The Giants and the Joneses by Julia Donaldson Page A

the room. Zab had noticed before that the iggly plops seemed to be nervous of his mother.
    He was glad to see Mij because he had beenwondering how many poddums spending money she would be giving him.
    ‘Heek munchly poddums?’ he asked.
    ‘Thrink,’ she replied.
    Only thrink poddums! That was hardly anything!
    Zab grumbled, then yelled, then threatened not to go away at all, but Mij refused to increase the amount. She told him to get washed, comb his hair and bring his hold-all downstairs.
    Well, thought Zab, when she had gone, if she wouldn’t help him he would have to help himself. He knew that Jumbeelia often left money lying around. He slunk into her room.
    To his annoyance, she was in there, sitting on the floor with her back turned to him. She hadn’t heard him come in, so he crept up on her and pulled her hair.
    ‘Ow!’ she yelled. ‘Glay awook, Zab!’
    But Zab didn’t go away. He was too interested in what Jumbeelia was doing.
    She was posting coins – a lot of coins – into a money box he had never seen before. It was bright red, and the slot looked as if it were designed to receive iggly letters rather than coins; in fact, the whole thing looked just like an iggly pobo. It was a wonderful money box, and Zab knew that he had to have it.
    He made a grab but he wasn’t fast enough. Jumbeelia, who had just posted the last coin into the slot, jumped up and ran towards the door, the iggly pobo in her hand. Zab heard the coins rattle inside it. It sounded almost full.
    ‘Askorp!’ he called. Jumbeelia stopped in the doorway but looked ready to take off again.
    Zab eyed the beely red object and thought about all the coins inside it. He thought about his measly amount of spending money. Then he thought about the girl iggly plop inside his sponge bag.
    ‘Sweefswoof?’ he suggested.

18
The running-away collection
    O NE MOMENT C OLETTE was nearly suffocating inside Zab’s dank, smelly sponge bag; the next moment she was back in Jumbeelia’s room, inside the doll’s house. She was relieved, but too confused and troubled to feel really happy.
    Jumbeelia had gone out of the room, closing the door behind her. There was no sign of Poppy.
    ‘Poppy? Poppy, where are you?’
    The sitting room and the kitchen were empty.Colette climbed the stairs and found Poppy on her sardine-tin bed. She wasn’t asleep – her eyes were open – but she was lying perfectly still, staring at the ceiling.
    ‘Poppy, it’s me. Are you all right?’
    Poppy came out of her trance then. She jumped off the bed and hugged Colette.
    ‘Back ’gain! Back ’gain,’ she kept saying. Then she ran to the window and said, ‘Stephen coming?’
    ‘No. Not yet, anyway. He’s in the garden. Zab left him there.’
    Poppy started to cry.
    Colette put an arm round her. ‘He’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘He’ll come and find us. Or we’ll go and find him. We’ll all be together again soon.’
    She wished she believed her own words. She thought of the wasp and the spider, and tried not to think about any other giant-size creatures that Stephen might meet out in the garden. How would he keep warm at night? What would he eat and drink?
    Colette was too worried to feel hungry herself, and when Jumbeelia came back with two giantspaghetti hoops she left most of hers.
    ‘Have nice sweety,’ suggested Poppy, pointing to a giant button strewn with huge sugar grains, but Colette couldn’t be tempted.
    With a slight sigh, Jumbeelia held an enormous cornflake up to Colette’s lips. Colette tried to nibble at it but just felt sick.
    Impatiently, the girl giant put the cornflake down beside the sugar grains and went out of the room, once again closing the door.
    ‘At least we won’t have to play farms,’ said Colette. Then, eyeing the leftovers on the table, ‘We should keep these, you know. Let’s hide them in the fridge.’
    They broke up the cornflake into little pieces and put them in one of the doll’s saucepans, along with the sugar