Jack (23 page)

We ran to a far side of the dungeon, which served as a kind of graveyard for broken carts and barrels. Tom had never used a sling before, so I decided we'd start by throwing yolks at the wall to get a feel for it; then we could move on to simple targets like carts and eggs. I took out my sling and showed Tom how to put the stone in the center. I swung it around and around, gathering speed.

“The faster you get it going, the harder it will fly.” I released the yolk and let it fly hard and fast into the dirt wall, where it stuck.

“Amazing!” said Tom. “Let me try.”

Tom took the sling from me and loaded it. He was just starting to swing it around when suddenly—
snap! thwack! froosh!
—something burst through the wall.

“Snake!” Tom shouted, diving for cover among the broken carts.

Right where I had thrown the yolk, a giant green snake was shooting through the wall. It curled and slithered toward us.

“I'll shoot it!” said Tom. Frantically, he shot and missed by several feet. The snake kept uncoiling out of the wall, growing bigger and bigger, as though it had no beginning or end. A moment later—
crack! shwip! fwip!
—another snake burst out of the wall. They started to twist around each other and rise up.

“Tom…,” I said, realization dawning. “Those aren't snakes….”

“What are they then?”

Little buds swelled on the ends, and then they lengthened and branched out and more buds formed. Leaves unfurled and spread.

“They're…
plants!
” I said.

The green vines were growing out of the wall, faster than any plant I'd ever seen. Faster than the beanstalk even. It was some kind of magic.

The plants swelled and split and twisted. They rose right up to the dungeon grate, where they finally slowed to a stop.

Tom and I gaped at each other. I pulled another yolk out of my pocket and examined it closely. How would I view this stone if it were much smaller? It was a
seed.

I looked back toward the pile of golden eggs. More seeds were strewn about in the dirt. There was one as big as my head, white and almond shaped, probably a
pumpkin or a squash. A man walked by and chucked it into the fire, which smoked and sputtered. I winced. How could we have missed it? It seemed so obvious to me now. The magic to make the gold was drawing power from growing things. The hen sucked up that growing power to make golden eggs, and inside each egg, some power remained in the form of a seed. A seed that sprouted and grew with incredible speed once planted.

“Do it again,” said Tom.

My hands trembled as I loaded another seed into my sling. I swung it around and around and let it fly. The seed buried itself in the dirt wall, and almost immediately a green stem burst out and swelled and split and spread. This one didn't grow up, it grew out. It grew around our feet and crawled up and over the carts and toward the pile of golden eggs and everyone else.

People stopped what they were doing and shouted and backed away as the vines reached them. Giant leaves unfurled, and green globes swelled to the size of my head, and then bigger and bigger until they weighed heavy on the vine. The green globes were now as tall as me and as wide as I was tall. They began to blush and redden.

“They're giant tomatoes!” said Tom.

Everyone crawled over the vines and leaves to look at the giant tomatoes. Someone bit into one. “Food!” he shouted, and suddenly everyone started to devour the tomatoes.

“Jack!” called Papa, running toward me. When he saw me next to the giant tomato, he dropped his pickaxe. “Jack, are you all right? What happened?”

“Papa!” I shouted. “The yolks in the eggs! They're seeds, Papa! They're seeds!”

“What?!”

I ran around until I found another seed, a bean-shaped one as large as my hand. It was smaller than Jaber's beans and a little richer in color. Perhaps the magic made them a little different, but still, I should have known or at least suspected.

“Watch!” I told Papa. I slipped the bean into my pocket and started to climb the egg mountain as high as I could get. Everyone was still devouring the tomatoes, eating them right off the vine. They didn't know yet that there was more. So much more.

I put the bean into my sling. I swung it around and around, faster and faster, and then I threw it down to the ground.

Papa yelped and jumped back as the bean sprouted and shot up like a green fountain. It swelled and twisted and grew up against the wall of the dungeon, higher and higher. It pushed through the grate and grew out of the dungeon.

I hopped down from the pile of eggs to Papa, and we both stared up at the giant beanstalk.

Papa wiped his brow and just kept staring up. “Well, son, I think you found what we've all been overlooking.”

I wrapped my arms around Papa. “We're going home.”

I
t was decided that we would leave that very night, before King Barf could discover the plants and ruin our best chance of escape. But first we had to grow more seeds.

Everyone went to work, gathering what seeds were strewn around that hadn't been burned, and cracking open eggs to get more. We worked harder than we ever had, knowing that this was our chance at escape, and since we now had plenty of food, the work was easier.

Once we had gathered as many seeds as possible, we sorted them into piles and tried to determine what was what.

“That's tomato,” I said, since I'd just grown one.

“And that's a wheat kernel,” said Papa. “Why didn't I see it before?”

“You're not used to seeing giant ones,” I said. “And I think these ones are a little different. They have magic in them. That's why they grow so fast.”

“Those are onion seeds,” said Baker Baker, pointing to some pointy black ones. “And those look to be carrots.”

“Save those,” said Papa. “They won't help us get out of here, but they can feed us well later.”

“Wouldn't I love a giant carrot!” said Baker Baker. “I could make a carroty carrot cake. Oh! And that's a cherry pit.” He pointed to a seed the size of a melon. “I could make cherry pies, cherry tarts, cherry puffs…”

“We can't grow a cherry tree here,” said Papa. “It would take over the entire dungeon and give us away.”

Baker Baker sighed. “Well, one can dream,” he said, and he placed the giant cherry pit into his pocket.

We identified at least thirty different varieties of seeds, and looking at them all in their piles, I felt as though we'd discovered a great treasure. We would plant the ones that grew tall, and leave behind the ones that grew like roots, or into trees.

“What do we do once we escape the dungeon?” someone asked. “How do we get out of the castle?”

“Does anyone know where we are?” I asked. “I didn't see anything except the fireplace when the king brought us here.”

“Same for me,” said Baker Baker.

“Me too.”

“Have no fear, lads!” said Sir Bluberys. “I know exactly where we are!” He pushed through the crowd on his mule, kicking and scattering seeds. A few people groaned, but they leaned in to hear his answer anyway.

“I saw gold when I was brought here,” said Sir Bluberys. “Therefore we are in the treasury!”

Tom slapped his forehead. “Sir Bluberys, practically the entire palace is made of gold! We could be anywhere! We could be in the stables, for all we know, or the bathroom.”

“No, I am quite sure,” said Sir Bluberys. “I have traveled the giant world extensively. We are in the royal treasury.”

“It doesn't matter,” I said. “No matter where we are, we should be able to slip out beneath doors or through the cracks of the wall. The hard part is getting out of the dungeon.”

We left it at that and got to work sowing seeds. At first I threw the seeds into the dirt. The force of my sling made the plants burst and grow almost instantly, but the roots didn't take a deep hold in the ground that way. Since we needed the plants to be sturdy for climbing, we decided it was best to dig holes for planting.

So we dug into the hard earthen floor of the dungeon, pounding out holes with chisels and hammers and axes, and placing the seeds inside. We replaced the dirt, watered the ground, and waited. They didn't grow as quickly that way, but the roots grew deep and strong, and the leaves and vines crept steadily upward.

Just for fun, I shot more seeds with my sling, and
Tom took a few turns, too. It was as if the force of the seeds hitting the earth made the magic within them explode. The plants had been imprisoned, and once they were set free, they shot out and stretched and grew, reveling in their freedom.

We grew them up along the walls, creating webs of flowers and grass, cornstalks and beanstalks, tomatoes and berries. They spread over the floor and crawled up the walls, transforming our sooty dungeon into a sea of green. They crawled up and over the edge of the dungeon. We grew a blackberry bush, and none of us could help ourselves: we pulled down the giant berries and devoured them, letting the juice drip down our faces and fingers down to our chins and chests.

“You look like you ate a person,” said Tom, wiping the juice off his mouth.

“You too,” I said, and we both smiled, showing our blackberry-stained teeth.

Something else interesting happened as we grew the seeds. The gold disappeared. It shimmered and dispersed like clouds after a storm, leaving behind a subtle metallic vapor. I guessed gold that's made by magic couldn't remain gold once the magic is reversed. I imagined the look on King Barf's face when he came here and discovered all his gold had been replaced by tomatoes and onions and berries. He ought to be pleased, but more likely he'd explode.

When all the eggs had been split open, and the dungeon was webbed with vines and branches, we prepared to go.

Papa turned to me. “Jack, you discovered the seeds. You found our escape. You should go first.”

Everyone nodded in agreement, including Tom, who pushed me toward the wall of green webs. “You'll come up right after me?” I asked.

“Right behind you,” said Papa.

I nodded, then I grabbed ahold of a cornstalk and began to climb.

W
hen I reached the top, I stayed hidden in the corn leaves and peered into the dark space before me. The chamber beyond the grate was larger than the dungeon and filled with shadowy objects as big as mountains. Only a sliver of moonlight shone through the curtains and spilled onto the floor like a frozen river.

Something growled. I shrank back into the leaves. The growling continued, a steady rumble occasionally broken by a harsh snort. There must be some dog or beast set to guard us. Slowly, I rose from hiding and looked out in the direction of the noise. I saw no movement. The sound seemed to be coming from a huge rectangular structure set at the center of the chamber. Then there came an altogether different sound.

Bok, bok. Bok, bok.
A chicken?

“Quiet, Treasure…,” a sleepy voice mumbled.

Bergeek!

Treasure! We were in the royal bedchamber. The
king and his golden hen were in bed. This was way worse than a dog. If we woke the king, it would all be over.

The plants rustled behind me, and Papa and Tom emerged over the edge, breathing loud and hard. I placed my hands to my lips and nodded toward the king. “King Barf…,” I whispered. “We're in his bedchamber.”

“He snores like a bear!” said Tom.

“Shhh!” I hissed at Tom. “The snoring might cover the sound of our escape if we're quiet.”

“You boys search for a way out,” whispered Papa. “I'm going back to help the others.”

We nodded and scurried off to begin our search. The chamber had several large windows, but they were high and hard to reach. I figured there had to be an easier way out—a mousehole, or a crack beneath a door. But then I remembered how the doors went all the way to the floor, leaving barely a crack big enough to fit my arm through. We searched all the corners and crevices for a mousehole, but every nook and cranny was smoothed with solid gold. There wasn't even a hole big enough for a mouse from my world. We had escaped into a second dungeon.

“I guess we can try the windows,” I suggested. “Look, the table is just close enough. If we climb up the table leg, we can grow more plants on the outside and climb down.”

“We can swing down like monkeys,” said Tom.

We went back to the fireplace. A good fifty people had now reached the top, and more and more were on
the way, climbing beanstalks and cornstalks and tomatoes. Sir Bluberys rose out of the dungeon atop his mule. The mule's legs were splayed in a very awkward way. They were being lifted by a slow-growing artichoke.

“Fear not, peasants!” shouted Sir Bluberys. “I am come to lead the charge!”

The mule bellowed, and they both crashed to the hearth with a clanging clatter of metal and angry bellows.

“Do not be alarmed!” said Sir Bluberys. “ 'Tis only a scratch! Where is the foe? I shall vanquish him with my blade and valor!”

“
Shhhhhhh!
Sir Bluberys, you must be quiet!” I hissed.

“Oh. Right,” he whisper-yelled. “A noble knight must know how to practice stealth.” He tiptoed around with huge exaggerated steps while his armor creaked and clacked on the golden tiles of the hearth.

The hen clucked and flapped her wings. “What was that?” Sir Bluberys cried, looking left and then right. “Show yourself, you fearsome beast. En garde!” His voice rang out across the entire chamber.

“Sir Bluberys,
shhhhh!
You'll wake the king.”

“The king? You mean my noble liege has come to protect us? Lead me to him. I am his ever faithful servant!”

“No, no.” I slapped my hand against my forehead. “Not
our
king! The giant king!”

“Giant! I have slain many a giant! Fear not! I shall vanquish the foe! I shall—”

Baker Baker stepped forward and punched Sir Bluberys square in the face—twice. The blabbering knight
fell straight back and crashed to the floor. The hen clucked again. King Barf snorted and stopped snoring altogether. We held our breath.

“Lay…,” yawned the king.

Bergeek!
There was the sound of rustling feathers, and then the king smacked his lips and began snoring again.

We all glanced at Sir Bluberys, who lay motionless on the floor. “Well done, Baker Baker,” Papa said quietly.

“I've been wanting to do that for a while now,” the baker admitted.

As if in agreement, the mule blew a big raspberry and kicked Sir Bluberys with one of its hooves.

“Now what?” said Papa.

“There's no way out except the window,” I told them. Then I shared my idea about growing more plants to climb out.