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An Excerpt From: JACKIE AND THE BEANSTALK
Copyright © JACQUELINE MEADOWS, 2008
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing,
Inc.
“Mom, wake up.”
Jackie blinked up at Haley then squinted at the
nightstand clock. “Only farmers get up this early. What’s wrong?”
“Know how Pop planted those beans yesterday?”
As if she could forget. Normal people didn’t trade their
car, however ancient, to some strange old woman for five supposedly magical
beans. But it was just the kind of stunt her dad would pull. Tom Foster put
the imp in impulsive.
“What about it?” She yawned. It was Saturday and she
planned to do a whole lot of nothing.
“They grew into a beanstalk and it’s like huge—way
taller than his house.”
Jackie snorted then caught her daughter’s expression.
Utter sincerity. “No way.”
“Way.” Haley’s grin revealed shiny new braces. It looked
as if she’d swallowed a chain-link fence.
Jackie threw off her blanket and darted to the window.
The apartment’s second-story view featured the backyards
of a frayed blue-collar neighborhood. Across the alley Mrs. Zinwicky’s clothesline already sagged under wet
sky-blue sheets. Two houses down, Romeo, the street’s four-legged terror,
barked at a squirrel. Between the two homes squatted her father’s
two-bedroom ranch, the house she grew up in.
There, in the middle of his backyard, towered a massive beanstalk.
“Oh. My. God.”
The thing was green and leafy, wider than an oak, taller
than a cloud.
“I woke you as soon as I saw him start to climb it.”
Shock twined with dread. “He didn’t.”
“Did. C’mon.” Haley bounded from the room.
Jackie threw on a robe and shoved her feet in slippers.
She shot out the door into buttery shafts of sunlight, the time of year
when dandelions pushed through warming soil and eager hands moved sweaters
to the backs of closets.
Up close the stalk dwarfed everything around it, especially
her preteen daughter. Haley’s expression was a house with its doors and
windows flung open, panic in every room. “I can’t see him. He’s climbed so
high already I can’t see him at all. What’re we going to do?”
Jackie’s worried gaze scaled the stalk. Curlicue shoots.
Thick pointy leaves. No dad.
She took a steadying breath. “Here’s the plan. You run
and call Uncle Remmy. I’ll climb this thing. By
the time I drag Pop back down it, we can all take turns chewing him out. I
call first dibs.”
“But what if you fall?”
Jackie hugged Haley. “That’s not going to happen. Go
call Remmy. And don’t climb up after us no matter
what. Promise?”
“But, Mom…”
“Promise.”
“Okay, but please-please-please be careful.”
Jackie watched Haley dart off then turned to the stalk.
Morning birdsong grew faint the higher she climbed until
the only sounds to find her ears were her own steady breathing and the waxy
squeak the beanstalk made as she brushed against its leaves.
Soon the air grew thin and moist. Mist gauzed her
vision. Jackie kept reaching for the next shoot, and the next.
Just above the clouds, nosebleed high, the beanstalk
ended abruptly in a gnarled brown nub. She hopped off onto an open field as
lush and green as the ocean was salty blue.
“Dad!” she called, shielding a hand above her eyes.
Everything shined brilliantly as if all the colors were plugged into an
outlet. “Tom!” Except for a lone hawk circling overhead, there was nothing.
No one.
Jackie picked up a stick and hurled it at an
unsuspecting tree.
The facts were: One. Her father had climbed a beanstalk.
A beanstalk! Two. Now the crotchety old fart was running around God knew
where. Three. He was going to lose the last few hairs on his head because
she was just upset enough to snatch him bald.
As fast as her slippers allowed, Jackie took off along a
furrowed line in the grass and followed the trampled path to the top of a
rise. There she paused in surprise.
People milled below. There were dirt roads and horses. A
town.
She scrambled down to the main road. Villagers strolled
by dressed in Camelot-like garb. Jackie scanned among them for a sixty-four-year-old
wearing a crusty grin, two hearing aids and size nine sneakers with
orthopedic inserts. He could be anywhere.
She turned to the nearest person, a gnat of a woman with
soft brown eyes. “Excuse me, have you seen an
older man dressed in baggy blue sweats and an I See Dumb People
T-shirt?” The only predictable thing about her father was what he wore
every Saturday to weed his garden.
Those Bambi eyes widened, and Jackie added, “He’s got
kind of a Donald Trump comb-over going on and—”
Thud!
“What was that?”
Thud!
Shrieks erupted. People scattered. The woman bubbled a stream of foreign words then darted off.
“Wait, I—”
Thud!
The ground shuddered and Jackie clutched the wooden frame
of a parked cart.
Thud!
Someone turned off the sun and a shadow swallowed the
road.
Thud!
Amid shouts and fleeing villagers, Jackie looked up and
discovered the source of the shadow and all of that thud-thud-thudding.
She screamed long and high.
At the town’s edge towered a three-eyed giant who wore
ugly like glass wore shine.
She screamed longer and higher then sprinted straight
for the gigundous monster to help the poor guy
struggling in its fist. “Dad!”
The only warning was a peripheral flash of movement.
What hit her delivered the bone-jarring impact of a minivan. Jackie’s elbow
slid along the dirt first, obediently followed by the rest of her stunned
body. A heavy male weight pressed down on her then quickly lifted.
She had the fleeting impression of a lean, ropy body,
brown hair tumbling forward and startling eyes the cold of a December lake.
Blue ice. Then her tackler jumped to his feet between Jackie and the giant.
From the quiver slung over one broad shoulder, the man
pulled arrow after arrow and sent each one slicing through the air into his
very large target.
The giant exhibited grave displeasure by bellowing and
waving her father around in its beefy fist.
“Oh God, Dad!” Jackie lurched upright—she’d landed funny
on her ankle—and began hobbling forward.
Another arrow flew. When she wobbled past the archer, he
yelled foreign words, no doubt warning her back. Onward she limped. The
attack was making the giant angry, which brought to mind distressing words
such as crunch and squish. Pureed dad.
As she charged, Jackie rifled through normally
optimistic thoughts and found only couldn’ts. She
couldn’t imagine what the giant wanted, couldn’t figure out a safe way to
save her father, couldn’t believe this was
actually happening.
The ground shook as the giant shifted. Its third eye,
smack in the middle of its wide forehead, blinked rapidly before rolling to
white behind a thick lid. The horrifying sight made Jackie react slowly to
the giant’s tree trunk leg lifting, the shin decorated with three arrows.
A massive sandaled foot swung her way.
Like smeared ink, the next seconds blurred. She tried to
dodge, felt hands push at her back, pain explode in her head, and right
before unconsciousness wrapped big hairy arms around her and squeezed, she
heard her father yell her name.
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