it. Gold, gold, everywhere you look. The sight of it nearly gives me a rash. See? I am starting to itch just thinking of it.” She scratched at her neck and arms, and her tongue flicked out several times.

“All you'd have to do is ask him,” I pleaded.

“No, no. I couldn't!” The queen was wringing her hands now, working herself into a real tizzy. “You don't understand! I could make things worse for both of us! The king could suspect something. He could lock me up, or take away Archie! I couldn't bear it!”

“Your Majesty, please,” I said. “Think what we have lost—someone we love more than anything. You know what that's like, don't you? Remember how you felt when Archie was taken? How would you feel if an ogre tore through the ceiling and snatched him right out of your arms again?”

The queen's lower lip trembled. She flicked out her tongue and then burst into tears. “Oh, I can't bear it! Archie!” She hugged the giant baby and kissed his chubby cheeks again and again.

“Fee, fee!” The baby reached his pudgy hand out, and we all ducked. The queen's tears at last subsided. “Very well, elves. I understand your pain all too well. I will take you to the king.”

“Oh, thank you, Your Majesty!” Annabella fell to her
knees and wrapped her arms around the queen's pinky finger.

“Yes, thank you,” I said. I started to feel my heart rise back into my chest.

“But it will be very dangerous,” the queen warned. “You must stay hidden. If you are seen, you will most certainly be mistaken for pixies and smashed on the spot!” We nodded vigorously. “I will ask the king about your father, but you must understand that I can do nothing more to help you. Please do not ask me to do more.”

“We won't,” I promised. “We can manage on our own from there.”

The queen sighed and popped three more flies into her mouth. “Now I must change. It displeases the king enough that I never wear gold to dine. He'll be furious if I enter his Golden Court in anything but gold.”

The queen set Archie on the floor with a silver rattle, then went to change her gown, leaving us to discuss our plan.

“Should we speak to the king directly?” Annabella asked. “Perhaps if he knew our plight, he would take pity on us, like the queen.”