The Boy with 17 Senses (9 page)

And then he screamed. Two giants were walking by his hiding spot in the plants. Jaq had known that he was going to see giants—Plenthy's letter had called this place
“giant-filled.” But knowing and seeing were two different things.

These giants were massive.

Jaq covered his mouth and ducked back behind the protective cover of the plants.

“Winking moons, they're huge!” he whispered to Bonip. “Let's get out of here.”

“Wait,” Bonip said. “Jaq, we came here for a reason. Just relax. Take it slow. The wormhole is right there. We can dive back in if we have to, but let's see what's going on here.”

Jaq felt his whole body tremble. He looked at Bonip, standing so bravely at the edge of the plants. “You're right,” he said. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself again. “The wormhole's right there.”

They were well hidden in the little border of plants, so Jaq peeked out again, fingers back in his ears. His neck craned upward as another giant walked past. Jaq guessed that he would come up to the giant's midcalf. He was surprised at how similar they were to Yipsmixers, the only real difference being their size.

The plants were neatly contained in an area edged by smooth, shiny bricks. High above Jaq a glass ceiling filtered light down onto a sparkling fountain in the center of the
space. A couple of giants sat at the edge of the fountain while others walked past. Storefronts faced him from the opposite wall.

The fountain murmured and crashed with noise and, in Jaq's view, popped and swirled with color.

Bonip jumped onto Jaq's shoulder and poked him in the cheek. Jaq unblocked that ear.

“There's got to be food nearby,” Bonip said. He pulled on Jaq's shirt. “Do you smell that?”

“I smell everything,” Jaq said. “Don't you have any senses that are going crazy?”

“Just one,” Bonip replied. “My sense of hunger.” He punched Jaq on the cheek again. “Hey, you're losing it, guy. Focus! We need to find food. Just block out all that other stuff and focus on food smells. C'mon, Jaq. It's not that bad. What if I stuffed some dirt in your ear?”

Jaq replugged his ear and sniffed.

Oh, man, this is hard
. It took a lot of concentration to suppress his other senses. He felt like he was shutting off chunks of his brain, but doing so brought relief. His vision cleared enough to see what was really in front of him.

And there, on the facing wall, just to the right of the fountain, he saw them. The golden arches that Plenthy had
mentioned in his note. Two of them, just like the letter had said. “There.” Jaq pointed. “We have to go over there.”

“Okay!” Bonip said. “Let's go.”

“We should wait and watch first,” Jaq said.

“Bonip doesn't wait and watch first,” Bonip said. “Bonip goes after what he wants.”

And with that, Bonip jumped off Jaq's shoulder and onto the bricks that bordered their little forest of plants. He hopped down to the ground and started across the open space.

Every bit of Jaq wanted to crawl back to the wormhole and go home. Every bit except the tiny little part of his brain that he'd forgotten to shut off. The part that told him he should never, ever, abandon a friend.

Bonip wasn't exactly a friend, though, so it was a murky area.

14

FRENCH FRIES TASTE ROUND

B
onip was just a speck to the giants. They didn't notice the white fluffball as it dodged their steps. They would notice Jaq, though. He was sure they would.

He tried to swallow, but he had no saliva left in his mouth.

“You coming?” Bonip called. He had reached the edge of the fountain.

Jaq took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said to himself. He stepped onto the brick edge of the plant area. The drop to the floor was only about half as tall as he was. He waited for
a trio of giants to pass, and then jumped down. He ran out, quickly covering the space between the plants and the edge of the fountain, where Bonip waited. He grabbed the wipper and hurried to the next bit of cover, a potted tree outside the golden-arches store.

Once safely in the shadows behind the pot, he leaned on his knees and waited for his body to stop needing air so fast.

“Why did you stop?” Bonip said. “I see food in there!”

It was true; there were long yellow food sticks on the floor next to a red box, and the aroma coming out of the restaurant nearly knocked Jaq over.

He was so hungry. But he was looking at something else—a sticky blob on the ground next to him. He bent down to investigate. He gasped.

“What?”

“It's glug! The letter was right—there are big blobs of glug all over!” Jaq's heart leaped with excitement. “Do you know what this means?”

“It means I have to wait here while you tell me, instead of going in there and sticking my face in that red box of delicious-smelling food.”

“It means my troubles are over,” said Jaq, who was pulled out of his daydream of riches by smells so delicious, so
enticing, so real that his mouth started to water. They drifted out of the store's doorway and tiptoed right up his nose. “Okay—I'm heading for that table. We can hide behind that silver pole holding it up.”

He ran, and when he got there, he gasped again. “Look up, Bonip! It's a glug mine. Look at all that glug!”

Stuck to the underside of the table were at least ten huge globs of glug.

“If every table has this much glug, imagine . . .”

Bonip didn't say anything. In fact, Jaq realized that his shoulder felt lighter. He turned around and saw Bonip out in the open, eating a pale yellow stick he'd found on the floor. Jaq ran over and grabbed him by the tail, pulling him back under the table, where he wouldn't be seen. Bonip tried to cling to his food, but it was too big for him.

“It's delicious,” Bonip said, his face covered in crumbs.

Jaq's growling stomach overruled his cautious brain, and he sprinted out to grab the food stick. Back under the table, he pulled off a part of the edge and sniffed it. It was a little warm, and it smelled salty. He licked it with his tongue. It tasted round. Symmetrical curves of flavor floated into each other and caressed his mouth. He took a bite, and then another. He sighed loudly. Eating was such a delightful sensation.

Together they finished off the fluffy-crunchy-salty log. They looked around for more.

“Great Smolders, I was hungry,” Jaq said.

Bonip found another log and moaned with pleasure as he ate.

But then the floor shook with tiny trembles, and a voice boomed above them. “Fiona!”

Jaq and Bonip hid behind the circular beam that held up the table. Jaq watched giant legs stride over to the entrance. He edged around the beam to keep his body out of sight. The giant pulled the glass door closed and locked it with a click.

Jaq looked at Bonip. “How are we going to get out?” he whispered.

Bonip, busy chewing, just shrugged.

“Fiona!” the giant bellowed again.

“I'm over here,” a gentler, higher voice said from the back of the restaurant.

“Fiona, it's closing time. Quit reading and clean the tables,” the giant said. “Then mop the floor and take out the garbage.”

“Child labor laws, Uncle Gunther,” Jaq heard the giant named Fiona mutter under her breath. “I'm only twelve.”

“What did you say?” the bigger giant asked.

“Nothing.” She walked over to the counter, where the bigger giant stood. Jaq, peeking around the table support, could see both giants now.

“Listen, if your mother is going to dump you on me after school, then you're gonna work—get it? I don't run a day-care center here.”

“I know.”

“You should be more grateful. Without me, you and your mom would be living on the street.”

“Thank you, Uncle Gunther,” Fiona said as the other giant handed her a spray bottle and a sponge. She walked right by Jaq and Bonip and muttered, “We're
so
grateful that you make us do all your chores,
and
charge us rent,
and
insult us every day.”

Jaq watched as she squirted and cleaned table after table, starting at the far end and working her way toward the long counter in front of the cooking area. She wore an apron that held some salty sticks, and every now and then she'd reach in and eat one. Two white cords dangled from her ears, and she hummed along to some music playing very faintly.

“How are we going to get out of here, Bonip?” Jaq asked.

Bonip lay in a heap. “Don't know. Don't care. Feel sick.”

Jaq felt panic rising inside him again. He looked from one
giant to the other, trying to figure out what to do. The girl giant was coming closer and closer. The other giant stood behind the long counter at the front of the restaurant, opening the metal boxes on top of the counter and pulling out green pieces of paper. Jaq felt exposed, with only the table support to duck behind. He looked around for another hiding place.

The room was filled with tables like the one he and Bonip were under, with some booths next to the far wall. A trash-collecting receptacle with plastic trays on top stood by the door. He might be able to hide behind it, but the giants would see him if he moved.

“Hey, Fiona,” the man giant called. “Come here and look at this.”

Jaq ducked behind the support post as Fiona walked by. The man giant, Jaq could see now, was taller and much stockier than Fiona, who was neat and slender. The man looked scruffy and powerful.

“Check this out. I got it for my girlfriend's kid at the toy shop upstairs.” He held up a fat white bird. Only it wasn't a real bird. It was smooth and frozen, like a statue, but shiny. Jaq listened as the giant twisted something on the bottom of the animal and then set it on the counter. The bird started
walking, its rigid legs making a spinning sound. And then it laid an egg. A bright blue egg.

The wonders of this planet!

The male giant thought it was hilarious.

The egg fell off the edge of the counter, bounced on the floor, and rolled toward Jaq and Bonip. Jaq's heart hammered in fear as the girl giant walked over to get the egg.

“Leave it. It's dirty now,” the big giant said. The girl giant shrugged and turned back to the counter.

Jaq looked at the egg. It was so close. He could tell by its expensive and beautiful smell that it was something special. The giants weren't looking his way, so he tiptoed out and grabbed the egg.

“I knew it! It's glug,” he whispered. “The bird laid a ball of glug. And it's fresh glug, too.”

Bonip wasn't listening. He had eaten too much. He leaned away from Jaq and threw up.

Jaq stuffed the giant blue glugball into his backpack. He hoped the bird would lay another one.

A shrill ring sounded, making Jaq jump. Was it an alarm? Had he triggered something when he touched the valuable egg?

The ringing stopped, but after a few seconds it started
again, which distracted the man giant. He left the bird on the counter and turned toward the sound.

Jaq wondered if there were more birds like the glug-laying one on the counter. Imagine! Plenthy hadn't been lying when he called this a land of riches.

As Jaq was thinking, the giant Fiona reached for the bird and wound it up. The bird started walking again.

“Fiona, it's your mom,” the other giant said. “Don't tell her you're working, okay?”

“But I
am
working.”

The man giant came around the counter and grabbed Fiona by the arm. He yanked her, hard, his face boiling with anger. “I don't need any more of your back talk, Fiona. I swear, if you don't behave, I'll tell my dad that your mom is stealing from me and I'm kicking you guys out of my apartment.”

“You wouldn't,” Fiona said. “She's your sister.”

“Stepsister. We're not blood. I'm doing my dad a favor letting you live with me. So you'll do what I tell you to do and not tell your mom. Got it?”

Fiona tried to pull her arm away, but that just made the bigger giant angry, and he squeezed harder. “Got it?” he repeated.

“Got it,” Fiona answered. There was so much sadness in her voice that the sound swirled like dejected brown confetti before drifting to the ground. She left the bird and walked around the edge of the counter, disappearing from Jaq's sight. The man giant followed her.

The bird kept walking. It walked right off the counter and hit the floor.

Jaq didn't hesitate. He ran for the bird. It came up to his waist and was very heavy, but he dragged it back under the table where they'd been hiding.

Bonip had followed him out, but then he spotted another salty stick on the floor and sat down to eat it.
That stupid wipper!
Jaq cursed. He left the bird behind the post and ran out to grab Bonip, dragging him back toward the safety of the table support.

“What's this?” the man giant said. “Another rat!
Fiona!
Get the foam fumigator!”