Chapter 7

Harmony was in no way, shape, or form interested in going back up to the giants’ house, whether she was no longer a garp or not. She’d seen the goose once, when Mortimer had brought it inside to watch it lay a golden egg. She knew it was kept in a cage, in the barn behind the house. Jack didn’t figure it would be too hard to find and, since he didn’t plan on going into the house, he hoped to avoid seeing either giant on his trip.

Jack still didn’t want anyone to see one of the magic beanstalks, so he waited until dark to plant another bean.

“You stay here,” he instructed Harmony, handing her the axe. “I don’t know how this will go, but you be ready to chop through the beanstalk as soon as I get back.”

“OK,” said Harmony.

“What?” Jack turned to look at her.

“I said OK.”

“What the heck does that mean?” asked Jack.

“I just made it up. It’s short for “ompraticulum kolanthisis,” which is garp language for, ‘If I have to, I suppose I will.’”

“Well, just speak plain English from now on,” said Jack.

“OK.”

He stared at her mischievous grin and felt a rush of affection for her. “It will never catch on, you know,” he said.

“Are you going to go get the goose or not?” she asked, trying to sound cross.

Once again, Jack climbed into sunlight. Lifting his head just enough to see, he surveyed the giants’ house. There was no movement. Nor was there sound. He found he could stay half concealed by the upper mists if he bent over.

He snuck around one side of the house and peeked into the back yard. Sure enough, there was a barn there. There looked like an awful lot of open space between the house and barn to Jack. He got the bright idea of crawling, which seemed to hide him well, but made it so he couldn’t see where he was going. Trusting his sense of direction, he just kept crawling until his head suddenly bumped painfully into the boards of the structure he was seeking.

He inched upwards and looked back at the house. Seeing no movement, he stood.

The latch on the barn door was higher than he could reach.

At a loss, he started around the barn. He found a loose board and, by pulling with all his strength, he was able to move it enough to slip into the dusty darkness inside.

He found the goose easily and stared at it. It looked like any other goose. It was the only thing other than Harmony he’d seen up there that was of a normal size.

Having no experience with geese, other than seeing them fly overhead, he simply opened the cage, reached in, and grabbed the bird. Two things happened which affected the outcome of his raid.

First, he saw a gleaming golden egg where the goose had been sitting. It was impossible for him to just leave it there, so he tucked the goose under one arm and reached for the egg with his free hand.

The goose, never happy when someone stole her eggs, expressed her unhappiness like she always did.

She began honking and trying to flap her wings.

For you city folk, let me give you some advice. Never try to hold a pissed off goose under one arm. And you know how you can hear a goose honking waaaaay up there in the sky? Well, when it’s right next to your ear, it’s downright deafening, let me tell you.

The goose began pecking eagerly at any part of Jack her bill could reach. With the kind of neck a goose has, that’s a lot of parts. Jack suddenly felt like he was being attacked by a whole flock of geese.

He stuffed the egg in his pocket and grabbed for the goose’s beak. Running to the loose board he hit it hard with his shoulder, eliciting a groan from himself and a muffled squawk from the goose, who jerked her beak from his hand in the process.

“WHAT’S GOING ON OUT THERE?!” came a stentorian bass voice loudly from the house.

Mortimer stepped out the back door. He stopped suddenly, his eyes going round and wild at the same time.

“FEE FIE FOE FUM!” he yelled. “I SMELL THE BLOOD OF AN ENGLISHMAN!”

Mortimer’s beady eyes spied the frantic movement of both Jack, running hell-bent-for-leather, and the wings of his magic goose flapping as Jack held the goose out in front of him, trying to keep that nasty beak from pecking his eyes out.

“FUM, FOE, FIE, FEE!” screamed Mortimer. “TIS A STINKING ENGLISHMAN STEALING MY GOOSE I SEE!”

“Ohhhhh shit!” moaned Jack.

The goose did. And for you city folk, you need to know that geese excel at that particular bodily function. More about that later.

It was a footrace. It shouldn’t have been much of a contest at all, what with Mortimer covering as much ground in one stride as it took Jack three to traverse.

But that goose unlimbered a good five or six pounds of slippery gray goo which, after the first part struck Jack and he then moved the goose sideways, landed in more or less of a long strip on the groud behind him. Mortimer, running full tilt, extended a foot with the intent of just stomping the thief. That foot came down on all that slippery goose goo, and Mortimer went flying.

It didn’t look anything like it does when all those perky people run and jump and do flips at the Olympics.

Mortimer basically lay down in thin air, on his back, about four feet above the surface of the cloud. Then, gravity having been invented, his huge body descended. Unfortunately for him, under that soft, fluffy cloud, there was a very hard surface.

The huge rush of air that left Mortimer’s mouth when he hit, flat on his back, was traveling so fast that it broke the sound barrier. It would have sounded exactly like a sonic boom, had those been invented yet. To Jack, it sounded like a lightning bolt had hit right behind him. It scared the goose too, who unlimbered another couple of pounds of gooey mess.

Which gooey mess was lying there as Mortimer levered himself up and tried to run again, only to put his foot in exactly the same place he had slipped on the first time. This time he was temporarily suspended face down, and his chest landed on the second pile of goose manure.

All in all, it was only that goose poop that saved Jack that day, and not just because it gave him a head start when Mortimer slipped on it. The thundering boom startled the goose so much that, after she evacuated her bowels again, she just froze. That allowed Jack to stuff her under his arm again, leaving one hand free that he intended to use while climbing down.

He jumped for the beanstalk, wrapping his free arm and his legs around it. His intent was to slide down to the next leaf, where he would stop, be able to get his feet under him, and begin climbing frantically down.

Because of the goose manure that was all over his front, however, his slipperiness quotient involved much less friction than usual. As a result, when his butt hit the first leaf, he was going fast enough that it just sheared off, and he kept going.

If you’ve ever been at the wheel of a car that is in the process of running out of gas, you are familiar with the jerk/shudder/go kind of motion, as the car tries to stop. But then a whiff of gas encourages the engine to fire again, until that’s gone and the whole thing starts all over again as what’s left in the tank sloshes around. It was kind of like that with Jack.

After shearing off the first leaf, he gained speed, until he hit another one, which delivered a not-quite-crushing blow to his balls, before breaking off and allowing him to gain speed again ... until it happened all over again. There was a staccato “HUH ... HUH ... OWW ... HUH ... SHIT! ... HUH ... HUH...” that eventually turned into one long howl of dismay as his goose-despoiled front slid faster and faster.

The goose wasn’t much impressed either.

Somewhere along the way Jack looked up, to see Mortimer’s twisted face staring down from the opening in the clouds where what now looked like some awful green tentacle stretched up. Mortimer’s hand appeared, grasped the tentacle, and shook it vigorously.

Terror overcame Jack’s desire to try to stop the ongoing punishment of his poor jewels, made sufferable only because his butt was taking part of each thump. The goose wasn’t pecking him anymore, but he didn’t know it was only because the goose couldn’t breathe, clamped between arm and body that felt like the jaws of a vise.

All thought of trying to slow himself fled when he saw Mortimer’s giant feet appear in the opening above, followed by huge legs that wrapped themselves around the now leafless stalk.