The Obvious Superiority of the Small Over the Unattractively Gargantuan
Christopher had known they would be huge, but they were monumental.
Their faces were hawk-nosed, rough-skinned, their fists breathtaking walls of flesh.
They spoke in a rumble so low that he more felt than heard it: it seemed to vibrate his organs.
It took him time to realise they were speaking some version of English.
He caught only occasional words – ‘hunt’, ‘mask’, ‘serpent’.
One of the giants gave a shout of laughter, and Christopher flinched and pressed his hands to his ears: it was like being assaulted by the air itself. The giants lumbered into the castle, their boots shaking the stone terrace.
‘What now?’ said Anya. Her eyes were wide.
‘We find the Cerberus.’ They looked again at the castle.
‘Before you cast yourselves merrily into the jaws of death,’ said Jacques, ‘may I suggest I go on a reconnaissance mission? I shall locate the dog, and report back.’ He turned to Christopher.
‘Take note: you must put it in my biography as incontrovertible evidence of my heroism. The chapter in my biography will be called “The Obvious Superiority of the Small Over the Unattractively Gargantuan”.’
Christopher laughed. ‘It’s a deal.’
‘Thank you, Jacques,’ said Anya.
The dragon gave a strange wriggle. Ratwin looked at him, her furry green eyebrows cocked.
‘That was me brushing off your thanks,’ he explained. ‘While I am gone, you could amuse yourselves by composing poetry in my honour. “Jaculus”, I note, rhymes nicely with “spectaculous”.’
Ten minutes passed as they waited hidden among the trees, then thirty. An hour. Christopher’s stomach rumbled.
‘I’m thirsty,’ said Anya.
‘Me too.’
Then, ten minutes later: ‘I’m really, really hungry.’
‘Me too.’
Anya pointed. ‘Look. Joro web.’ High up in the trees was a spiderweb as large as a billboard, with one long thread hanging all the way to the ground.
‘We had these in Dousha. Smaller though.’ She lifted a finger to touch the web.
‘It’s old. Not sticky – feel.’ She pulled the long thread free, and wound it round her hand.
‘Joro thread’s incredibly useful,’ she said.
‘I used to use it as a tripwire at the castle, when I didn’t want people coming into my room.
’ She put it in the pocket of her filthy yellow silk dress.
‘I’m so thirsty I’m starting to wonder if it’s possible to drink your own blood. ’
‘I think it would be counterproductive.’ Christopher turned to her. ‘Do you think they meant it when they said they’re watching us?’ He looked uneasily at the sky.
‘I’ve been looking out, and I haven’t seen any stymphalian birds. But … there’s so much I don’t know.’
Ratwin approached. ‘Forgives mes if you have alreadies decided,’ she said, ‘but I was wonderings, once Jacques finds the doglet, how you plans to do the pluckings.’
‘Meri said if you play music to a Cerberus, they fall asleep,’ said Anya. ‘He said they like birdsong. And dancing. It’s in the legend of Hercules.’
‘And what if this specifics dog is tone deafs?’ said Ratwin.
‘Then … we improvise,’ said Christopher.
The stars came out, and a bright moon rose. Christopher began to shiver.
‘Where is he?’ said Anya. ‘He should be back by now!’
At that moment there was a call – a call of triumph and fury – and Jacques flew into sight. Even from a distance, it was clear he was angry: he was wet, and his nostrils were steaming.
‘Are you all right?’ said Christopher.
‘No. I am decidedly not all right,’ said Jacques. ‘I was seen, and almost caught. I had to fly into a bathroom and hide under the rim of the tin lavatory bowl.’
‘And how was that?’ said Anya.
‘I was … not alone. A giant came in to … use the facilities.’
‘Wow,’ said Anya. ‘And was it—?’
‘Stop there! We will never speak of it again. Christopher, it is not to go in my biography.’ He shook himself.
‘I have found the dog. It is in a kennel, in a stables behind the kitchen. But the door is locked, and well-fitted, so you will need the key. I followed a giant for more than an hour – a most uncouth and grotesque specimen – and saw that he put the key on a hook in the kitchen.’
‘Could we slide in under the kitchen door?’
‘With ease,’ said Jacques. ‘If you choose to risk death.’
‘Right,’ said Christopher. ‘Into the castle then?’
And Anya nodded. She gave a Gaganan jerk of her head, and a flick of her fingers. It meant Brace yourself; danger incoming.
The kitchen was lit by two fires, one at each end of a room the size of a football pitch. They had run across the courtyard, a great ocean of stone cobbles that they weaved and climbed around, slipped under the door, and now stood staring at the room around them.
Anya ducked her head to the left and diagonally down. ‘Amazing,’ she said. There was fear in her voice, but also a thrill.
Knives hung from hooks on the walls, each as large as a broadsword. A pair of giant shoes you could row down a river stood by the fire. In the centre of the room was a table; all along the edge of the table nails had been driven in, and on each of them hung a key.
‘That one,’ said Jacques. ‘Second from the left.’
‘Are you going up or me?’ said Anya.
‘I’ll go,’ said Christopher. ‘I’m taller.’
‘I’m quicker.’
‘No you’re not! Anyway, I’m older.’
‘By eight months! Don’t even try that, behemoth boy.’ Anya grinned at him. ‘Both of us. Together.’
It was surprisingly easy to reach the top of the table. The chairs were cross-barred, and they could haul themselves up them; it was not unlike climbing a tree, with handholds in the coarse grain of the wood.
‘Golly-marvels,’ said Ratwin, as they scrambled up on to the table top. ‘They have lefts out their dinner-feastings!’
There were bread rolls, each as large as a sofa cushion, and chunks of a firm yellow cheese you could have built a house with.
There was a basin of spun-sugar candyfloss, and chocolate biscuits you could surf on, and a bowl of custard as big as a Jacuzzi.
Christopher’s hunger came roaring back, double-vast and triple-urgent.
Anya looked at him, and her face showed exactly the same question he was thinking. ‘Shall we?’ she said. ‘Now I think of it, I’m so hungry I might faint. Which would be bad if we were trying to tame a Cerberus at the same time.’
A wild, devil-may-care feeling was coming over Christopher. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But fast. And let’s try to make it look like it was rats.’
Ratwin let out a small burr of pleasure. She leaped at a disc of cheese, impaling her horn on it, while Anya plunged her fists into a dish of raspberries and meringue, both arms coated in cream.
Christopher scooped out two fistfuls of chocolate icing from the side of a chocolate cake taller than he was. The icing was firm in his hands, and the taste was spectacular. He pushed his hand in further, elbow deep, and scooped out the cake itself. It was so rich he gasped.
‘Put it in the Bestiary,’ Anya said, ‘that giants are chefs. Try this meringue!’
‘Try this jams!’ said Ratwin. ‘It’s is supernacular-excellentings.’
‘Look at this marshmallow!’ It was a pink slab as huge as a mattress. Anya jumped up and down; she somersaulted and bellyflopped on to it. Laughing, she plunged her whole face into it and tore off a mouthful.
‘Wait!’ said Christopher. ‘Do you hear that?’
The sound reached him first through his bones, then through his ears.
‘What’s that?’ said Jacques.
It was the seismic quiver of a giant approaching at a run.
‘Hide!’ Anya thrust herself into the candyfloss, which closed around her like a cloud. Ratwin leaped into the hole of a Swiss cheese and Jacques disappeared into a pitted olive.
The door burst open.
Christopher took a wild look around, then vaulted over the lip of the custard dish and into its yellow depths.
He held his breath under the surface, custard in his hair and ears, seeping through his clothes. The footsteps entered the room.
He knew he shouldn’t, knew it reckless, but he couldn’t stop himself – he shifted so that his custard-covered nose and one eye were above the surface.
The giant was young, his face smooth and hairless.
For one long moment, he stopped. He sniffed: a sniff that was loud as a storm.
Then he grunted and began to plunder the table.
A hand the size of a boulder came darting past Christopher as he seized a wedge of cake and crammed it into his pocket.
He snatched up a hunk of cheese. His hand hesitated over the candyfloss – and then he plunged a finger straight into the custard.
Christopher froze, eyes screwed shut, and felt the vibration in the liquid as the giant’s finger missed him by inches.
The giant licked the custard. Then he sniffed again and his chin went up, face twisting left and right.
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. Christopher crouched low, not breathing.
He tried not to think how his father would react to being told he’d been eaten by a giant while covered in custard.
He would, he was fairly sure, think it undignified.
There was a sudden cry. Christopher could just pick out the words beneath the agonising boom. ‘Boyit! You stealing food, there’m trouble!’
The boy gave a choke – a guilty laugh – and plunged his finger once more into the custard – swirled it, the tip passing less than an inch from Christopher’s head – then turned and ran, licking his finger like a lollipop.
‘That was close.’ Anya emerged from the candyfloss. ‘I thought you were going to be dessert.’