“Boy, she’s got lots of friends, Mr. Valentine,” said Dickie. “Not just me and Chip and Carolyn, but—”
“It’s true. She’s really nice,” said Carolyn. And Chip said, “I think she’s peachy.”
Mr. Valentine looked even sadder. “I had no idea,” he said. “She never talked to me about this place. Or if she did, I didn’t listen.”
Carolyn said, “She was telling us a story.”
“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Valentine, with a small laugh.
“It was a neato story,” said Chip.
“Boy, it sure was,” said Dickie. “It had a giant-slayer. And a big white castle in the mountains. And lions with wings. And a witch like a frog. And—”
“I was the witch,” said Carolyn. “’Cause I was kind of mean at first.”
“And I was a hunter,” said Dickie.
“And I was a teamster,” said Chip. “I had a huge wagon with a hundred oxen.”
Mr. Valentine shook his head sadly. “I wish I’d known,” he said. “I wish I’d heard that story.”
He left them then—with a slap of his hat on his leg, with one more look at Laurie. He went all bent and tired-looking, shuffling with his feet. At the door he tried to smile. “God bless you all,” he said. And at last he started crying.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
THE MAN WHO SHOWED THE WAY
Even at night it was never quite dark in the respirator room. There was always the glow of the city in the window, the shine from the corridor through the open door, a star-like twinkle from the tiny bulbs on the respirator motors. But that night it was as dark as it ever got, for the clouds were thick in a moonless sky.
Mrs. Strawberry had come and gone. She had screamed at the sight of Laurie, a tingling shriek that was the worst sound Dickie had ever heard in his life. She had thrown herself against the iron lung, arms spread wide, and had held on like a cat as Mr. Valentine had pulled her away. “This was a mistake,” he’d said. “This was a bad mistake.”
He was asleep now, out in the hall, sprawled across two chairs. His troubled snoring came in bursts.
Dickie lay staring toward Laurie, a black shadow never moving. It was most important to him that they finish the story, but he was afraid as well of ending it. He wondered again what should happen to Collosso. For at least the third time, he asked, “What if Laurie is the giant?” He couldn’t get the thought out of his mind.
No one teased him about it. Carolyn didn’t snap or snarl or laugh. “At first,” she said, “I thought the giant was polio. But I’m not sure anymore. Maybe the giant’s just a giant.”
“Boy, he’s more than that,” said Dickie.
Chip said that he’d been thinking about the story, and he was wondering if Collosso was maybe a symbol. “A kinda symbol,” he said. “I don’t know. Like he stands for growing up or something, for not being a kid anymore.” But the others didn’t understand.
“It’s like Jimmy’s always a child,” said Chip. “He never grows big. He never grows up.”
The tiny lights on the respirator, reflected in the window, reflected in the mirror too. In a way, Chip was looking at himself. “But if Jimmy kills Collosso, he gets big. He becomes a man, ’cause the witch promised him that. So he won’t be a kid anymore.”
“Aw, you’re nuts,” said Carolyn.
They all lay quiet for a minute, then Carolyn spoke again. “If the giant is polio and Laurie’s the Woman, it sort of makes sense, you know. She disappeared in a way, like the Woman did, and now the giant’s got her.”
There were sounds all through the night—quiet little hospital sounds or the louder rumble of a city, now and then a siren.
On this night an ambulance came rushing to the hospital. The siren sound grew louder until it wailed below the window. The flashing lights shone on the ceiling above the row of iron lungs.
Dickie started the story.
The northern lights were bright in the mountains. They flashed through the sky in all different colors, and the giant-slayer huddled with his friends round the little wagon that held the Witch inside it.
Across the wide moat, behind the drawbridge, Collosso was in his castle. The great rooms were lit with yellow light, and now and then the giant passed across a window. And at midnight the screaming started.
There were deathly shrieks, howls of agony, and then the laughter of the giant. It fell away, then started again.
“I can’t stand it,” said Finnegan Flanders. “I will go mad if I have to listen any longer.”
“Every night has been like this,” said Khan.
Jimmy said, “We have to kill him.” He turned to Khan. “What do we do?” They all turned to Khan because he was the hunter; he knew how to kill.
The screaming started again, and at last the great hunter rose to his feet. “Enough is enough,” he said. “I’m going to whup the tar out of that giant.”
“Don’t make me puke,” said Carolyn.
“What’s wrong with that?” said Dickie.
“It’s dumb. Khan’s a unicorn hunter. He’s not Davy Crockett. Besides, it has to be the giant-slayer who kills the giant.”
“Then you tell it better,” said Dickie.
So Carolyn took a turn at the story. Then Chip took a turn. All through the night, one after the other, they tried to end the story.
With each telling, there was a different hero. Carolyn had the Swamp Witch crafting weapons from impossible things: battle-axes out of oxen yokes; swords from the tongues of the wagon. Chip made Finnegan Flanders more dashing than ever, a man like General Custer, with tumbling yellow hair and a big moustache and a pair of hunting dogs that suddenly appeared from nowhere. At dawn they were all angry at each other, and Jimmy’s companions were sitting round the wagon in a grim silence as the sun climbed up from the edge of the world.
Little James Miner came back to the room on crutches. The black shoes built onto his metal braces were so neatly laced that Miss Freeman must have done the tying.
He settled down in the same place, against one of the legs of Laurie’s iron lung. And even he got a turn at the story.
In the first light of the day, Collosso came out from his castle. He appeared on the ramparts, and in his hands was a great box with a sliding lid. He set it down on the wall in front of him.
The sky was red in the dawn. The giant looked out over the edge of the world at the rising sun. The clouds that swirled around him were the color of blood and roses.
With his thumb he opened the box.
A frightful howling came out of the box, a wailing and a groan. Like a man pinching snuff from a snuff box, the giant poked his fingers inside and pulled out a squirming figure. It was a man in farming clothes, kicking and punching at the air. Collosso looked at him closely and then flicked him out over the edge of the world. The farmer flew screaming into the clouds, writhing down through the sky and into that endless void. Collosso watched, frowning slightly, then pulled out another man.
While James was telling the story, a nurse arrived for therapy. She pushed a machine in front of her, a round tub on three legs, with wheels at the bottom. It looked like a washing machine on spindly stilts.
Her name was Mrs. Clyde. She had curly red hair and a mean-looking face that never smiled. She plugged in the machine, and it whirred and shook, vibrating over the floor on its small rubber wheels.
Miss Freeman arrived soon after, too busy to be cheery. She loosened the clamps on the first iron lung and drew Carolyn out on the rolling cot. The girl started frog-breathing.
Mrs. Clyde lifted the lid on her machine. Out came a puff of steam and the smell of hot, wet wool. Dickie clenched his teeth. Carolyn was frantically forcing air into her lungs.
Mrs. Clyde used a pair of tongs to fish a hot pack from her machine. It was like a cream-colored blanket, sodden and heavy, steaming hot. She set it down on Carolyn’s legs. Dickie closed his eyes as he heard the wet splat and the little groans that Carolyn made. The smell of steamin
g wool was strong and sickening.
There was another splat, another groan. Mrs. Clyde was bending down now to stretch Carolyn’s leg, to work the paralyzed muscles.
When she’d finished with Carolyn, the nurse refilled the machine and set it whirring again. Chip was next, and then Dickie.
Miss Freeman set up a breathing bag and put the mask on Dickie’s face. She squeezed the bag, pumping air, as Mrs. Clyde reached with her tongs for the wool.
Each hot pack brought an instant of pain, followed by a pleasant feeling as the heated muscles loosened. He couldn’t decide if the pain was worth the pleasure, for the nice feeling never lasted all that long, but he believed that it was. He kept his eyes closed, thinking of the paddle wheeler that would carry him away to Frontierland. He didn’t cry out as Mrs. Clyde slapped the wool in place. He just bit his lip inside the mask, and let a tear go sliding down his cheek.
The nurses washed the patients and changed the sheets. When the iron lungs were sealed again, Mrs. Clyde took her machine and went trundling down the hall. Miss Freeman stayed for a while, hovering over Laurie. As soon as she left, Dickie went back to the story.
“Jimmy’s got to kill Collosso,” he said. “It’s what the Swamp Witch saw.”
“But how?” asked James. “He’s such a little person, and that giant, he’s so big.”
It seemed there was a proper way to do it, fitting with the story, but they couldn’t decide what it was. Chip reminded them that that Finnegan Flanders could set his hunting dogs onto the giant, but he had forgotten that Carolyn had sent them skulking away because she didn’t want them in the story. Then Carolyn said the Swamp Witch could work some magic, but Chip reminded them that the witch wasn’t really a witch at all.
“She could still make a charm,” said Carolyn, a little bit miffed.
Then Dickie cried out, “Boy, it’s the charm!”
The little giant-slayer hauled from his shirt the ball of bones that he’d been given by the hunter. He let it turn on the string, and the sunlight shining through it made lacy shadows on the ground.
The hunter, the teamster, the witch—they all shouted at him.
“Smash it!” said Khan. “Loose the power trapped inside it.”
“Set it on the ground,” said Finnegan Flanders. “Let the giant think that it’s an offering, like the ones the farmers set out in the valley. When he touches it he will turn to cinders.”
“Keep it,” said the Swamp Witch. “Make your way into the castle and trust the charm to protect you.”
Jimmy watched the charm spin round and round. The others shouted, each one louder: “Smash it!” “Leave it!” “Wear it.”
But he couldn’t decide; how could he? Once broken, the charm could never be restored. Left for the giant, it could never be recovered. And he could scarcely imagine himself climbing down into the moat with the hydras and the tigers.
Round the turrets of the castle, the clouds welled darkly from the edge of the world. Collosso flung his shrieking slaves across the sky. The crimson dragons soared and swooped, snatching the men as they fell. The giant-slayer stared at the spinning charm.
It was too much for him to choose. “I wish someone would help me,” said Jimmy.
Mrs. Strawberry sat all day at Piper’s Pond, looking up at the fourth-floor windows, praying to herself as she rubbed her hands together. Mr. Valentine found her there at six o’clock but couldn’t tempt her to go any farther. He went on alone, up to the respirator room, carrying not only his hat but a book, as if he meant to settle down for a great long stay. It was a huge book with a blue cover, and Mr. Valentine put it down on the chair as he went straight to Laurie’s side. He touched her cheek; he smoothed her hair. She lay unmoving, with her breaths whistling through the plastic tube.
As he’d done before, Mr. Valentine rubbed his hand over the iron lung.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. “Daddy’s here.”
For fifteen minutes he stood like that, one hand on her head, the other rubbing the metal. Then, with a sigh, he stepped away. He opened that big blue book.
Just ahead of the index, a sheet of paper was slipped between the pages, a picture done in crayon. Little smears of green and blue had come away from the paper and were stuck now to the atlas.
“Laurie drew this years ago,” said Mr. Valentine. “It was Mrs. Strawberry, Laurie’s nanna, who remembered.”
He peeled away the map of Laurie’s life, the island shaped like a potato. He looked at the mountains and the meadows, at the castle in the corner.
“I told Mrs. Strawberry about your story, about the castle and everything.”
He was talking to all four of them at once, though he didn’t look away from the picture.
“In the middle of the night, she remembered. She telephoned and woke me up, shouting over the phone. ‘The map of her life! That’s where I saw them.’ I didn’t know what she was talking about, but it was the lions she remembered. The lions with wings on their back.”
He put his finger on them in the picture, tiny little figures that looked more like poodles than lions.
“Laurie showed me this. She sat on my lap when she was just a little girl and showed me all these things.” His finger ran across the page. “The road, the castle, the crosses. I didn’t pay much attention, I’m afraid.”
Dickie spoke up from his respirator. “Can I see it, Mr. Valentine?”
“Oh, sure. I’m sorry.” Mr. Valentine stood at Dickie’s side and held up the map for him to see.
Dickie grinned as he studied it. “Boy, there’s the Great North Road,” he said. “Going up the middle like a snake. There’s the castle at the edge of the world. The road goes past it. To that pond where ducks are swimming. And the straight line, that’s the old hauling road. But what’s the red thing there?”
“This squiggle?” asked Mr. Valentine, pointing. “Near the castle?”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Strawberry said she wondered the same thing,” said Mr. Valentine. “Laurie told her she didn’t know what it was, but thought she’d have to fight it.”
“Can I see?” said Chip.
Mr. Valentine moved down the row of respirators so Chip and Carolyn could see the map together. James came over on his crutches, held on to the legs of the iron lung, and stood looking up with his head next to Chip’s. He said, “That’s a dragon. Sure as spit. It’s one of them big red dragons that’s flying around the castle.”
Dickie said, “I know how it ends!”
At the edge of the moat, with the tigers roaring far below him, Jimmy the giant-slayer raised his little arms.
He shouted, “Collosso!”
Three times he shouted before the giant looked down at him. The huge head turned.
“I have come to slay you, Collosso!” cried Jimmy. “I will do you in a flash!”
From the giant came a roar. He hurled his box over the rampart. It spun toward Jimmy, a thing as big as a barn to him, and exploded into a thousand pieces against the wall of the moat.
Jimmy held up the charm as far as the string would let him. It swayed like a pendulum in front of his eyes. Then he took hold of the ball of bones, closed it in his fist, and ran along the lip of the moat, east toward the edge of the world.
High above him stood Collosso, glaring down from the tall turret. The giant grabbed a stone at the top of his rampart and tore it right out of the wall. To him, it was the size of a brandy keg; to Jimmy it was enormous. The giant swung his arm and hurled the stone, and it blasted into the mountain just inches from Jimmy.
Shards of rock flew into the air. Jimmy dodged and weaved between them, running on with the charm in his hand. “I will do you in a flash!” he shouted again. Down in the moat, the tigers loped along below him, staring up with greedy eyes. Dragons wheeled above him, swooping lower through the clouds.
Collosso hurled another stone, and another and another. He peeled away the rampart until he stood exposed on his platform, fierce and huge, grunting as
he hurled the massive stones.
Khan snatched up his bow and arrow and went running after Jimmy. Finnegan Flanders leapt on his horse, drawing his sword as he kicked it into a gallop. They both raced along the edge of the moat, trying to catch the little giant-slayer. They didn’t know what they would do when they reached him, but they couldn’t just stand and watch.
The stones flung down from the castle smashed on the road and the ruins of the wagon, on the mountainside and the wall of the moat.
At the very edge of the world, Jimmy stopped. Again he held the charm as high as he could, and the dragon’s claw in the middle glowed like a little flame in the light. “I have come to slay you, Collosso!” he shouted again.
The giant had torn down the whole rampart. Now he stooped and snatched a stone from the floor, breaking it free from the edge. He drew back his arm.
From the sky above Jimmy, a dragon pounced. It came down like a red streak with its wings drawn back, its legs extended. It came with a shriek and a roar of fire, its long neck twisted, its tail thrashing.
Collosso threw his stone.
Inches from Jimmy, the dragon flapped its great wings. The rush of air knocked the giant-slayer flat. But he held up the charm, and it swung madly from his fingers. The dragon flapped again, hovering above the giant-slayer, its face snaking round to look at him. It grabbed on to the charm with its claws.
The string that held the charm was no thicker than wool. But the magic in the bones made it stronger than steel. The dragon screamed and pulled, its huge wings now beating at the ground. Jimmy lay below its belly, kicking at the scales with his little feet. The dragon breathed a spume of fire.
Finnegan Flanders rode right in against the dragon. He pulled out his sword and slashed at its neck, at its wings. Khan leapt in to save Jimmy, his quiver of arrows on his back. He held on to the giant-slayer as the dragon tried to lift them both in the air.
With a thud, Collosso’s stone hit the dragon on its spine. Its back arched and its neck straightened for a moment. Fire belched from its mouth.
The Giant-Slayer Page 19
