Jack by Liesl Shurtliff

Before I could say any more, the dwarf-giant waddled off calling, “Message for Henry! Message for Henry!”
    “Wait!” I shouted, but the creature waddled on without a backward glance. “Message for Henry! Message for Henry!”
    So the pudgy giant-dwarf creatures wouldn’t be any help. No matter. I didn’t need help. Grandpa Jack faced a giant with three heads all on his own.
    Turning my attention back to the castle, I leapt high and grabbed onto a giant woman’s skirts and hid myself between the folds. As the giantess walked I swung wildly back and forth, like I was being thrashed about in a gale. It was rather fun, and I was moving at a very fast pace,upward and onward, until someone bumped into the woman. I lost my grip and went tumbling down the hill, thumpity, bumpity, until I came to a stop in the middle of the road. A hoof stomped down on one side of me and a wheel rolled by the other. A long tail brushed over my head, and without a second thought, I grasped at the coarse threads.
    Before coming to the giant world, I would have thought riding on a horsetail would be no more threatening than hanging from a tree, but a tree only bends with the wind, while a tail has a mind of its own. It flicked me side to side and up and down. It was like hanging on to the end of a whip and you never knew which direction it would go. I got dizzy, giant flies buzzed in my face, and it smelled pretty awful, which shouldn’t be surprising considering where a tail is placed.
    Once inside the castle gates, the horse halted but the tail did not. The horse must have felt me because I got whipped around so violently, it was impossible to hold on. I went flying. I tumbled to the ground and bounced and rolled until I came to a stop directly beneath the stone steps of the castle.

CHAPTER SEVEN
Cat and Mouse and Giant
    T he walls of the giant castle rose above me like endless mountains and cliffs. To my left was a set of stairs leading to some doors, but each step was twice my height, and frankly I’d had enough of climbing for one day. Besides, it was better to enter with stealth and strategy, and take the giants who held Papa by surprise.
    I slid through a crack in the stone and entered a tunnel, probably for mice and rats. The air was stale and moldy. Only a few shafts of light pried through other holes in the stone. Above me there were great woodenbeams covered in dust and cobwebs and rather elaborate spiderwebs….
    “AaaaAyACK!” I leaped back as a giant spider dropped down from one of the beams right above me. Its body was the size of a pumpkin, with eight hairy legs, two sharp pincers, and four shiny black eyes all fixed on me. I held my axe, ready to swing, but the spider didn’t attack me. It merely looked at me as though curious and then scuttled back up its silk thread.
    A mouse as big as a sheep scurried by, twitching his whiskers and sniffing at the ground for food. He crawled up one of the beams and then disappeared through another hole. If a mouse could go through the hole safely, then so could I. I climbed up the beam, pulling myself up on giant nails and digging my feet into the knots in the wood. The spider continued its spinning, but I felt its eyes on me. Well, I suppose when you have eight limbs, it’s hilarious to watch little humans climb.
    As I climbed, I got whiffs of the most heavenly smells. Roasted meat and onions, fresh bread, and baked cheese. My stomach growled. The thought of eating something besides beans was almost too much for me. I climbed faster.
    Finally I reached the hole the mouse had gone into. It was a tunnel, just big enough to crawl through on my hands and knees. The mouse was crouched behind a sack, nibbling on some grain that was spilling out of a rip at the bottom. He watched me closely with his beady eyes. I must have made him nervous, because he quickly finished his meal and scurried off. I scooped upa handful of grain. It was wheat. Just regular wheat, not giant.
    I climbed on top of