The World Above

“I’m sorry I never really believed,” I said.
“Not the way Jack did.”

“It doesn’t make any difference,” my mother replied. Her eyes focused on the beanstalk for a moment, then returned to mine. “You believe now. Be safe and smart up there, my Gen. Be yourself.”

Before I could answer, my mother turned away and walked quickly toward the house. I turned to face the beanstalk.

There is no going back now
, I thought.

For better or worse, there was only going forward. There was only going
up
. Seizing the trunk of the beanstalk with both hands, I pushed off from the World Below and began to climb.

“O
NCE UPON A
T
IME
”
IS TIMELESS WITH THESE RETOLD TALES:

Beauty Sleep
Cameron Dokey

Midnight Pearls
Debbie Viguié

Scarlet Moon
Debbie Viguié

Snow
Tracy Lynn

Water Song
Suzanne Weyn

The Storyteller’s Daughter
Cameron Dokey

Before Midnight
Cameron Dokey

Golden
Cameron Dokey

The Rose Bride
Nancy Holder

Sunlight and Shadow
Cameron Dokey

The Crimson Thread
Suzanne Weyn

Belle
Cameron Dokey

The Night Dance
Suzanne Weyn

Wild Orchid
Cameron Dokey

The Diamond Secret
Suzanne Weyn

Winter’s Child
Cameron Dokey

Violet Eyes
Debbie Viguié

C
AMERON
D
OKEY

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
First Simon Pulse paperback edition June 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Cameron Dokey
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at
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.
The text of this book was set in Adobe Jenson.
Manufactured in the United States of America
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Library of Congress Control Number 2009938357
ISBN 978-1-4424-0337-6
ISBN 978-1-4424-0338-3 (eBook)

For Keek

Confession: I never intended to go looking for adventure. One came looking for me anyhow. And not just any old adventure. A really, really big one. The kind of adventure that changes your life. It certainly changed mine. Though, for the record, it was all Jack’s fault.

Most things are.

Don’t get me wrong. Jack is my brother, my twin, in fact, and I love him with all my heart. But if ever there was a magnet for adventure, or rather,
mis
adventure, Jack would be it. All during our childhood, he was forever getting into what our mother called “scrapes,” most likely because a lot of scrapes (and also scratches) were actually involved.

Jack is my fraternal twin, not my identical twin, by the way. I’m a girl, not a boy. And before you leap to any conclusions, my name is not Jackie. It’s Gen, short for Gentian, a wildflower that grows on the hills near the farm that is our home. Mama says she named me this because the gentian blossom is the exact same color blue as my eyes. Also the color of Jack’s. Our hair, as long as I’m taking a moment to provide some physical description, is blond.

But here a difference arises. Jack’s hair is a color that can only be described as golden. You know, like the sun. Mine is more like clover honey, a little darker and more serious. Just like the rest of me, my hair calls a little bit less attention to itself than Jack’s does.

And this external feature, so easy to dismiss, actually reveals quite a lot about us. It provides a glimpse of who we are inside. Jack is the dreamer. I’m the planner. Jack is happiest when he’s the center of attention. Me, I much prefer to stay in the background.

Which actually leads me back to where I started. Adventure. My having to go on one.

I began by climbing up a beanstalk.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the story. Or at least you think you are. “Jack and the Beanstalk
.”
That’s what our tale is usually called. But there’s a problem with that title. Actually, there’s more than one. Whose name do you see there? Just Jack’s. It doesn’t mention me at all.

Not only that, it gives the impression there was only one beanstalk involved, when in fact there were many.

I’m thinking it’s time to set the record straight. To share the true story. Not because I want to be the center of attention, but because the longer version of the tale is actually a whole lot more interesting than the shorter one.

My family, which consisted of Jack, our mother, and me, lived on a small farm. In good times we grew enough to feed ourselves and have some left to sell on market days in the nearest town. But we had not had a good year for several years running. The truth is that we were poor. So poor that one day we made a bitter decision: We had no choice but to sell our cow.

The cow’s name was Agapanthus, something else most versions of our story leave out. And this is a shame, as Agapanthus is a pretty great name, as names for cows go. It’s also a blue flower, just in case you were wondering. Agapanthus produced the sweetest milk for miles around. This made selling the cow herself a pretty good plan, even if none of us cared for it much. Jack cared for it least of all.

“But I don’t want to sell her,” he said. He, Mama, and I were standing in the barn. It had once contained several cows and an old horse to help pull the plow. Now only Agapanthus was left.

“I don’t see why we have to,” Jack went on now.

“Because it’s the only option we have left,” I said as patiently as I could. We’d been going over the same ground for what felt like hours. “We have to be able to plant, Jack. It’s either that, or leave the farm. The money Agapanthus will bring should be enough to buy some clover seeds to help keep the fields healthy this winter, with enough left over to buy the seeds we need in spring as well. Then, if the weather will just cooperate and the crops do well—”