“Excuse me,” she announced. “Can I accept the challenge?”
All the giants turned and looked at her.
The only sound in the sudden silence was Jack whispering, “Uh . . . Jill?”
King Aitheantas’s face slowly broke into a wide grin. “Well, look at that! Why didn’t you say she was the brave one, Jack?” Jack’s face went red.
The giants roared with approval and pulled up a chair for the little girl.
“What’s she doing?” the frog hissed frantically. Jack shook his head.
“Eat till you burst,” Brod said to Jill.
“Or until you do,” she answered, and all the giants shouted and banged the table and pointed their thick sausage fingers approvingly at her.
“She’s the courageous one!”
“She’s a winner!”
“Let’s see what the pygmy can do!”
Meas came back with the Bowl of Never Ending. It was an enormous wooden bowl that was never empty. Unfortunately it was always full of porridge, and the porridge generally had a sickening, burned taste, so the giants avoided eating from it when they could. But only the Bowl of Never Ending would suffice for such a challenge as this. Whoever ate the most platefuls without throwing up won. Meas heaped each plate with bird meat, until no fowl was left on the table. Then, with an enormous spoon, he poured a sickeningly large dollop of porridge on top of the fowl. The porridge steamed and stank like something burning. Brod licked his lips. Jill felt like she might gag.
* * *
What follows is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard in any tale I have ever come across.
I considered cutting it completely from this record. I feel sick just thinking about it. Writing it down for you was, shall we say, a harrowing experience.
But, as I promised to tell you the true story of Jack and Jill, I must include what follows.
You, though, have no obligation to actually read it.
* * *
“A haon!” shouted Aitheantas, and the giants all picked up their spoons. “A dó!” he cried, and all the giants put down their spoons and gripped the sides of their plates. “A trí!” he bellowed, and all the giants poured their meat and porridge straight down their gullets. They slammed their plates down, and Meas filled them all in the blink of an eye. The giants lifted their plates to their mouths and poured another helping down their throats.
Jack turned to look at Jill. She, too, had a second plateful before her. She picked it up and began pouring it over her open mouth. But, Jack noticed, most of the porridge did not go into her mouth. In fact, none of it did. She seemed to be licking it up with her tongue, but as Jack watched he saw that she was actually pushing it out onto her face. From there, it slid, hot and terrible smelling, down her neck and into the ratty brown blanket. She slammed her plate down like the rest of them and started again.
Jill poured another plateful over her face and down her shirt. Around the table, giants gobbled the revolting stuff down. Only Brod seemed to be enjoying it.
Slam! More porridge pouring down the giants’ gullets, more porridge sliding down Jill’s neck.
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! The porridge was now visibly collecting in the brown blanket, hanging over Jill’s belt in what looked for all the world like a jiggling belly.
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!
Jill smiled as she poured more of the sickening glop over her face and down her neck. The giants, on the other hand, started to look ill.
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!
Twenty servings in, Bucky had begun to slow down. Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! After twenty-four, he looked positively green. Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! After twenty-eight, Bucky turned and threw up all over the floor. The smooth, velvety vomit spread over the flagstones. Its odor suffused the hall and made Jack gag.
“Bucky is out!” cried Meas. The other giants let out a muffled cheer and continued pouring the sludge-like porridge down their throats.
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!
After forty helpings, two giants turned and threw up at exactly the same time, their chunky vomit mingling on the floor. “Goleor and Barraoicht are out!” Meas bellowed.
Bucky was staring at Jill. “How is she still eating?” he asked. But no one was listening.
Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!
Now giants were throwing up all over the place. Chunks, globs, nuggets of bloody, fatty vomit coated the flagstones, the table legs, the giants’ legs.
“Leithleach out!” Meas bellowed. “Feall out!” “Aitheantas out!” One by one, each giant erupted like a volcano of half-digested pink meat and gray porridge.
The upchuck began collecting in a large pool under the table, and then began to spread out over the floor, like some gooey, primordial lake. The giants were slouching in their chairs, covered with silky brown sludge, groaning. But Jill kept pouring the porridge over her face and letting it slide down her neck. Brod was still eating, too. But he had begun to slow.
Slam . . . Slam . . .
Slam . . .
Wobble . . .
Brod stopped with a plate full of porridge in front of him.
“Brod?” Meas asked. All the giants leaned forward and looked at the enormous slab of meat known as Brod.
“Uhhhhghhh.”
“Do you give up, Brod?” Meas wanted to know.
“Uhhhhghhh,” said Brod.
“Well?”
Brod threw up all over the table.
“Jill is the winner!” announced Meas.
Jill stood up triumphantly. Jack cheered his head off. The frog did little fist pumps in Jack’s pocket.
The giants stared at Jill. The blanket had stretched out into the largest stomach any of them had ever seen. Even bigger than Brod’s. It hung down over her belt, all wobbly and gelatinous.
And then, the silence was cut with the word “Cheat!”
Bucky was pointing at her, his face red. “She’s a cheat!”
Aitheantas glared at her. “I believe she is,” he said.
“She didn’t eat that porridge!” said Bucky. “She couldn’t have.”
“I don’t believe she could,” said Aitheantas. Brod threw up on the table again.
“You don’t believe me?” Jill cried. “You dare question me?” Her voice was fierce, frightening. “I will show you the food in my belly, if you will show me the food in yours.”
“Mine’s mostly on the table,” said Brod.
“I challenge you all to show me the food in your bellies!” Jill bellowed.
Aitheantas rose to his feet. A cunning smile played across his lips. “If you, my little pygmy, can show us the food in your belly, we can show you the food in ours.”
Jill turned to Meas. Very slowly, very clearly, she said, “Bring us knives.”
* * *
I don’t believe anyone is reading right now. I assume everyone has just skipped to the next chapter. I hope so.
If any of you are indeed still reading this . . . well . . . good luck to you.
* * *
Meas disappeared and returned in a moment, carrying enough long, sharp knives for every giant in the hall, and one for Jill. Jill grasped hers in her hand. “Show me your food!” she cried.
“Jill!” Jack cried. “Stop!” The frog peered out of his pocket.
Jill raised the knife above her head. Then she brought the knife down and buried it in her stomach. It entered her body just above the belt; from there she drew it up the length of her enormous belly.
The frog fainted again.
Porridge poured out all over the floor. Inside Jill’s shirt was a mess of brown tatters, fleshy porridge, and bird bones. J
ack stared. Between the ratty brown of the blanket and the disgusting mess of meat and bone and porridge, it looked a whole lot like human entrails.
The giants all squinted their tiny eyes at Jill and her dissected shirt.
“I can do that!” Bucky cried. And he plunged his knife into his stomach and drew it from his belt to his throat. Blood and porridge poured out onto the floor, and then Bucky fell down. Dead. His eyes were wide, and his corpse lay half submerged in vomit.
“So can I!” cried Leithleach. And he, too, gutted himself, spilling his blood and viscera and porridge, and then collapsing on top of them.
“Me too!”
“So can I!”
“That’s easy!”
And one by one, each giant-hero cut himself from gullet to gizzard, and an explosion of blood and guts and partially digested meat and porridge poured all over the floor of the hall. One by one, each giant collapsed into the blood and vomit. The floor was six, now eight, now ten inches deep with blood and guts and food. Each time a giant fell, the steaming, putrid pool rippled.
Aitheantas was the last. “I’m not sure I can,” he said, looking uncertainly around at the carnage.
“You have to, King,” Meas said. “You accepted the challenge.”
“There’s no way out of it?” Aitheantas asked forlornly.
Meas shook his hoary beard. “None,” he said.
Aitheantas looked balefully at Jill. Then he took a deep breath, clutched his knife tightly in his hand, and cut a long gash from below his belly button to the top of his neck. Porridge and guts and blood poured out of his enormous body, and then he tumbled like a felled tree to the floor. The pool of pink and brown muck around him rippled, and then grew still.
Jill pulled off the long, stretched, tattered, and filthy blanket to reveal her equally filthy shirt.
“Well,” said Meas impassively, “that was a neat trick.”
“Thanks,” Jill replied.
Jack stared at the carnage around him, trying to figure out what had just happened.
“Are you going to let us go?” Jill asked the gaunt old guard.
“Certainly,” he replied. He stuck out his giant, bony, sallow-skinned hand to Jill. She shook it. “I hated those brutes,” he said. “They got exactly what they deserved.” Then Meas shook Jack’s hand, patted the frog on his little head and, wading through great lake of giant blood and vomit, showed them to the narrow staircase out of the cave.
“Wait,” said Jill. “Do you have the Seeing Glass?”
Meas’s dim eyes seemed to glow brighter for a moment. “Ah,” he said. “Is that why you came here?”
“It was,” said Jill. “Until Jack forgot.”
“I didn’t forget,” Jack mumbled, turning red.
“It isn’t here.” Meas’s voice replied. “But it is indeed a treasure worth seeking. The greatest power, it is said, resides in that Glass. A piece of true magic, as strong and pure as any in the world.”
“Do you know where it is?” Jill asked.
“We are as high up as this earth goes, save Heaven. The Glass, last I heard, was in the deepest pit of the earth, save Hell. You might try there.”
“How do we get there?” Jack asked.
Meas shrugged. “Ask the goblins.”
“Goblins?”
Meas nodded his great gray head. “But be careful. Giants are brutal. Goblins are cunning. Do not trust them too far.”
“How do we find them?”
“I don’t know. I have never left this cave.”
The children gazed up at his long, sad face. “But there’s no more band, right?” Jill asked. “Can’t you leave now?”
Meas sighed. “There will always be a band. As long as there are giants, there will be fools who will follow them.”
Jack was about to ask what he meant, but Meas turned around and muttered, “Now where did I put that bucket?”
* * *
Jack walked quietly, sullenly, across the linen-white clouds under the towering chalky cliffs. Jill followed with the frog.
Jill and the frog talked on and on about what they had just seen and done.
“And did you see how Bucky just grabbed the knife and jammed it into his stomach?”
“And Aitheantas’s face when he realized what was happening?”
“Meas was actually pretty nice!”
“I’ve never seen anything so disgusting in my life!”
“You were pretty great, Jill,” the frog said.
“Yeah,” Jack cut in, his first word since leaving the cave. “Great.” He didn’t sound happy at all.
Jill looked over at him. “What’s with you?” the frog demanded.
“I could have done that,” little Jack insisted. “I could have saved us.”
Neither Jill nor the frog said anything.
“And it was so obvious what you did. I can’t believe they were so dumb to fall for it!” Jack looked very angry. His dark eyebrows made a sharp downward arrow, and his cheeks were flushed.
The wind blew in off the wide blue sky. The sun was setting behind the cliffs, throwing long shadows over the beach. Somewhere far below them, they could hear the call of gulls.
“You went in there,” said the frog to Jack. “It’s your fault. And Jill saved us.”
“You’re an ugly girl and a stupid three-legged frog!” Jack shouted at them, and without warning he sprinted ahead.
“Jack! Jack!” the frog called after him.
“Let him alone,” Jill said sadly.
Jack ran, and the wind blew across his face.
Why? he thought. Why does this keep happening? The boys in the village, the giants, Aitheantas, Bucky, Marie . . . it’s all the same. It will always be the same. Hot tears of humiliation streaked down Jack’s cheeks and blurred his vision. He ran, and ran, and the wind was strong, and growing stronger, and then suddenly it was very strong indeed.
Jill and the frog suddenly could not see Jack anymore. “Jack!” Jill cried. She started running after him. Suddenly, she felt the clouds under her feet fail.
Then she saw Jack. He was doing just what she was doing.
He was plummeting toward the earth.
Jill tumbled and tumbled and tumbled through the air. The frog was screaming, but Jill felt oddly calm. Then, beneath Jack, Jill saw a smooth, green hill rising to greet them. Beside the hill was a little town, and beside that, the sea. As Jill tumbled, the hill and the town grew and grew and grew, and she thought, That will be a nice place to land.
Then she did land there, on top of that green hill, and it hurt very much. But she was not done tumbling. She tumbled all the way down that big green hill, until she landed in a heap at the bottom, next to Jack.
Jill sat up, laughing. The frog had gone from screaming to whooping for joy. “We’re alive!” he shouted. “Thank God! We’re alive!” Then he stopped. He saw Jack.
Jack was not laughing. His face was white and still, and there was blood pooling in the green grass under his head.
Jill got up, saw they were on the outskirts of the town, and ran screaming for the nearest house.
CHAPTER FIVE
Where You’ll Never Cry No More
Once upon a time, in a little seaside town, a boy named Jack was put into bed in the attic room of the town’s only inn. Jill sat down on the bed beside him and stared. The bandages on his head were red and soaked through, and his face was very pale.
“Will he be all right?” Jill asked quietly.
The innkeeper stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. She answered Jill in her broad, salty accent. “I fancy he will. He just needs a bit a sleep, and some food, and he’ll be right as the rain, I reckon.” Her Rs were broad and rolling, like everything else about her. They made Jill feel a little seasic
k. Or maybe that was seeing Jack, as still and pale as death.
“Thank you,” Jill said.
“You can come down when you’re ready,” the innkeeper said. Jill had agreed to help out around the inn—sweep the floors, do the dishes, that sort of thing—in exchange for the room and food.
Jill nodded and the innkeeper left. Jill knelt down by Jack. Gently she pulled back the covers. He did not stir.
The frog had been weeping quietly ever since he’d seen Jack there at the base of the hill. “Leave me here,” he said, and Jill took him from her pocket and placed him, oh so gently, on Jack’s chest. “I’ll keep watch,” the frog said. “You go downstairs now and earn our keep.” He smiled his bravest froggy smile at Jill. Jill returned the smile sadly, stole a final glance at pale Jack, and went downstairs with a heavy heart.
* * *
That night, Jill was kept very busy in the tavern. She cleaned up spilled ale and cleared scotch whisky glasses from the rough wooden tables and brought plates of kippered herring and cracked snails in pails. It seemed that every fisherman and his wife was in the tavern that night. They stank of fish, but their smiles were broad, and their eyes twinkled kindly when Jill came by.
“Now, what have we here?” a big-bellied man said. “What’s this wee lass doin’ in our town?”
Jill answered their questions in a vague sort of way and tried not to drop any dishes on the floor. The work and the talk and all the new people helped Jill to think just a little bit less about the pale boy with the red bandage who lay on the verge of death upstairs.
After the townspeople had all been drinking for a long while, the big-bellied man called Jill over to him. He had a shiny bald head and a big red beard. He smiled at Jill and his eyes twinkled. “You wanna hear a story, then?” His breath smelled like whisky and his clothes smelled like fish.