The Giant Forest - COMPLETED - True to life adventures of preteens.

Swallow or be Gobbled

Mousi became like a piece of wood, petrified wood. Her eyes opened so wide that if you could see into her heart of hearts you would see fear.

Mousi had ventured onto the edge of an open field. What she saw was bones. Bones from animals. Animals who had, she gulped so loud that she was afraid she might have been heard, animals who had been eaten. Large animals that had the meat eaten of them and their bones tossed into a pile.

There was a mixture of bones from cats, raccoons, foxes, badgers, honey badgers, beavers and other four-legged creatures including ... dogs. Big tears began to stream down Mousi's cheeks when she thought of the fate of her dear friends, even friends she had never met. She recognized the bones of some of the animals because she had seen pictures in her science books. She knew the dog bones because she herself had felt them through the paper thin skin of some close friends she had hugged so tightly that she was sometimes afraid she might crack something. She never did crack anything. Mousi's hugs were always strong but also tender.

Off in the distance, through her tears she also saw a cage with a few animals milling about while others just laid there, motionless. The critters had been, um, invited to dinner ... as the main meal.

She also saw several several 2-legged types walking about, poking at a fire. On each side of the fire was an 'X' shaped stand with a long post stretching across burning logs. She guessed correctly that they must be people. They, however, were so gangly as they walked she wanted to laugh but couldn't because she was so sad. Mousi was experiencing the sensations of profound heartache and delightful humor simultaneously.

"How strange I feel," she muttered to herself.

She also surmised correctly, that the 2-legged types intended to skewer the animals and roast them over the flames.

When Mousi gathered herself she thought not of her own well being but of the creatures and what was going to be their fate.

"How can I help them get free? Somebody has to do something. At least try to do something. And I am the only somebody around. Perhaps I can sneak around this field under the protection of the trees."

Mousi slowly and deliberately stepped backwards. She bumped into a tree. She stepped to the left a couple of times while keeping her eyes forward and backed up again ... into the same tree. She knew it was the same tree because she felt the same knot in the same spot on her back.

"Strange."

She stepped left again, this time four or five times. Nobody actually counts steps in this kind of situation. Then back to the right.

The same knot.

Mousi turned around ever so slowly. It was then she realized it wasn't a tree after all that she had bumped into. It was a leg! The knot she thought she bumped into wasn't a knot at all, but a knee!

As her own knees began wobbling and bumping together so loudly you could hear a small 'Thump, thump, thump' Mousi slowly looked up. At eye level she saw the end of a frayed rope dangling down from where it was tied around the creature's waist so as to hold up its breeches. Her eyes continued to climb. The creature's shirt seemed to be a bunch of animal skins crudely stitched together. There was a leather-like strap hanging over its shoulder and running across its chest. On the leather strap were something like fishhooks, but bigger, presumably to carry larger animals that were not fish. At the bottom was a pouch, large enough to stuff an animal into. Across its back was a long pole with a string dangling from it.

Mousi looked further up - all of this took much longer for Mousi to do than it does for the reader to read - because nobody was ever nor should be ever in a hurry to stare directly ... into ... the ... face ... of ... a ... giant.

The giant was at least twice as tall as Mousi. Small for her age, Mousi could still reckon (math was one of her strengths) that the giant was 10 to 12 feet tall. But not taller. She remembered Og of Bashan whose bed was 13.5 feet long and more than six feet wide. Scared as she was she had time to name this 'thing' staring back at her in the face 'Og.'

His eyes were as wide as her open hands, and his pupils as big as her palms. His bushy eyebrows looked as if they were real bushes. His scraggly hair hung over his large floppy rabbit-like ears. He had bones poking through the pointy ends of his ears for decorations, akin to ear piercings. His mouth spread wide into what Mousi thought must be a grin. He opened his mouth as if to speak and she saw teeth that were all canine, sharp with large spaces between them. Slobber dripped from his tongue onto her forehead and into her eyes. She wiped the goo away with the result that she could see more clearly that when he closed his mouth into a grit, his teeth matched up near perfectly, like a bear trap.

"Hey ... fellas!" Og bellowed.

(Note to the reader. When giants talk, they talk very slowly. Say the following sentence out loud. I - 1, am - 1, not - 1, afraid - 1, of - 1, giants. Now say it again without the one but keeping the pause. That's how slow giants talk.)

Og said to his friends, "Hey ... fellas. I ... caught ... a ... mouse." Og had read Mousi's name tag that was still stuck to her sweater from camp orientation.

"We ... have ... never ... eaten ... mouse ... before. This ... will ... be ... a ... real ... treat."

Mousi swallowed realizing next it may be her who is being swallowed.