Jack and the Beanstalk Giants POV

Overton High School

Jack and the Beanstalk
(or how I almost lost my life at the hands of a murderous thief.)

Qualyn Stark

AP World History

Mr. O’Donnell

September 2014

I may seem in shambles at the moment, with my tattered clothing and ghoulish appearance, but I assure you I was not always this way. I used to be a respectable man, well loved in my community, yet since the incidents that transpired almost a year ago, I have been exiled to this hellish cave, plotting my escape and return to my wife and kin. The day that my life changed forever started out as any other, I kissed my lovely wife of over 200 years goodbye and left for work at the lumber mill. Around lunch I was quite hungry, so I headed back home to have a couple oxen and a pine tree. Walking home, my pockets jingled happily with the gold I had made so far that day. As I entered my home, a strong odor hit my nostrils. A mix of musk and mead that was undeniably human filled the air around me. I had a run in with a human only once before, and it had not been pleasant, I inevitably had to eat him because he kept shooting me with his feeble arrows and it grew quite annoying. He was delicious however, and I wouldn’t have minded one bit to try that exotic meat again. I walked up to my wife who wore an uncharacteristically nervous expression. "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!" Pardon my bluntness, but by this point I was famished and needing nourishment fast. “Sweety,” she began, “there is positively no englishman here! Sit and enjoy the food I prepared.” I shouldn’t have listened to her and searched the house, but she was my wife, and I wished so badly to believe her. Upon exiting the house I passed a new tree that was poking out of the flower garden, and couldn’t help but notice that my pockets were significantly lighter than before. The next day, things went as planned, except that once I arrived home, I again had an overwhelming sense that there was a human in my household."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!" Again, not my best line, but i was fairly irritated by this time. My wife, however, seemed very collected. “Sweety,” she started “I don’t know what you have been going on about, but there is no englishman here! let me bring Betty the Hen to cheer you up.” Betty had been my hen since I was a wee lad,and brightened even the darkest of days, so I was happy to see her. I began to stroke her wings when she laid a golden egg. I grabbed It and walked to place it with the rest, and once I came back, she was gone. I was absolutely furious, I began to turn over every single piece of furniture searching for Betty, I loved that old bird and I know she loved me too. After hours of searching in vain, my wife suggested to make posters to post all around town in hopes that she would be found, so in the morning I woke early and went off to spread the word about Betty. Everywhere I went I was met with empty stares and halfhearted apologies. It seemed as though no one cared enough to aid me in my search. Disappointed and a bit disgruntled, I left for home. For the third day in a row, I had a strange feeling as I entered my house, call it intuition, or a keen sense of smell, but i just knew that there was a human inside. "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!" I was so furious that all I saw was red, I knew that a human was here, and I had a good idea that the same human had done something to Betty. My wife sat at the kitchen table, a full course meal sat in front of her. “What is this you keep going on about dear?” she said, “ Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll bring out Harriet the Harp to sooth your nerves.” Harriet has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard, she was a gift from my wife on our hundredth wedding anniversary. With mixed emotions, I sat at the table as Harriet was sat in front of me by my grinning wife. “Hello master,” Harriet said in her singsong voice. “What would you like for me to sing today?” I thought about it for a moment and couldn’t decide, so I turned to grab the sheet music to look through. As soon as my back was turned I heard a scream. “Master! Help!” I whipped my head around just in time to see a human running away with Harriet. Something in me snapped and i jumped after him. Despite his size, he was fast. Before I knew it, the human skittered across my floor and out of the house through a small crack that I had been meaning to get fixed. Soon, he was bounding across my lawn and scurried down the new sapling that had appeared in the grass two days before. I grabbed at the sapling, and with a hard tug, set it loose from the earth to reveal that it was not a sapling at all, instead of a miniscule root system, the sapling kept growing downwards to what appeared to be some sort of other world. The human world, it appeared, was much similar to my own, with the only difference being the size of the living creatures that inhabits it. The human who had taken Harriet and Betty was almost halfway down the sapling and was gaining speed. I started to climb down after him. The stem was very slick and smelled faintly of freshly shelled green beans, as I noticed this, I also noticed the human had already reached the ground and was bounding across the land to a small shed. I was only about a fifth of the way down when I felt the stalk shake. I peered down at the human who had started to chop away at the stalk with an axe. I was dumbfounded, all I had wanted was Betty and Harriet back, and this psychopathic human was trying to make me tumble to my death. I started to lose footing and before I knew it, I was headed face first towards the ground below. I was unconscious for about a week, but what had amounted to about six human months. The humans didn’t know what to do with me so they let me lie where I fell. Once I awoke, I fled to this cave where I have been residing since. I have heard the human lore which states that I was finally carried off by their gods for a feast in heaven, and I can only hope that they truly believe that, so that I may have the element of surprise, because I am getting hungry, and I smell the blood of an englishman.