Braddle and the Giant

by John Mallon

  Chapter 4

  It was not as dark in the garage as Alfie first feared. Moonlight came in through the window at the far end and allowed, at least, dark shapes to be seen. He sat on his sister’s garden chair in the middle of the garage close to the shelving on one side. In his pocket was a strawberry, on the shelf closest to him was his magnifying glass, put there earlier, and in his hand, gripped tightly, was the unlit torch. He thought it best to keep the torch turned off most of the time and only turn it on in short bursts. The light may cause the tiny people to remain hidden. Ten minutes had now passed. In the stillness, he began to imagine a thousand tiny eyes watching him from every corner of the garage. He imagined these tiny eyes moving slowly towards him to get a closer look. They were not the eyes of the tiny people. He shivered and switched on the torch. A beam of light shot upwards. He looked down at his feet to make sure that there wasn’t a six-legged creature about to crawl up his leg. There was nothing moving there but there was on the bottom shelf. “Could it be?” he asked himself. He grabbed the magnifying glass and dropped to his knees. Shining the torch slightly to the side of the shelf, he moved the magnifying glass back and forth a few times. Suddenly…Yes! It was them! There were four figures. They were all running. Something did not look right though. One was ahead of the other three, but not by much. The three behind were carrying sticks. Alfie realised that the one in front was being chased and that the three behind were about to catch up. For the second time, he decided that he had to intervene. How could he leave the one in front to, what seemed, a violent and bloody fate? What could he do? He quickly placed his hand on the shelf just in front of the three chasing figures and formed a wall with his horizontal fingers. All three stopped running and looked at each other. Eventually, one of the group was pushed forward towards his hand. On arriving there he jabbed it with his stick. Alfie thought he could feel the tiniest of itches on the palm of his hand but he could not be sure. He then slowly curled his ring finger towards his attacker and began to wriggle it around. On seeing this thing, whatever this thing was, wriggling menacingly in front of them, all three dropped their sticks, turned about and ran as fast as their tiny legs could manage back towards the darkness at the end of the shelf.

  Braddle rubbed his eyes but the incredible sight did not disappear. It looked, though it was hard to believe, as if a giant hand had suddenly appeared between him and Naster, Horit and Blug and had stopped them from catching him. When the hand pulled away Naster and his friends were gone. “Whatever it was, it surely can’t be a hand” thought Braddle. “Hands that big don’t exist”. He looked in the direction the hand had moved. He rubbed his eyes again. “No. It can’t be” he told himself, out loud. There in the hazy light was a person, a person so big, so enormous, that his head must surely cause the clouds to swirl when he walked. He started to tremble. He placed his hand on his dagger and looked towards the end of the shelf from where he had come. He started to run. Suddenly, an object, the size of a house, appeared before him and blocked his path. He had never seen a whole one before but he knew what it was. It was a strawberry. The giant was not going to hurt him he realised. Rather, he had given him a present, a big present. He had not eaten or drank anything since the previous afternoon. His throat felt as if it were full of dry and dusty spronger webs. He removed his dagger and cut a hole in the strawberry. A small stream, red and sweet, flowed out of it and splashed on to the ground. He put his open mouth to the stream and took big gulps of the refreshing juice. When he had had enough he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked at the giant. The giant was watching him through an eye the size of the world. He shouted, ‘Hello. My name is Braddle. What is your name?’ The giant did not seem to hear him. Instead there was a low, slow rumble which, Braddle did not realise, was the giant saying ‘Hello. My name is Alfie. What’s yours?’

  Who was this giant? Where did he live? Was he the only one or were there more? How come no one had ever told him that giants lived in the world? Did this giant know anything about his father’s disappearance? There were so many questions, so many, and he resolved to find the answer to every single one of them. It was late though. He would find the answers tomorrow. Before he went he would give the giant a gift. He raised his dagger above his head and then placed it on the ground. He then bowed before calmly and steadily walking to the end of the shelf. When he had turned the corner and the big eye, and the giant it was attached to, was out of sight, he ran fast and hard out of the garage.

  Alfie kicked his slippers off, threw his dressing gown on the floor and climbed back in to bed. It was wonderful, incredible, fantastic. His plan had worked. He had met the tiny people again. They were still in the back garden. He had been right. He turned and faced the lamp on his bedside cabinet, tucking his quilt under his chin. A thousand questions streamed in all directions inside his head like the sparkles from a sparkler on the 5th of November. Who are they? Why are they so small? How come they live in our garden? He decided that he, Alfie Foggle, would find the answers and solve the mystery. But how? Who could he ask? He had to meet that boy again, he decided. He had to find a way to talk to him. In the morning he would go and get the dagger the boy had left. In return he would leave the boy a message. What message should he leave? How should he write it? I know, he said to himself.

  Alfie closed his eyes. Three seconds later he opened them again. He looked at the lamp. ‘You don’t need to be on’, he said. ‘The dark is not so bad.’ He stretched his hand towards it, found the switch and turned it off.