‘Don’t talk rubbish – giants don’t exist.’
But the next second they heard a deafening voice.
‘Beely iggly plop,’ it said, and the tentacles appeared above them, with Poppy in their grip.
Poppy was laughing. ‘Big girl do it ’gain,’ she said as the giant hand released her. She seemed to think this was some new kind of glorious fairground ride.
‘It’s not a girl, it’s a giant, silly,’ Stephen snapped at her. ‘It’s probably going to eat us.’
But Poppy just repeated, ‘Big girl,’ and started bouncing on the cushions which covered the floor of the bag.
And then the canvas ceiling came down.
‘All dark,’ complained Poppy.
Colette felt sick with fear, but she managed to find her voice, and shouted, ‘Stop! Let us out! Let us out!’
‘It can’t understand you. Didn’t you hear it? It speaks a different language.’ Stephen sounded angry, as if the whole thing was her fault.
A tremendous jolt threw them up into the air and down again. As the three of them rolled helplessly about on the cushions, Poppy giggled again. But Colette and Stephen were silent. They both knew what was happening. The giant was on the move.
‘Mum! Dad! Help!’ yelled Colette, but without much hope.
A sudden swoop and a bump, and the jolting stopped. Their dark ceiling was off again, and light streamed in.
‘Maybe it’s going to put us back?’ said Colette.
‘Maybe it’s hungry,’ said Stephen.
The hand came down – but not to take them out.
‘It’s putting something in,’ said Colette.
‘Peggy line!’ said Poppy.
‘Iggly swisheroo!’ said the voice.
‘Can’t anyone round here speak English?’ said Stephen. ‘It’s a washing line.’
And so it was – quite a long one, complete with pegged-out clothes, towels and sheets. A sheet landed on top of Colette and by the time she had struggled free the bag was dark and the bumpy journey had begun again.
Poppy, delighted with this new and grown-up toy, started unpegging the clothes and hoarding the pegs in a corner of the bag.
‘Oh no, not you too,’ said Stephen in disgust. ‘Isn’t one collector in this family enough?’
Colette turned on him. ‘Do shut up,’ she said. ‘Can’t you ever stop complaining?’
‘Yes,’ said Stephen triumphantly. ‘I’ll stop complaining when you stop collecting.’
Colette could hardly believe this. Here they were, jogging along in the dark, inside a giant’s bag, and yet they were still squabbling.
Before she could think of a cutting retort, there was a terrifyingly loud noise right in her ear – a long, low grating kind of noise which seemed to come from within the bag itself. Colette found herself clutching Stephen despite their quarrel.
‘What was that?’ she said.
‘Baa Lamb,’ said Poppy.
‘This isn’t the time of year for lambs,’ said Stephen in his Mr Know-All voice. ‘Anyway, its bleat is too low-sounding. It’s a sheep.’
As if in agreement the low bleating was repeated. It was just behind one of the canvas walls.
‘Big girl got Baa Lamb,’ said Poppy stubbornly.
‘Big girl got great enormous sheep, you mean,’ said Stephen. ‘Probably for supper. Or maybe we’re supper and the sheep is breakfast.’
Poppy started to cry then. Colette put an arm round her. ‘Well done, Stephen,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Poppy,’ said Stephen, who hardly ever apologised. Colette noticed that his voice was shaking again. ‘I just wish I could get us out of here … I know! Give me one of those clothes pegs, Poppy.’
Poppy sniffed and handed him one. Stephen started picking away with it at a corner of the bag as they jolted along.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Colette.
‘I can feel a little hole here, where the stitching has come loose. If I can make it bigger maybe we can escape.’
‘But we’d get killed jumping.’
‘She might put the bag down again,’ said Stephen, still hacking away. ‘There – it’s big enough to look through, at least.’ He lay on his tummy and put his eye to the hole.
‘Oh no,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ asked Colette.
‘You’d better have a look.’
So Colette looked through the hole and was overcome with dizziness and fear.
‘Is it what I think it is?’ she said.
‘Yes. We’re going up a beanstalk.’
6
Suspicion and sandwiches
Arump o chay ee glay, glay,
Arump o chay ee glay.
Oy frikely frikely bimplestonk,
Eel kraggle oy flisterflay.
OLD THROG HOBBLED along, reciting his favourite rhyme and swinging his can of weedkiller in one hand and his sandwich bag in the other. His voice was faint and cracked, and he felt tired and cold. The mist was thicker than usual today, so thick that it might be difficult to make out a bimplestonk if one had eeped up during the month or so since he had last walked along this stretch of the edgeland.
It was time for his afternoon nap, Throg decided. He climbed over the wall, emerging out of the edgeland mist into a sunny field. It was good to warm his old bones, eat a sandwich and doze off for a few minutes, but he knew that his dreams would be troubled, as they always were. What if the bimplestonk appeared and the iggly plop invasion took place while he was asleep?
Throg woke with a start. Someone really was coming, he sensed it in his bones.
It was all right. It was just a girl, with a bag on her back. Throg recognised her as the daughter of one of the useless policemen who refused to take the iggly plop invasion seriously.
The girl was walking along the narrow road which ran from the edgeland towards the main town. What had she been doing all by herself so near the emptiness?
‘Wahoy!’ he called out to her in his thin old voice, but the girl didn’t seem to hear his greeting. She continued on her way, and Throg noticed that she had a huge grin on her face.
7
The mountain of cliffs
‘TIS IS THE last button,’ said Colette. She pushed it through the hole in the floor of the bag.
Stephen had scoffed when she had emptied her pockets and produced the buttons – yet another useless collection as far as he could see. But when Colette suggested leaving a trail of buttons, so that they could find their way back to the top of the beanstalk, he had grudgingly admitted this wasn’t a bad idea.
‘I think we’ve arrived,’ he said now, with his eye to the hole in the bag. ‘She’s opening a door.’
And that was when they heard the second voice. It was even louder than the first one. It sounded angry, and it went on and on and on.
Their kidnapper’s voice sounded a lot quieter now. ‘Yimp, yimp, yimp,’ it kept saying, in reply to the deafening jumble of furious sounds.
‘Big girl got cross Mummy,’ whispered Poppy.
Colette realised she was probably right.
‘I wonder what she’s cross about?’ she whispered back.
‘Maybe because her precious little daughter hasn’t collected enough food for supper,’ said Stephen.
At last, after yet another apologetic-sounding ‘yimp’ from the girl giant, the mother giant fell silent and the children were on the move again.
‘We’re in a house,’ hissed Stephen.
Colette heard a door open, and then her stomach lurched as they were plunged to the ground.
‘This is it,’ said Stephen. He was brandishing a clothes peg.
Colette picked one up too. It didn’t feel like a very powerful weapon.
The ceiling came off the bag.
‘Come on, Poppy, get ready to fight!’ ordered Stephen.
But Poppy stretched out her arms. ‘Big girl ’gain!’ she said, as the enormous fingers curled round her.
‘Stop! Don’t you hu
rt my sister!’ shouted Stephen.
He lunged out at one of the fingers with his clothes peg. But the hand – with Poppy in it – was already too high to reach.
Colette gazed up helplessly and saw a giant face looking down.
‘Beely iggly plop,’ said the giant, lifting Poppy towards her mouth …
‘No!’ Stephen bellowed, and he hurled the peg at the giant. It hit her cheek, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her mouth was touching Poppy now. Soon it would be opening.
But it didn’t open. Instead, a sort of sucking, smacking noise came from it.
‘All wet!’ said Poppy.
‘Yuk!’ said Stephen. ‘Was that a kiss?’
Before Colette could answer, it was her turn. She was lifted up and brought towards the shining pink lips. She closed her eyes. The next second she felt a dampness all over her cheek and an explosion in her ear.
She dared herself to open her eyes, and caught a glimpse of a hairy nostril before she was lowered again and pushed through a door.
‘Beely jum,’ boomed the giant.
Colette found herself in a sitting room. To her surprise, the furniture was more or less human-size. There was a sofa, two armchairs, one of them on its side, and an upside-down table.
‘Boo!’
Colette jumped as a figure flung itself at her from behind one of the armchairs. It was Poppy.
A second later Stephen was thrust in beside them, an expression of disgust on his face.
‘Yuk!’ he said again. He never had been a great fan of kisses.
‘At least it’s better than being eaten,’ Colette pointed out.
And then, ‘Baa Lamb!’ shrieked Poppy.
A big and rather tatty-looking sheep with magnificent twisty horns had joined them and was eyeing them suspiciously. Stephen rolled his eyes. ‘Of all the animals in the world to be stuck with!’ he said.
At that moment, the wall with the door in it began to move. It swung right away from them, revealing the girl giant’s huge grinning face.
‘Jumbeelia,’ she said, pointing to herself.
‘What a stupid name,’ muttered Stephen.
‘Jumbeelia! JUMBEELIA!’ the giant mother called from a distance. She sounded impatient rather than angry.
‘Ootle rootle!’ their kidnapper yelled in reply, and the front wall of the doll’s house slid back into place.
For a second Jumbeelia’s shiny giant lips appeared at their window, with a single finger over them. ‘Sshh!’ she whispered. Then she was gone.
‘Now’s our chance,’ said Stephen.
‘For what?’ asked Colette.
‘To get away, of course.’ He was already at the door of the doll’s house.
But Poppy was trying to make friends with the sheep. ‘Nice Baa Lamb,’ she kept saying as she chased it round and round the room.
The sheep, who seemed to be keener to escape from Poppy than from Giant Land, lowered its horns and pushed a door open. It went through, with Poppy still in pursuit.
‘Look – there’s a kitchen,’ said Colette, following her.
‘Never mind that. Just get Poppy and come!’ Stephen urged.
Colette ignored him. She was inspecting the cooker. ‘The knobs won’t turn,’ she said.
Stephen sighed. ‘Okay, I’ll get Poppy,’ he said.
Colette looked inside the fridge. It wasn’t at all cold, and the food on the shelves was made of plastic. Suddenly she felt hungry.
‘What are we supposed to eat?’ she asked.
‘I keep telling you – it’s them that does the eating, not us!’ said Stephen, grabbing Poppy’s arm. ‘We’ve got to get away from here!’
Colette saw the desperation in his eyes and her own fear flooded back.
‘You’re right, Stephen,’ she said. ‘Come on, Poppy.’
In any case, the sheep was now leading the way. The children followed it back through the main room of the doll’s house and out of the front door.
‘Grass!’ said Poppy. But it wasn’t grass. It felt more like very deep thick velvety moss. Their feet sank into it as they walked.
‘It’s a carpet, stupid,’ said Stephen. Then, ‘Hey, look at that!’ and he pointed at a huge heap of cars, buses and lorries. He prodded an ambulance.
‘It’s plastic,’ he said, disappointed. ‘They’re just a load of toys.’
Colette didn’t answer him. She was more interested in another heap of objects which looked like big wrinkly pale green bowls.
‘Hat!’ said Poppy, putting one on her head. It had a little stalk coming out of the middle of it.
‘They’re acorn cups!’ exclaimed Colette.
‘She’s completely mad,’ said Stephen.
‘No, she’s not mad,’ said Colette thoughtfully. ‘I think she must like collecting things – just like me.’
‘Yes, mad, like I said,’ said Stephen.
‘Oh shut up! Look, I can see the door. And it’s open!’
It wasn’t easy making their way across the furry green carpet towards the giant door. First they had to climb over giant pencils which lay like fallen trees, and then they found their way blocked by an enormous pile of what looked like shiny coloured plates.
‘I think they’re buttons,’ said Colette.
‘Trust her,’ said Stephen.
Colette found herself springing to the girl giant’s defence. ‘You shouldn’t groan like that. Look how useful my button collection was.’
‘Oh yeah?’ said Stephen in his most infuriating voice.
Colette turned on him. ‘What’s the matter with you, Stephen Jones? Why do you have to be so scornful all the time? Don’t you want to get home? Don’t you want to see Mum and Dad again?’
‘That’s great coming from you. Who wanted to stay and explore the doll’s house?’
‘There you go again! Can’t you see, we’re all in this together? We’ll never get home if you keep getting at me.’
‘It’s you that’s getting at me!’
‘Hill all slidey!’ called out Poppy, interrupting their quarrel. She was trying to climb the button hill, and laughing as the buttons slithered and clattered under her weight.
‘We need to go round it, not over it,’ Colette told her. She turned to Stephen. ‘Coming?’
Stephen shrugged sulkily, but followed her round the hill of buttons. After that the going was a little easier. A bright yellow plastic railway track led them nearly all the way to the door, and when it stopped abruptly there was only one more hill in their way – a soft hairy purple one. ‘It’s a towel,’ said Colette.
Then, ‘Big red field,’ said Poppy.
‘It does look like one.’ Colette gazed across the new empty space. ‘But look at those railings over there – I’ve never seen a field with a fence that high.’
Stephen still said nothing. Colette touched his arm gently, trying to make up, but he shrugged her off.
They made their way towards the wooden railings, past another giant door. The red carpet was thinner than the green one, less squashy to walk on.
Colette’s spirits rose. In her mind they were already out of the house and following the trail of buttons to the top of the beanstalk.
‘I bet Mum and Dad won’t be expecting us back so soon,’ she said.
But then, ‘Cliff,’ said Poppy, and they all stopped.
Colette looked down. Below them the red ground dropped away steeply. They were indeed at the top of a cliff, twice her own height – too tall to jump down, and too steep to climb down.
Of course. The towering wooden railings were banisters. The cliff was a giant stair. And below it was another stair, and another one and another one.
The giant staircase was a mountain of cliffs.
8
Weedkiller
IT WAS TIME for Throg to be on his way – back over the wall, back to his patrol. The edgeland mist had thinned during his doze, and it wasn’t quite so cold. Throg felt refreshed and cheerful. When he was in a good mood he sometimes made up a
tune for his favourite rhyme, and he did so now as he tottered along once more, straining his eyes to peer out into the emptiness.
Arump o chay ee glay, glay,
Arump o chay ee glay.
Oy frikely frikely bimplestonk,
Eel kraggle oy flisterflay.
His voice felt stronger now, after his sleep, and he was enjoying the sound of it. He screwed up his eyes and flung back his head, singing full-belt, his hobble almost transformed into a stride.
He had nearly sung the song through three times when his foot slipped and he landed with a bump on his bottom.
He sat there for a moment, cursing the slippery ground but most of all himself. There was no excuse for such carelessness, especially with the mist thinner than usual. So thin that he could clearly see the edge of the land. So thin that he could clearly see …
‘O bimplestonk!’ Throg was on his feet in a flash. Yes, there it was, exactly the same as in all the pictures – the frikely thick stalk, the frikely green leaves and the frikely green pods which he knew were full of bimples.
Old Throg’s heart thumped as he peered down.
He couldn’t see far, because of the cloud, but there was no sign of any iggly plops.
So this was it. The moment he had waited for all his life.
Throg picked up the can of weedkiller. He unscrewed the lid, then leant carefully forwards and sloshed some of the powerful liquid on to the top leaf.
The bimplestonk began to shrivel.
9
Snishsnosh
‘CAN’T YOU STOP Poppy bouncing?’ Stephen said to Colette. ‘It’s getting on my nerves.’
‘Bouncing’s better than moaning,’ replied Colette, secretly smiling to herself because Stephen was talking to her again.
They were back in the doll’s house, where they had discovered a bedroom at the top of a flight of stairs. There were two plastic beds and a giant sardine tin. Inside the sardine tin were the cushions from the swing, and Poppy – the only cheerful one – was jumping up and down on them.
‘Why did we have to come back here?’ Stephen sat on one of the beds, his head in his hands.
‘You know why,’ Colette reminded him. ‘It’s best if Jumbeelia doesn’t realise we tried to escape.’