Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
T he green door disappeared as soon as I was through it and I found myself in a strange, cavernous room. It was dimly lit and at first, I was afraid that I was back in the awful courtroom again. But after looking around, I realized that I was wrong. The room was big and dim, just like the courtroom had been, but it was definitely different.
For one thing, instead of an empty space with nothing but the tall judge’s bench, this room was crowded with furniture. There was an enormous wooden table and two huge chairs sitting in the center of the room. Also, the walls were lined with extremely high counters that came up past my head. In one corner was a massive iron stove—the kind you see when you go visit one of those museums that show how people lived in the past before electricity.
Someone had built a fire in the stove and there was an enormous cook-pot, as big as a bathtub, sitting on its red-hot surface. It was filled with water which was just beginning to boil. Sitting on the counter beside the stove was what looked like a cutting board the size of a child’s snow sled. On it was a knife as big as a machete. The curving blade looked wickedly sharp.
“A kitchen,” I whispered, looking around me. “I’m in a giant’s kitchen. How did I get here? And where is here anyway?”
There was a kitchen window but it was much too high for me to look out of. Luckily, one of the wooden chairs was in a good position. Using the rungs of the chair, I hoisted myself up and stood on its seat. I peered out of the window, looking for any kind of landmark that might tell me where I was.
The scene outside was idyllic, if a little wild. There was an overgrown lawn which led up to a tall evergreen hedge that seemed to run the entire length of the property. Growing right up against the hedge was a tree whose branches seemed to droop over to the other side…wait a minute.
My heart seemed to stop in my chest. I knew where I was now. That tree and that hedge were familiar. It was the same hedge I walked beside every day when I took the path behind my house. And the tree was the Golden-Skinned Warbler pear tree—in fact, it still had fruit on it! Could it be that this side of the tree kept its fruit even though I had picked all the pears from the other side? Was it some kind of magical boundary thing?
But I didn’t have long to think about that because it was becoming clear where I was. I was inside the haunted mansion—inside Goremouth’s house! I wasn’t safe at all—I had walked right into my enemy’s lair.
“Oh my God!” I whispered, feeling sick.
Suddenly the giant kitchen seemed to give off a much more ominous vibe. The boiling water in the bathtub-sized pot…the enormous cutting board…the machete-sized knife—were they all meant for me?
They must be and here I was standing around like an idiot instead of trying to get out! Scrambling down off the chair so fast I nearly fell in my haste, I hurried to the far side of the kitchen to see if I could get out the back door.
But when I reached it, my heart dropped. The knob was so high off the ground I couldn’t reach it!
I jumped up, trying to catch hold of it—it was as big as a volleyball but I thought if I could just get my hands on either side of it and twist…
And then a low, grating voice spoke behind me.
“Forget it, girly—it’s too late. Now you’ll go on Goremouth’s plate.”
Turning, I saw the Ogre standing there with a hungry, leering grin on his ugly face.
Trapped—I was trapped again and this time there was no way out!