Jacks, Giants and Fairies
by Glen Draeger

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Hello Giant Killers,

I went for a walk this summer and because it was hot I wore my favorite hat. It's brown with lots of tiny holes in it that let air pass through it to keep me cool or at least cooler on hot, summer days. After a few minutes of walking I heard footsteps behind me. Closer and closer they came until a man glided up next to me.

"Nice hat," he said.

"Thanks."

"I'm a seed wizard," he said. That's when I noticed that he wore a long, red coat. He didn't look like a wizard, but maybe wizards look different in our time.

"Seed wizard?" I asked.

"Yes, I trade seeds, garden seeds." At this he opened his coat. The inside was lined with seed packages, but these were not ordinary seed packages. They looked as if they were made of a very thin gold and the lettering on each package was fancy, like calligraphy. "My specialty," he continued, "is magic seeds." He pulled out a package. "The fruit from these seeds, for example, will make you invisible and these make you able to fly and these give you extreme strength and these," he paused for a moment, "allow you to know what other people are thinking—but I can't give these to just anyone." He looked at me as if he wanted me to say something, then he said, "I have a package here for you."

"For me? But you don't even—"

"Yes, Mr. Draeger, I know you. You'll notice that I don't have a hat and every wizard needs a hat, so I'll trade you these seeds for your hat."

"What do these seeds do?"

"You'll find out, just plant them as soon as you get home." I thought for a moment, but then I handed him my hat and took the seeds. I felt a little silly, but it's not everyday that you have a chance to try out magic seeds and even if they were not magic I figured I could sell the package.

As soon as I arrived home I went to my garden. I opened the package and poured the seeds into my hand. There were five of them—five bean seeds colored like the rainbow and so shiny and smooth they almost looked like marbles except they weren't round. As I was looking at them the golden package dissolved into dust and fell to the ground right where I planned to plant the seeds. I made five holes, dropped the seeds in and watered them. Nothing happened. I waited. Nothing. I stooped down to get a closer look and that's when I heard the voice.

"Mr. Draeger, are you ready to go?" I looked across from me and there stood Professor Batholomew Higginbottom, the literary mouse. His long, gray whiskers twitched as he talked. Then I noticed that everything around me looked big, very big and when I stood up I was no bigger than a mouse. "Stand back from those seeds," the Professor said.

Suddenly the ground began to shake as if we were having one of our California earthquakes. Then it cracked and up through cracks sprouted five bean plants which quickly climbed up our small arbor, wrapped themselves around one another and then ascended up and up and up and up and up into the sky where they disappeared into some large white clouds.

"Let's go," the Professor said.

The bean plants now looked like one mass of intertwined green tree trunks. We started climbing. The Professor went first and I followed. Luckily there were plenty of small branches that I could grab or where I could place my feet. The leaves were so thick that it was shady as we climbed, but every now and then I could see out through the jungle-like mass of leaves and branches. Far, far, far below me my garden, my house, the city of La Mesa and San Diego looked tiny, like I was in an airplane and then below me I saw an airplane fly by. We continued to climb.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To meet Jacks and giants," he said.

"You mean, Jack, from Jack and the Beanstalk?"

"I mean, Jacks. There are lots of different stories about Jack and his beanstalk. Not all the Jacks or the stories are the same."

After about three hours of climbing we entered a cloud and a little later found ourselves looking at—well, on one side of us was a barren landscape, almost like a desert. On the other side was a beautiful country with woods, meadows and lots of sheep grazing and on a third side there stretched a long, broad and straight road. The Professor jumped. "Come on," he said.

I was afraid to let go of the beantstalk because I didn't want to fall down and down and down, but when I jumped I landed on solid ground. Then I heard something on the beanstalk and up through the clouds came not one, not two, but three boys.

"Who are you?" I asked them.

"I'm Jack," said the first one.

"No, I'm Jack," said the second one.

"No, no, I'm Jack," said the third one.

Then, from behind me, I heard another voice. "They're all wrong," it said, "I'm Jack. I'm Jack the giant killer."

Well, maybe you can imagine my confusion. It's not everyday you get magic seeds, shrink down to the size of mouse, climb a giant beanstalk and then meet four Jacks.

"You can't all be Jack," I said. But they did all look nearly the same. They were all boys, maybe about 10 or 11 years old. They spoke with English accents and they had all come up the beanstalk, except for that last one, Jack the giant killer, Jack Four, I'll call him.

Then I heard another voice—also from behind me. When I turned a woman was standing there. She wore a red, pointed cap made of satin, had long, streaming hair that came down over her shoulders and she walked with a staff. Just as she was about to speak another woman walked up. She wore an elegant white dress and held a white wand with a peacock on the top of it made of pure gold.

"Who are you?" I asked.

At the same time they both said, "I'm here to talk to Jack. I'm a fairy."

"Well, there are plenty of Jacks to talk to." Then Fairy One and Fairy Two told a very similar story to Jack One and Jack Two. While they told their stories I noticed that Jack Three and Jack Four ran off in opposite directions.

The fairies told the Jacks that a long time ago Jack's father had been a rich and good man, but that a giant who lived nearby was extremely envious of all he had. The cunning giant had someone kill Jack's father and then he moved into his castle. The mother had escaped with baby Jack who became a spoiled, selfish child but who could still be very kind-hearted. So all the riches that giant had, the hen that layed golden eggs, his gold and silver and the magic harp, were rightfully Jack's. The fairies told the Jacks that they had to take these things back to avenge their fathers. When Jack One and Jack Two heard this (by the way, Jack Three is the one you read about), they also ran off in opposite directions.

"You see," said Professor Higginbottom, "there are lots of different Jacks."

"Why?" I asked.

"Jack and the Beanstalk is an old story first written down about 300 years ago, but before that people told the story to each other and as they told the story sometimes they added things or took out things. So when the stories were written down they were similar, but different."

"Excuse me," Fairy One said. "Since you are here, you also have a duty to perform. You must see the giants, you must lure them back here, make them follow you down the beanstalk and then chop the beanstalk down to kill them."

"What!" I yelled. "Jack is supposed to do that. I'm not a giant killer, I'm just a guy who talks to a mouse."

"But this is your story, not theirs. Now go." Then both fairies disappeared.

"Let's go," the Professor said, who seemed very brave for a mouse.

Now you may have noticed that the Professor and I were the same size as all the Jacks and the fairies, unfortunately that was not the case with any of the giants—and we saw lots of them. The giant's wives were all big and one of them had only one eye in the middle of her forehead. As we went to the castles and houses we saw giants with one head, two heads and even three heads. Not one of them spoke nicely to us—no manners at all. They mostly growled and bellowed and said they would eat us for dinner and all of them said the Professor was the biggest mouse they had ever seen and that he would be particualarly tasty with salt, pepper, butter and a pinch of parsley—apparently giants are good cooks.

But we also figured out that these giants were not very smart. Once, when a three-headed giant had cornered the Professor and me, I yelled, "Wow, look over there! It's Jack running off with your hen." The giant didn't even look to see if it was true. He just ran off in the direction of his castle yelling, "Stop that boy!" He didn't even know that he didn't have a golden hen, because the multi-headed giants all belong to the Jack the Giant Killer story.

We told all the giants to meet us by the giant beanstalk for a final fight when the sun was at it's highest point. Unfortunately that didn't work because none of the giants could figure that out. While we were running around to all the different Jack stories we often saw the Jacks running past us with the hen or bags of gold, so we decided to wait until the Jacks took the harps since we knew the giants would be following them back to the beanstalk.

Jack Four, Jack the Giant Killer, was much different than any of the others. We noticed him all over the countryside killing and tricking any giants he found. He had a coat that made him invisible, a sword that would cut through anything, a cap that gave him knowledge and shoes that made him fast. He even became a Knight of the Round Table (he lived during the time of King Arthur). Some of the giants in his story had names. We met Cormoran, Old Blunderdore who lived in an enchanted castle, Thundel who had two heads and Galligantis who, with the help of a magician, changed Knights into animals. But Jack Four killed or tricked them all. So, we only had three giants we had to worry about.

I don't know how long we were in that country. Sometimes it seemed like weeks and other times is seemed only like a few hours. After Jack the Giant Killer retired (he married the duke's daughter and lived the rest of his days in joy and content) we waited by the long, broad road until we saw Jack Three running toward us like a cat being be chased by dog. He had a harp under his arm that kept yelling, "Master! Master!" Behind Jack came the giant. But then we started hearing, "Master! Master!" from three directions. That was our cue to dash toward the beanstalk.

I have never run so fast and so furious and so fearfully. The Professor runs on four legs so he kept waiting and yelling at me, "Hurry, scurry, come on, Mr. Draeger!" When we reached the beanstalk I panted like a dog. The Professor didn't waste a moment—he leaped on the stalk and started climbing down. I tried to catch my breath and as I did each Jack jumped onto the beanstalk and began his descent.

I was still breathing hard. Finally, when I heard one of the giants yelling, "Fe, fa, fi-fo-fum, I smell—" I turned and yelled, "Stop, this instance!" The three giants stopped. They stood in front of me looking like three scolded little boys, except they were about 25 feet tall.

"It's not 'fe, fa, fi-fo-fom.' Who said that?" It irritates me when people or giants don't read a story correctly.

"I did," Giant One said. "That's what I'm supposed to say."

"No it's not!" I yelled. Remember, giants are not very smart. "'It's 'Fee, fi, foo, fum.'"

"Ah, Mr. Draeger," Giant Three said tenatively. "I hate to tell you this, but I'm the only one that says 'Fee, fi, foo, fum.' Giant One is correct—we've been doing this a long time and I've never heard him do it any other way. You can read his lines if you want to." Giant One handed me a copy of his story. He was absolutely right. I still can't get used to saying it.

Then Giant Two said, "I don't even say anything close to that. My lines are, 'Wife! Wife! I smell fresh meat!'"

"You're kidding!"

"No, take a look." Giant Two handed me his story. He was right.

"I apologize," I said, "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, but I've never heard it any other way."

"Oh, it's okay," they said. "It happens all the time." There was a long pause. "Shall we?" Giant One said.

"Aughhhhhh!" I yelled and jumped for the beanstalk. I didn't exactly climb down, I think you could call it a panicked fall. My arms flailed, my legs kicked and I screamed like a baby who has just had his milk bottle taken away. Any of you that live in Southern California probably heard it. I landed at the bottom of the beanstalk, and it was a landing, with a loud and hard thud. I ran for the ax, grabbed it and started chopping as fast as I could. I could see the three giants descending, but I just kept chopping. Then with one last chop, the beanstalk began to topple.

It fell slowly at first, but as it fell it picked up speed until finally I could hear it coming, rushing toward me with the sound of a jet engine—and then it disappeared.

One of the fairies floated down to me and said, "If you had looked at the gigantic beanstalk and only stupidly wondered about it, I would have not helped you with the giants. But you showed an inquiring mind, and great courage and enterprise, therefore you deserve what I am about to give you because when you mounted the beanstalk, you climbed the Ladder of Fortune."

The fairy handed me a triple-scoop chocolate-chip ice cream cone. It was a good day!

Regards,

Mr. Draeger

©2005-2008 Glen Draeger (all rights reserved)
Millstone Education: World Literature / http://www.millstoneeducation.com/worldLit