Marabel and the Book of Fate

by Tracy Barrett

  BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Marabel realized that what they’d been hearing earlier hadn’t been thunder, but gigantic footsteps.

  The top of the basket opened and four gigantic heads peered down at them. “How sweet!” the mother giant cooed. She reached in an enormous hand and stroked first Marabel’s head and then Ellie’s with a heavy finger.

  Marabel mustered all her courage. “Are… are you going to eat us?” she quavered.

  One of the girls said, “Ew!” and the other made a theatrical gagging sound.

  The giant mother drew back with an expression of horror. “Eat you? What a thought! No, never! We’re vegans, all of us. We’ve never let a morsel of meat cross our lips.” The other three heads nodded vigorously in agreement. “Why don’t you share our lunch with us?” the woman suggested. “We have so few visitors, and due to the canyon that goes around our mountain home, we rarely get the chance to meet people. Do join us!”

  “Share your lunch with you?” Marabel asked uncertainly. If giants didn’t eat people, what did they eat?

  The giant father said, “We have a lovely kale and quinoa salad, some homemade bread, lemonade—”

  “Hummus!” one of the girls exclaimed.

  “Roasted veggies!” said the other one.

  Marabel and Ellie exchanged glances. It sounded good after three days of eating only what they could carry and then two days of just about no food. “Thank you,” Marabel said uncertainly.

  The giant father lifted them out of the basket and set them on the blanket, the giant girls perched uncomfortably close. Ellie flinched as an enormous foot barely missed her when one of the girls crossed her legs. “Abigail and Sophia,” their mother said, “be careful. Don’t hurt them, and do your best not to make them nervous, the little dears.”

  “Where’s—” Marabel began, looking around and wondering where Floriano had gotten to. But Ellie jabbed her in the ribs with her elbow, and she stopped short.

  “Where’s what?” asked one of the girls—Abigail or Sophia.

  “Where’s the, um, salt?” Marabel squeaked.

  “Salt is poison,” the mother giant said as she scooped up what must have been, to her, a tiny portion of salad. “We never add salt.” She rummaged around, evidently looking for something small enough for Marabel and Ellie to use as a plate, but gave up and carefully placed the spoon on the blanket.

  The kale and quinoa salad was delicious, although the dressing made it messy to eat with their fingers. Along with salt, the giants evidently didn’t believe in sugar, either, and the lemonade, while flavored with berries that made it a pretty pink, puckered their mouths so much that Marabel and Ellie couldn’t drink more than a sip. The bread, though, was chewy and crusty. Enough hummus to fill a bathtub overflowed from a bowl.

  When they had eaten all they could, Marabel and Ellie rose to their feet. They performed their best curtseys, and Abigail and Sophia squealed, “They’re so cute!”

  Marabel said, “Thank you for the delicious lunch. But now we have to go.”

  All four giant faces turned to them in surprise.

  “Go?” said Papa Giant.

  “Go?” said the two girl giants.

  “Go?” said Mama Giant. “You’re not going anywhere!”

  hat do you mean, we’re not going anywhere?” Marabel was bewildered. “We have to go.” Blistered or not, her father’s messenger was probably well on his way to Mab’s castle by now.

  But the father giant shook his head. “Much too dangerous out there for such little things,” he said. “Besides, haven’t you seen how fond of you our children already are?” The girls beamed at Marabel and Ellie.

  “We like your children very much, too,” Marabel said uncertainly. “And we thank you for the lovely lunch, and for telling us about salt. But we must take our leave now.”

  She might as well not have said anything. The giants didn’t answer, except to laugh the way people do when a dog or a monkey does something that looks human.

  The giant mother scooped up Marabel and Ellie, accidentally knocking their heads together, and put them in her satchel. She slung it over her shoulder, flinging them around, and then with a cheery “Time to go, girls!” she started walking.

  “What do we do now?” wailed Ellie, rubbing her head. Her knee was in Marabel’s face. Marabel pushed it away and tried to haul herself up over a pile of tissues, a huge lipstick, a mirror that made her look like something from a nightmare, and enormous coins that clanked together, threatening to bruise them both. The bag swayed and bumped with the giant’s steps, and Marabel had barely poked her head out when the movement caught the giant woman’s attention. The giant zipped her satchel shut. “Little scamp!” her voice boomed far overhead, followed by a chuckle.

  Every step their captor took jolted Marabel and Ellie, and the enclosed space soon became warm and stuffy. It smelled like some kind of fake leather.

  “Let me out!” Ellie’s voice was panicky. She moaned and added, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Oh no!” Marabel was torn between worry over Marco, fear that Ellie was going to throw up, and concern for Floriano. Luckily, just as Ellie clamped her hands over her mouth, the giant woman put her purse down with a thud, unzipped the top, and lifted the girls out, tangling their limbs together again. She dropped them on a broad wooden expanse, which Marabel realized was a tabletop. She jumped to her feet and looked around at the cavernous room as Ellie lay still, her clammy face slowly regaining its color.

  The picnic basket was stowed in a nearby corner, and the rest of the room was filled with huge toys, books, and paper. It looked a lot like Marabel and Marco’s old playroom.

  The relatively fresh air and the lack of motion seemed to revive Ellie, who sat up and pushed her damp hair out of her face, breathing shallowly.

  “Now let’s find them a nice box to live in,” the giant mother said. “You have to be gentle, girls, and be careful not to break them the way you did your last pets.”

  Break them? Last pets? Marabel and Ellie looked at each other with dread.

  “I want the yellow-headed one!” said the taller of the two girls.

  “Mama!” wailed the other one. “Sophia wants mine! I was the one who found the yellow-headed one! She found the other one!”

  “Hush, darlings,” their mother said. “You can share them.” That set off another round of wailing, which the woman ignored. She picked up Marabel and Ellie, even though they kicked and squirmed, and put them in a box with high sides. She ripped up some paper and covered the bottom with it, and then carefully placed what looked like a doll’s china bowl, which was as large as a real one to Marabel and Ellie, in one corner. She filled it with water and stepped back.

  “Now, leave them alone for a little while,” the mother said. “They might cry the first few nights, like the others, but they’ll soon quiet down. I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun with them as long as they last. Don’t take them out of their box, mind! Remember what happened with the gnome you found?”

  “He ran away,” the shorter one—Abigail—said mournfully.

  “We never found him,” Sophia added with a quaver.

  “That’s right.” Their mother nodded. “This box will have to do for tonight, and tomorrow I’ll find a better one. And mind, you’re going to have to feed them and exercise them and clean up after their messes. I’m not going to do it for you.”

  She hurried from the room, ignoring Marabel’s frantic calls of “Wait!”

  Ellie, wild-eyed, grabbed Marabel’s arm. “What did she mean, ‘a better box’? Do you think she meant one with doors and windows, that we could get out of when we wanted?”

  “Probably,” Marabel said to calm Ellie’s fears. “Although I bet she means something sturdier, too.”

  She was more worried about something else the giant mother had said: “as long as they last.” She shivered and kicked at the wall, and it wobbled. “What’s this made of, anyway—some kind of paper?”

  “Who c
ares what it’s made of?” Ellie said forlornly. “Whatever it is, it’s much too hard for us to break it.”

  The giant girls had fallen silent and were staring at them eagerly. “What do you want?” Marabel asked, not caring how rude she sounded.

  What the girls wanted, it turned out, was to play with them. Abigail picked up Marabel, and Sophia picked up Ellie, and the giant girls “walked” them across the table and onto the floor, gripping them around their middles and bouncing them along. Sophia said in a squeaky voice, “Thank you for coming to my tea party!” and Abigail said, “Thank you for inviting me!” Marabel and Ellie struggled to stand, but it was difficult in the knee-deep, itchy rug.

  The giant girls set up a crude wooden table and four chairs. They put a stuffed mouse on one rickety chair and a toy troll on another. They set the table with lumpy teacups, and saucers and plates full of toy food that looked disgusting.

  They played tea party, and then they played dress-up. They were in the middle of a game when Abigail let out a gaping yawn, showing monstrous teeth and a tongue the size of a bedspread, and rubbed her eyes. She dropped Ellie onto the rug—luckily from a height of only a few feet—and said, “This is getting boring.”

  Sophia said, “What do you want to do now?” She, too, yawned. Her eyelids looked heavy.

  The yawning gave Marabel an idea. She didn’t know whether it would work (or if it did work, whether it would help them), but it was the only thing she could think of.

  “Do you want me to tell you a story?” she asked as brightly as she could manage.

  “A story?” Sophia asked doubtfully. Ellie, too, looked skeptical.

  “Oh yes,” Marabel said. “It’s a famous story in… in the place we come from. I don’t know if you’re old enough to understand it, though.”

  The giant girls looked indignant. “We are, too, old enough!” Abigail said, as Marabel had hoped she would. “We’re older than you!”

  From the way they’d been behaving, Marabel had her doubts, but she merely sighed. “Well, I can try, but you’ll have to keep your eyes closed so you can picture everything in your mind.”

  The girls looked at each other and shrugged. “All right,” Sophia said. She dropped Marabel and Ellie back in the box, sloshing water out of the little bowl and bruising both of them.

  Oh no, Marabel thought. This ruins everything. Out loud she said, “Can you take us out again, please?”

  “You have to stay in your box,” Sophia retorted. “Mama said.”

  Marabel refrained from pointing out that they had been out of the box all afternoon playing giant games, despite instructions from “Mama.”

  “All right,” she said. “This is fine. Now close your eyes so you can concentrate.”

  They did. Abigail disappeared from view, and Marabel, who couldn’t see over the high edge of the box, fervently hoped that she had laid her head on her arms. This tale from the Book of Fate was supposed to be about persistence, but she didn’t know how it ended. She’d always fallen asleep before the teller got that far.

  “Once upon a time, a little crab lived at the bottom of the ocean. Now, this little crab was always afraid of being eaten by something larger, and almost everything in the ocean was larger than the little crab.

  “So one day, the little crab decided to build himself a sturdy house. He found a nice spot and put pebbles in a circle as the current moved back and forth, back and forth, so slowly.…” Sophia’s eyelids drooped, but as soon as Marabel paused, they sprang open again. “Seeing no more pebbles, the little crab tiptoed out onto the sand on his sharp claws. He picked up two more pebbles and walked back to his shelter, and dropped the pebbles into the circle. He walked back out a little farther and found two more pebbles.” Sophia’s eyes closed again, and this time they didn’t open. Marabel continued softly, “He walked back and dropped them.”

  A snore made her pause. One of the giant girls was asleep. But were both of them? She looked over at Ellie, who called quietly, “Abigail!” No answer. “Sophia!” Still nothing. “They must be asleep,” she whispered. “But how are we going to get out?”

  “Maybe we can break the walls after all,” Marabel said quietly. “The mother did say something about a gnome getting away.”

  “Gnomes carry trowels and shovels and things.” Ellie gave the wall an experimental push. “How can we poke through it without some kind of tool?”

  “Oh!” Marabel picked up the bowl and tossed the water that remained at the wall. The wall soaked up the water and turned dark, and when Marabel pressed it, it felt soggy. But it appeared that giant paper was much thicker than human paper, and her fist still couldn’t go through.

  Maybe if both of them threw their weight against one wall, they could tip the box over? She didn’t think they’d succeed, and it would make a lot of noise, which might wake up Sophia and Abigail. Or—

  “Marabel?” Ellie said.

  “Wait a second, Ellie! I’m thinking.”

  “But, Marabel, your sword!” Ellie pointed at the wet wall.

  Marabel looked down at her waist. “Do you think it’s sharp enough?” she asked doubtfully.

  “We don’t have anything else to try,” replied the practical Ellie.

  Marabel drew the sword. If she broke it, Lucius would be angry, but if she didn’t try, he’d never see it again anyway. So she clutched its wooden grip and stabbed at the wall where the water had softened it.

  Instantly, the blade went through the cardboard, almost up to its hilt. Marabel was surprised at how easily it penetrated. She yanked it out of the wall and made another hole, and then another, outlining an opening. She was afraid that Sophia and Abigail would wake up, but the giant girls’ steady breathing continued.

  “You’re getting tired,” Ellie said. “Let me help.”

  Marabel handed over the sword. But to Marabel’s astonishment, when Ellie made a quick thrust at the wall, the sword bounced off it, leaving only a dent. “Maybe the water hasn’t softened it there,” Marabel suggested.

  Ellie tried again, with no luck.

  “That’s so strange. It worked fine for me.” Marabel took the sword and jabbed at the wall. It went through as cleanly as her other cuts. She finished and aimed a kick at the weakened paper. The piece popped out. Success!

  Ellie crawled through the small opening. Marabel followed and flinched at Abigail’s huge face right in front of her. The giant girl didn’t move, but continued with her regular breathing, now accompanied by a whistle through her nose.

  They lowered themselves onto a chair and then the floor, cringing at each little noise. Marabel’s spirits lifted and her exhaustion fled. They’d find Floriano somehow, and run as fast as they could, and surely they’d be out of giant territory in no time. Then they’d find the castle and…

  She bumped into Ellie, who had stopped short. “What?” Marabel asked in a whisper. She followed Ellie’s gaze upward.

  The door leading out of the playroom was shut, and the doorknob was far, far above their heads.

  Ellie’s shoulders slumped and Marabel felt like crying with frustration. Trying not to show her discouragement, she said firmly, “We’ll have to build stairs or a ramp or something.”

  “Mara, look!” Ellie whispered. She pointed at a box that was illustrated with a picture of colorful building blocks like the ones Marabel and Marco had played with when they were little.

  The girls opened the box and worked feverishly to build a staircase. They clambered up each step as soon as they had it in place, hauling more blocks up with them. In a short time, a flight of steps stood under the door handle. Marabel stood on tiptoe and stretched up.

  Once again, she was smacked down with frustration. She could reach just fine now, but the knob was smooth and perfectly round. Ellie tried, too, but neither one could get a good enough grip to make it budge even a little.

  “Plague it!” Marabel spat, not caring if she woke up Abigail and Sophia. At this point, it didn’t matter.

  Fro
m below came an amused voice. “Need some help?”

  Marabel nearly lost her balance with surprise. She peered over the edge of their block staircase and saw a familiar head poking out of the picnic basket.

  Floriano!

  He climbed out of the basket and yawned, stretching his legs. “I snuck into the basket while you were having lunch with those giants. There was another whole box full of salad in there. What a feast! But then I fell asleep. I woke up a little while ago and heard the girls playing with you. It didn’t sound like you were having much fun.” He snorted a horse laugh.

  Marabel and Ellie gestured frantically, pointing at the giant girls.

  “What?” Floriano looked around, and gave a great start when he saw Abigail and Sophia. He leaped away from them and galloped to the foot of the staircase. “I could tell from their voices that they were big, but I didn’t know they were that big!” he said more quietly, his star-shaped pupils enormous. “I thought they left while you were telling that crab story. I would have. It was the most boring thing I ever heard. What if they wake up? Why don’t we get out of here?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to do,” Marabel hissed down at him. “But we can’t open the door!”

  “Gee, wouldn’t it be great if you knew a lock-opening magical beast?” Floriano said, rolling his eyes. He surveyed the door, and once again his horn glowed. He reared up in the air and came down, dragging his horn along the crack between the door and the wall.

  They waited for the latch to click open. Nothing. Floriano gave an impatient snort and tried again. He stamped his hoof when, once again, the door stayed firmly shut.

  “Maybe you have to do it up here, where it latches,” Ellie called down softly. “Come on up and try.”

  “All right,” he said. He climbed the steps, the girls wincing at every tap of each golden hoof. When he reached them, he said, more seriously than they had ever heard him speak before, “You girls go back down and get ready to run out the door. Don’t wait for me—I’ll catch up.”