Jack, the Bean Stalker
written by: Lou Storey
I should have squished him on our first meeting, and now he’s back for the third time, invading my home.
“I am Jack!” the little pest says proudly, brandishing one of my wife Matilda’s pins that he flinched from her sewing basket, swishing it around like a sword, thinking he’s scaring me.
My wife Matilda’s been feeding him, I’m sure of it. I see now that I should have let her keep the pet dragon, real cute, but I got tired of putting out fires everywhere in the house. Clearly, she’ll make a pet out of anything, but our home still reeks of charcoal, and now worse, human.
“Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!” My standard warning, I hold back a laugh at that last part. Honestly, how dense these tiny creatures are, brains the size of a pea. Eat a human? I can’t think of anything more unappetizing.
Jack abandons his little weapon. He scurries under my door, heading back to his escape, the leafy ladder I see pushing up through my puffy field of clouds. Not that I like it up here. The air is too thin, and this forest of rainbows is tedious. We Giants are land creatures, but with troublesome humans always underfoot, we packed our bags and headed skyward. Where this little Jack found magic beans to grow his ladder, I can only suspect, but thievery is his trade.
On his first visit here, he managed to drag away my purse of gold coins. I’d have stopped him, but the wife gave me that look, and what’s a few gold coins? I watched him lug his stolen loot to that vine and considered reaching down and giving it a good yank, roots and all. But I’d never hear the end of it. Matilda has a soft heart.
However, the little klepto didn’t stop there. A week later, I got a good whiff of him in the kitchen, my wife looking all innocent. I did my “Fee-fi-fo-fum” routine again, mostly aiming my annoyance directly at Matilda. That time the little bed bug ran off with my hen that lays the golden eggs!
“Matilda,” I say, “he’s here again. This is the third and final time! I have to put my foot down!” She knows exactly where I intend to put it. That’s when we hear the plaintive plunking pleas of our magic harp, “Help!” she laments in her dulcet tones, “Help! A boy is stealing me!”
Even Matilda has her limits. “Get the little varmint!” she commands.
He is already at the vine, light bouncing off the brilliant strings of my harp as he nimbly descends, jumping leaf to leaf. The climb down for me will be more cumbersome. Honestly, this nasty little gnat, Jack will be the death of me!
NOTE:
Based on the Prompt – Reverse Fairy Tale
- Jack, the Bean Stalker - April 23, 2025
- The Weight of a Shadow - March 14, 2025
- Maxwell - February 6, 2025
