Jake and the Giant Hand (4 page)

Spoooooky
Enough for You?

T
he
hand rapped on the glass.

Jake and Kate looked at each other. Jake didn't make a sound. He couldn't.

But the next second Gus bounded over to the door, wagging his tail. Then Jake heard his grandpa's voice. “Jake! You in there? Open up, it's your grandpa! Hush there, Gus! Hush off barking.”

Chris ran to the door and opened it, since Jake and Kate were frozen to the spot on their sleeping bags. “Mr. McGregor. Hi. We were just telling ghost stories. Actually, my sister was just telling us this really boring story about some old rotting hand in a field or something that no one believes because it's just plain dumb. Would you like to come in for some s'mores?” Chris was polite, opening the door wide.

Jake's grandpa leaned against the door frame with one hand on his knee. He shook his head. “No. No thanks, Christopher. I just came to remind Jake that he has swimming lessons early in the morning, so not to stay up too late.”

He looked Jake right in the eye. “Your mom just phoned to remind me, so we better not forget. I'll be by in the morning real early to get you, Jake. Around eight o'clock, so don't stay up too late.”

“Yeah, thanks Grandpa, I ... I forgot too,” Jake stammered. He totally forgot that his mom had signed him up for swimming lessons at the local pool. He didn't want the lessons, but she had insisted. She didn't want him doing nothing around the farm for two weeks. Guess she didn't know about the shed he was supposed to build.

Jake thought that if his grandpa asked him if he wanted to go home, right then and there, he would have said yes. But his grandpa didn't ask.

“Okay then, see you tomorrow morning. Sleep tight. Here, Gus,” his grandpa called to the dog. Jake wished Gus could stay behind, but the dog seemed happy to go home with his master.

Chris shut the door, then turned back to Jake and Kate with a wicked grin.

“
Sp-ooooo-ky
enough for you?” Chris made a ghostly “wooo” sound when he said “spooky.”

“Almost like your grandpa turned up on purpose, wouldn't you say, Jake? Like he didn't like us talking about the ‘giant hand' or something. You guys were so scared!” Chris laughed and shook his head. Jake and Kate just stared at him.

“Well, a
hand
rapped on the glass, Chris, right after I told the story! Of course we were scared!” Kate said. She sounded a little upset.

“What a lame story, Kate, honestly. You are so lame.” Chris laughed quietly to himself and started making a second batch of s'mores.

Kate whispered to Jake, “Chris has no imagination sometimes. He reads too many history books, or mysteries where everything has a reasonable explanation at the end. I think the giant hand happened. It might have. Weird things do happen, you know?”

“Yeah, okay, whatever Kate. I should get some sleep,” Jake said. He lay down on his sleeping bag and put his arm over his eyes. Like he was
ever
going to get to sleep.

“Hey, you guys want to play with the Ouija board?” Chris asked from the stove.

“NO!” Jake and Kate shouted back.

“No, let's play cards,” Kate answered in a forced, overly normal voice. “Jake's got to go to sleep, anyway. He's getting up early, remember?”

Chris grunted and turned back to the stove.

“Who wants s'mores?” was the last thing Jake heard before he fell asleep.

If you can call it sleep when you toss and turn all night, having nightmares about giant rotting corpse hands. And flies.

Lots and lots of flies.

Monster Fly

J
ake
hardly slept. He had three strange dreams.

First he dreamed he was an enormous fly, buzzing around his grandpa's head.

He wanted his grandpa to know it was him, but every time he buzzed around the old man, his grandpa tried to swat him. When his grandpa finally pulled out a can of bug spray, Jake woke up yelling.

Chris told him to go back to sleep. Jake tossed and turned.

Dream number two was about giant, buzzy fly-men visiting his grandpa's farmhouse. They were sitting in his grandma's best armchairs with their hairy, sticky legs crossed, drinking tea, making polite, buzzy conversation.

“Zzzzzoooo … Jake … zzzzzzz … how do you … zzzzz … like the weather in zzzese parts?”

That was strange enough, but then Jake had the worst dream of all. He was a tiny person stuck to Gus's back. He hung on for dear life as Gus tore through the field, running from something. Whatever was chasing them made a loud, angry buzzing noise. The buzzing kept getting closer, and closer. He and Gus couldn't get away … until Jake woke up sweating and shaking.

Jake was glad when he could see the sky grow lighter. He sat up in his sleeping bag and rubbed his eyes. Chris and Kate were still asleep, and Kate was snoring. Chris was spread across his sleeping bag with chocolate smeared on his face. The little kitchen was a mess, with chocolate and graham crackers and marshmallows spilled everywhere. Plus, as the sun warmed it up, the place was starting to smell like Chris's sweaty gym socks.

“Ew. Glad I'm leaving,” Jake said quietly to himself.

He stretched and scratched his head. He yawned a few times. As he was reaching for his shoes, he froze. A huge fly was buzzing against the window. It was banging against the glass again and again, trying to get out.

A fly? That thing was in here all night?

It was the biggest fly he'd ever seen. It was the size of a much bigger bug. A dragonfly maybe.

Jake tiptoed across the cabin. He picked up his running shoe and edged his way closer to the monster fly. He raised his hand, took aim, and whipped the shoe.

Direct hit!

The huge fly fell to the floor, dead. It actually made a little thud when it landed. Jake cautiously drew closer. Big, big monster fly. Each leg looked like a small finger, the wings were as big as his hand. He reached out to touch the fly … and it buzzed!

NOT DEAD!

Jake screamed and ran to the door. He opened it. The fly shook a little, then it lazily flew out the door and off into the green trees, buzzing like a chainsaw.

Chris woke up, and asked sleepily, “What's wrong?”

That was freaky,
Jake thought.
I am NOT going to think about flies today.

Don't think about the swamp either!

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

The cabin was heating up and it really did stink of socks. Jake was glad to leave, even if it was for some stupid swimming lessons with a bunch of kids he didn't know. He stuffed his sleeping bag and clothes into his backpack.

Chris rolled over. “See you later, Jake. Come by this afternoon if you want.” Then he went back to sleep. Kate rolled over, snoring.

“Sure, okay, see you guys,” Jake said.

He grabbed his backpack and padded quietly through the trees. He picked up his green bike from the Cuthberts' fence and rode along the laneway to his grandpa's.

It was really quiet. The sun was coming up, and the sky was pink and yellow behind the fields.

BUZZZZ! Jake squealed. A huge fly smashed right into the side of his head. It fell to the ground as soon as it hit him. It seemed dead for sure, this time. All six legs were across its chest.

Jake stopped his bike and rubbed the side of his head. The giant fly actually hurt.

I've never been hurt by a fly before. That's just not normal.

Jake reached down carefully. He wanted to put the fly into his shirt pocket to show to his grandpa. But suddenly he heard ...

… more buzzing!

And it was getting LOUDER.

He dropped the dead fly. He pumped the pedals of his bike as fast as he could. He didn't know what the buzzing was, and he did
not
want to find out!

The buzzing got louder. It sounded like a bunch of chainsaws coming his way.

Jake pedalled faster and faster down the lane, his legs a blur. He put his head down as he sprinted. He could have won medals, he was pedalling so fast. He was too scared to look behind him.

What could make a buzz as loud as that? I do NOT want to know!

“Hold up! Hold up there, boy!” Jake almost crashed into his grandpa. He steered his bike into the grass in front of his grandpa's house and fell to the ground, gasping for air.

Jake lay sprawled on the grass and looked up into an apple tree. It was filled with monster flies. Millions of bug eyes looked down at him.

Then he passed out.

Jake Falls In

J
ake
woke up and blinked. It was quiet and the sun was shining on his face through the dusty living room window. Jake had never been in the farmhouse living room; it wasn't a place that anyone ever used. Usually he was in his bedroom or the kitchen, or in the basement TV room (cold rooms!) if he felt brave and there was absolutely nothing else to do.

He blinked again and looked at his grandpa's worried face. Gus's tongue-of-death lolled in the background.

“Jake. You scared me. I was just coming to get you, then you tore out of nowhere like you were being chased by hounds from hell!”

Jake had a cool cloth on his head. A drop of water rolled into his ear.

“What the heck happened to you?” His grandpa sounded worried. He sat at Jake's feet, leaning on the back of the couch.

What
did
happen to him? He wasn't even sure.

“I guess I didn't get enough sleep last night, Grandpa. I probably shouldn't go to swimming lessons this morning, sorry. I don't feel all that well.”

“Okay. I'll call the pool and let them know you won't be there today. Then I think I'll call your mother.”

“No! It's okay. You don't need to call Mom. I'm just tired. I'll take a nap this morning and I'll probably feel a lot better.” Jake didn't want to bother his mother back in the city. Besides, huge flies the size of birds didn't happen all that often.

Something weird was happening. And possibly something quite
interesting
.

The last thing he wanted was to get his mom all worried and have to go back to the city just as things were getting exciting.

When his grandpa left the room to call the pool, Jake sat up and looked out the window at the apple tree.

No monster flies buzzed in the branches. No monster flies stared down at him.

He must have imagined it.

Jake rested on the couch a little longer, reading his grandpa's old fishing magazines. But pretty soon he got bored. He knew he had to do something or he'd curl up and die.

Like a giant fly? No!

He ran downstairs to watch TV in the basement. He tried to ignore the cold rooms. They weren't always creepy. When Jake's grandmother was alive, she used to store homemade jam and pickled vegetables in those rooms. Jake was just old enough to remember going downstairs with his grandma and seeing rows and rows and rows of glass jars full of delicious preserves. But most of the cold rooms had been empty since his grandmother died.

He tried not to think about the cold rooms.

He watched cartoons for a while, but the truth was he actually felt fine. He wasn't tired at all, but his grandpa wanted him to rest for the morning. Finally he couldn't stand it anymore. When twelve o'clock rolled around, he knew he had to do something or he was going to die of boredom.

So he made lunch.

Jake made tuna sandwiches and lemonade. He carefully opened the tuna tin and dumped it into a bowl. He broke it up with a fork. Then he put the tuna onto four bread slices on a paper plate, which he slapped into sandwiches. The lemonade was trickier. He had to open the frozen can and then dump it into a tall plastic pitcher. Then he had to add the water from the giant, upside down water-bottle dispenser beside the basement stairs. He could have used the horse-head pump outside, but it would have taken forever to fill the pitcher. The pumped water was fine, delicious even, but it did take a long time to pump it out of the ground. It was hard on your arms to pump a glass of water.

Finally, lunch was ready. He balanced the paper plate of sandwiches and the pitcher of lemonade with two cups on a tray and carefully went out the kitchen door and up to the field.

He found his grandpa wearing heavy gloves and goggles, digging a deep hole with a shovel. A square of pegs and string was laid out on the grass. It was the shape of the shed that Jake and his grandpa were going to build.

His grandpa stopped working when Jake came up with lunch. His grandpa seemed surprised and took off his goggles and gloves. He took a long, grateful drink of lemonade.

“Thanks Jake, that's really nice of you.”

Then Jake and his grandpa sat and ate tuna sandwiches.

“What's that?” Jake asked between bites. He pointed at a machine in the grass. It looked like a giant corkscrew.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I opened a bottle of wine for a giant?” his grandpa said. He winked.

Jake felt a Grandpa story, no, a Grandpa
lie
coming on. So he said in his most no-nonsense voice, “No, Grandpa. Please, no stories. Yes, it looks like a giant corkscrew, but I know it's not. Please just tell me what it is. No stories. No exaggerations. No lies.”

His grandpa looked a little hurt. “It
could
be a corkscrew for a giant's bottle of wine though, don't you think? Can't you imagine the size of the bottle, and how hard you'd have to turn it to get the cork out?”

“Sure, Grandpa, I guess I could imagine that. If I was a little kid. But I'm not. I'm twelve now, you know.” Jake crossed his arms. He hoped it made him look older.

His grandpa looked so eager that Jake relented. He didn't want to hurt his grandpa's feelings. He sighed.

“Alright, Grandpa, sure. It
could
be a corkscrew for a giant bottle of wine. But how would you reach the top of the bottle with the corkscrew, and it would be heavy … it would never work. You'd have to
be
a giant to use it. Do you have any giants around here?”

At that very moment a huge fly buzzed into Jake's face. His grandpa spluttered out lemonade and shooed the fly away. He suddenly looked serious.

“You're right, Jake. It would be impossible. It's not a corkscrew for a giant. It's called an auger. It digs big holes. I'm about to use it to make this hole deeper. Do you want to help?”

“Sure.”

Jake's grandpa lifted the corkscrew-looking machine and put it into the partly dug hole. “Put on these gloves and these goggles. Okay, grab that handle and …
push
.” Jake and his grandpa each took a handle and turned the auger into the field. It was hard work, since the auger was heavy. It really did work like a giant corkscrew, churning into the ground and moving dirt out of the way.

Jake had to push against the handle with all his might then turn it far enough for his grandpa to grab and turn on his side. The auger slowly dug into the soil, a little deeper with each turn.

Oh yeah, I'm gonna have huge muscles after this
, Jake thought. After ten minutes of struggling with the auger, the hole was deep enough for the post, and Jake's grandpa laid the heavy auger on the ground. Both of them were sweating. It was a pretty big hole.

“Okay, let's hook up Maggie. She can help us move the post into place,” his grandpa said. He took off his gloves and goggles and headed toward the barn.

Jake walked over to an apple tree and flopped onto the grass. Gus woke up and licked him.

Jake scooted away from Gus's tongue-of-death across the grass … and his hand fell into nothingness.

Then his whole body followed.

Jake had fallen head first into the giant hole.