The Magician's Boy (3 page)

The Boy peered more closely, puzzled.

“Then where is Saint George?” he said.

“He'll be coming to pick up his horse at dinnertime,” said the round-faced boy, and his nose grew as long as a broomstick.

The signpost made a sudden loud scratchy sound. “Pinocchio,” it said, “stop your fibbing!” It jumped up and down on its bouncy little legs, and made the scratchy sound again.

The boy pouted. “Oh Mr. Cricket, you spoil all the fun!” he said, and he stomped off through the wood.

“Was that really Pinocchio?” said the Boy.

“I'm afraid so,” said the signpost. “You can't trust him an inch. He just can't resist telling lies, and that nose always gives him away.”

“And are you really the Cricket, from Pinocchio's story?”

“I am a signpost,” said the signpost with dignity. “I show people the way. It's up to them whether they take it.”

He hopped ahead a few paces. “For instance,” he said, “just up there you will find a cottage, with a very large beanstalk in its garden.”

The Boy ran up the path, and found
himself facing a perfect storybook cottage, with white walls, a thatched roof, and roses climbing round the door. A wisp of smoke rose from a chimney in the roof, and, in the very pretty garden outside the cottage, sure enough, an enormous beanstalk was growing up into the sky.

The Boy ran to the beanstalk and looked up. It was so tall that its top was in the clouds. The stalk was as thick as a tree trunk, and the leaves were as big as umbrellas. He put his foot on the lowest leaf stem. It was flat and strong, like the first rung of a ladder.

“Maybe Saint George is up there,” he said.
“If this is Jack's beanstalk, it leads to the Giant's castle, and Saint George might be fighting the Giant. He fights Giants as well as Dragons, and he rescues Fair Maids. I don't much care about the Fair Maids, though.”

The signpost said nothing. It just stood there, pointing as usual in two different directions at once.

“I'm going up,” said the Boy bravely, and he put his second foot on the second leaf stem of the beanstalk, and began climbing.

The Boy went up the beanstalk, one leaf after another. It was very much like climbing a ladder, and a lot easier than climbing a tree.

Partway up, he paused and looked down. The thatched roof of the cottage was just beneath him. Not far away he could see another cottage, with hollyhocks outside the
door instead of roses. Walking up the path toward the cottage was a girl. She was wearing a bright red cloak, with a hood pushed halfway back over her long dark hair.

She looked up, smiled at him, and waved. “Hello, Jack!” she called.

The Boy didn't bother to explain that he wasn't Jack. He was looking at her red cloak. He knew who she must be.

He called to her, “Are you going to visit your grandmother?”

“Of course,” called the girl. “It's Friday. I've baked her some chocolate chip cookies, they're her favorite.”

“Please be careful,” the Boy called.

She laughed. “It's just my grandmother! She's in bed!”

The Boy was longing to save her. “No! Listen! It could be a wolf! Make sure her voice isn't deep! Make sure her ears aren't furry! And if she has claws and big sharp teeth, don't stop to say dumb things like 'Oh Grandmama, what big teeth you have'—just run like anything!”

The girl laughed merrily. “You're silly! Have some cookies!” she called, and she swung her arm way back and tossed a little bag up to him.

The Boy caught the bag. “Run! Remember—run!”

“Sure, sure,” called Little Red Riding Hood, and off she trotted to her grandmother's cottage.

“She's not listening,” said the Boy unhappily, and he went on up the beanstalk. Before long he was so high up that he had a wonderful view over the whole Land of Story, over woods and fields and rivers and high faraway mountains, and beyond them, shining like a lost jewel, the glint of the sea.

Then there was a shaking in the leaves above him, and down the beanstalk came a
boy. He was a cheerful-looking boy with a bulging sack slung over his shoulder, and he was whistling. He stopped when he saw the Boy.

“Are you Jack, please?” asked the Boy.

“Of course I am,” said Jack. “What are you doing on my beanstalk?”

“I'm looking for Saint George,” said the Boy. “I thought he might be chasing your Giant.”

“Haven't seen him,” said Jack. “I'm going home to my dinner. You be careful if you go up there. I've just pinched a bag of the Giant's treasure, and he's hopping mad. An
angry Giant is not a thing you want to meet.”

He grinned at the Boy and went on down the beanstalk.

The Boy looked up through the big green leaves.

“Saint George!” he called. “Are you up there?”

The leaves rustled in the wind, but nobody answered. So the Boy took a deep breath and went on climbing.

At last the leaves grew smaller and he was at the top of the beanstalk, with blue sky above him. Around him was a field of corn.

He looked round at the tall corn plants,
taller than his head. The beanstalk had chosen a very good place to push itself up into the world of the Giant—nobody could notice it here.

But there was no sign of Saint George.

The ground began to shake, as if someone were hitting it with a very big hammer—or walking over it with very big feet. The Boy held his breath, and stood very still, and he heard, coming closer and closer, a huge deep voice.

“Fee fi fo fum,” boomed the voice. “I smell the blood of an Englishman!”

And the Giant appeared, tramping through
the cornfield with feet as big as sofas. He was about twenty feet high, with enormous shoulders and a nobbly bald head. He had hair all over his nose, and a third eye in the middle of his forehead. He was a nasty sight, and he was coming closer.

The Boy ran along a row of corn, and out into a grassy field, but the big feet came after him. He looked wildly around. Where could he go? His heart was thumping, thumping, faster than the tramping feet.

He stood still. This was the end. The Giant was going to squish him like a bug.

The thumping feet came closer—and closer—and closer….

Thump, thump, thump,
came the Giant's feet.

The Boy stood there shaking.

“Fee fi fo fum,” boomed the Giant, really close now. “I smell—”

He stopped suddenly, and his voice dropped to a hopeful whisper.

“—chocolate?”

The Boy couldn't believe what he was hearing. Very fast, he pulled Little Red Riding Hood's bag of chocolate chip cookies out of his pocket.

“Have a cookie, Giant!” he said, and he held one up in the air, reaching as high as he possibly could.

The Giant bent down, a long long way down, and took the cookie between his finger and thumb. It was a big cookie, but in his big hand it looked like a tiny button. The Giant put out his huge purple tongue, which took the cookie into his enormous mouth.

“Mmmmm!” said the Giant happily.

The Boy called up to him, “Please, have you seen Saint George?”

The Giant snorted. “Saint George? That Dragon-chaser? If he came up here, I'd eat him for breakfast!”

“Have another cookie,” said the Boy quickly, and held one up. It went away on the tip of the big purple tongue, and the Giant made his happy noise again. It seemed to the Boy a very good time to leave, before the Giant might get cross again.

“Here, have all of them!” he said, and he
emptied the bag of chocolate chip cookies into the grass. With a great crash the Giant went down on his hands and knees, and while he was trying to pick up the cookies with his big clumsy fingers, the Boy ran back into the cornfield, found the beanstalk, and began climbing down.

He went down from leaf stem to leaf stem, much faster than he had come up. Down, down, down, he went. He was so pleased to be getting away from the Giant that he didn't look where he was going—until there was a terrible snarling roar below him, and he
felt a great tug at the bottom of one leg of his jeans.

He looked down. A huge wolf was there, right under his feet at the bottom of the beanstalk. It spat out a piece of the Boy's jeans and turned to jump up again. The Boy hastily climbed back up several leaf stems, and held on tight.

Snarling, the wolf leaped at him, snapping its jaws. Its teeth looked very big and very sharp.

“You warned her, you little weasel!” howled the wolf. “You told her! And she ran!”

The Boy was delighted. “Good for her!” he said.

The wolf snarled with fury. “You spoiled everything! The wolf wants to
eat
Red Riding Hood!”

“Not this time!” said the Boy. He held tightly to the beanstalk, as the wolf leaped up at him again, biting at the air.

“I'll eat you instead!” the wolf hissed. “I can wait!”

It lay down at the bottom of the beanstalk, panting. Its long red tongue hung out over its sharp white teeth, and its bright eyes glared up at the Boy.

The Boy sat down on a leaf stem. Now he was scared. He called out, “Saint George, where are you? Come and help me!”

But nobody came.

The wolf lay there looking up at the Boy, showing its teeth. Once in a while it gave a nasty growl.

“Dinnertime,” it said, and licked its lips.

The Boy didn't want to be dinner. The leaf stem was sticking into his leg, and his foot was going to sleep. He kept tight hold of the edge of a leaf, to make sure he didn't fall off. What ever was he to do?

He turned his head to look around, and a
cluster of bean pods poked him in the eye.

“Ow!” the Boy said.

Then he had an idea.

A very good idea.