The Giant-Slayer (31 page)

The northern lights were bright in the mountains. They flashed through the sky in all different colors, and the giant-slayer huddled with his friends round the little wagon that held the Witch inside it.

Across the wide moat, behind the drawbridge, Collosso was in his castle. The great rooms were lit with yellow light, and now and then the giant passed across a window. And at midnight the screaming started.

There were deathly shrieks, howls of agony, and then the laughter of the giant. It fell away, then started again.

“I can’t stand it,” said Finnegan Flanders. “I will go mad if I have to listen any longer.”

“Every night has been like this,” said Khan.

Jimmy said, “We have to kill him.” He turned to Khan. “What do we do?” They all turned to Khan because he was the hunter; he knew how to kill.

The screaming started again, and at last the great hunter rose to his feet. “Enough is enough,” he said. “I’m going to whup the tar out of that giant.”

“Don’t make me puke,” said Carolyn.

“What’s wrong with that?” said Dickie.

“It’s dumb. Khan’s a unicorn hunter. He’s not Davy Crockett. Besides, it has to be the giant-slayer who kills the giant.”

“Then you tell it better,” said Dickie.

So Carolyn took a turn at the story. Then Chip took a turn. All through the night, one after the other, they tried to end the story.

With each telling, there was a different hero. Carolyn had the Swamp Witch crafting weapons from impossible things: battle-axes out of oxen yokes; swords from the tongues of the wagon. Chip made Finnegan Flanders more dashing than ever, a man like General Custer, with tumbling yellow hair and a big moustache and a pair of hunting dogs that suddenly appeared from nowhere. At dawn they were all angry at each other, and Jimmy’s companions were sitting round the wagon in a grim silence as the sun climbed up from the edge of the world.

Little James Miner came back to the room on crutches. The black shoes built onto his metal braces were so neatly laced that Miss Freeman must have done the tying.

He settled down in the same place, against one of the legs of Laurie’s iron lung. And even he got a turn at the story.

In the first light of the day, Collosso came out from his castle. He appeared on the ramparts, and in his hands was a great box with a sliding lid. He set it down on the wall in front of him.

The sky was red in the dawn. The giant looked out over the edge of the world at the rising sun. The clouds that swirled around him were the color of blood and roses.

With his thumb he opened the box.

A frightful howling came out of the box, a wailing and a groan. Like a man pinching snuff from a snuff box, the giant poked his fingers inside and pulled out a squirming figure. It was a man in farming clothes, kicking and punching at the air. Collosso looked at him closely and then flicked him out over the edge of the world. The farmer flew screaming into the clouds, writhing down through the sky and into that endless void. Collosso watched, frowning slightly, then pulled out another man.

While James was telling the story, a nurse arrived for therapy. She pushed a machine in front of her, a round tub on three legs, with wheels at the bottom. It looked like a washing machine on spindly stilts.

Her name was Mrs. Clyde. She had curly red hair and a mean-looking face that never smiled. She plugged in the machine, and it whirred and shook, vibrating over the floor on its small rubber wheels.

Miss Freeman arrived soon after, too busy to be cheery. She
loosened the clamps on the first iron lung and drew Carolyn out on the rolling cot. The girl started frog-breathing.

Mrs. Clyde lifted the lid on her machine. Out came a puff of steam and the smell of hot, wet wool. Dickie clenched his teeth. Carolyn was frantically forcing air into her lungs.

Mrs. Clyde used a pair of tongs to fish a hot pack from her machine. It was like a cream-colored blanket, sodden and heavy, steaming hot. She set it down on Carolyn’s legs. Dickie closed his eyes as he heard the wet splat and the little groans that Carolyn made. The smell of steaming wool was strong and sickening.

There was another splat, another groan. Mrs. Clyde was bending down now to stretch Carolyn’s leg, to work the paralyzed muscles.

When she’d finished with Carolyn, the nurse refilled the machine and set it whirring again. Chip was next, and then Dickie.

Miss Freeman set up a breathing bag and put the mask on Dickie’s face. She squeezed the bag, pumping air, as Mrs. Clyde reached with her tongs for the wool.

Each hot pack brought an instant of pain, followed by a pleasant feeling as the heated muscles loosened. He couldn’t decide if the pain was worth the pleasure, for the nice feeling never lasted all that long, but he believed that it was. He kept his eyes closed, thinking of the paddle wheeler that would carry him away to Frontierland. He didn’t cry out as Mrs. Clyde slapped the wool in place. He just bit his lip inside the mask, and let a tear go sliding down his cheek.

The nurses washed the patients and changed the sheets.
When the iron lungs were sealed again, Mrs. Clyde took her machine and went trundling down the hall. Miss Freeman stayed for a while, hovering over Laurie. As soon as she left, Dickie went back to the story.

“Jimmy’s got to kill Collosso,” he said. “It’s what the Swamp Witch saw.”

“But how?” asked James. “He’s such a little person, and that giant, he’s so big.”

It seemed there was a proper way to do it, fitting with the story, but they couldn’t decide what it was. Chip reminded them that that Finnegan Flanders could set his hunting dogs onto the giant, but he had forgotten that Carolyn had sent them skulking away because she didn’t want them in the story. Then Carolyn said the Swamp Witch could work some magic, but Chip reminded them that the witch wasn’t really a witch at all.

“She could still make a charm,” said Carolyn, a little bit miffed.

Then Dickie cried out, “Boy, it’s the charm!”

The little giant-slayer hauled from his shirt the ball of bones that he’d been given by the hunter. He let it turn on the string, and the sunlight shining through it made lacy shadows on the ground.

The hunter, the teamster, the witch—they all shouted at him.

“Smash it!” said Khan. “Loose the power trapped inside it.”

“Set it on the ground,” said Finnegan Flanders. “Let the giant think that it’s an offering, like the ones the farmers set out in the valley. When he touches it he will turn to cinders.”

“Keep it,” said the Swamp Witch. “Make your way into the castle and trust the charm to protect you.”

Jimmy watched the charm spin round and round. The others shouted, each one louder: “Smash it!” “Leave it!” “Wear it.”

But he couldn’t decide; how could he? Once broken, the charm could never be restored. Left for the giant, it could never be recovered. And he could scarcely imagine himself climbing down into the moat with the hydras and the tigers.

Round the turrets of the castle, the clouds welled darkly from the edge of the world. Collosso flung his shrieking slaves across the sky. The crimson dragons soared and swooped, snatching the men as they fell. The giant-slayer stared at the spinning charm.

It was too much for him to choose. “I wish someone would help me,” said Jimmy.

Mrs. Strawberry sat all day at Piper’s Pond, looking up at the fourth-floor windows, praying to herself as she rubbed her hands together. Mr. Valentine found her there at six o’clock but couldn’t tempt her to go any farther. He went on alone, up to the respirator room, carrying not only his hat but a book, as if he meant to settle down for a great long stay. It was a huge book with a blue cover, and Mr. Valentine put
it down on the chair as he went straight to Laurie’s side. He touched her cheek; he smoothed her hair. She lay unmoving, with her breaths whistling through the plastic tube.

As he’d done before, Mr. Valentine rubbed his hand over the iron lung.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “Daddy’s here.”

For fifteen minutes he stood like that, one hand on her head, the other rubbing the metal. Then, with a sigh, he stepped away. He opened that big blue book.

Just ahead of the index, a sheet of paper was slipped between the pages, a picture done in crayon. Little smears of green and blue had come away from the paper and were stuck now to the atlas.

“Laurie drew this years ago,” said Mr. Valentine. “It was Mrs. Strawberry, Laurie’s nanna, who remembered.”

He peeled away the map of Laurie’s life, the island shaped like a potato. He looked at the mountains and the meadows, at the castle in the corner.

“I told Mrs. Strawberry about your story, about the castle and everything.”

He was talking to all four of them at once, though he didn’t look away from the picture.

“In the middle of the night, she remembered. She telephoned and woke me up, shouting over the phone. ‘The map of her life! That’s where I saw them.’ I didn’t know what she was talking about, but it was the lions she remembered. The lions with wings on their back.”

He put his finger on them in the picture, tiny little figures that looked more like poodles than lions.