The Princess Rules Page 6

  Very soon, Bennett and Florizella, mounted on their fine ponies with Samson loping behind them, were trotting briskly down the white chalky road that wound far ahead, round the hills and woods, over hill and valley and indeed stream, southwards to the Plain Green Plains.

  It is rather an extraordinary experience, hunting a giant. You don’t need dogs to smell him out, as you would if you were hunting pheasant or duck. The smell of a giant, even an extremely clean giant, wafts all around him for about ten kilometres in any direction. This particular giant had found a store of onions on the very morning that Florizella and Bennett arrived at the Plain Green Plains, and the smell of his breath was enough to knock them off horseback.

  ‘Yuck,’ said Florizella, clinging to the mane of her brilliant bay pony, Jellybean, while warm gales of onion-scented wind buffeted them.

  Samson let out a short, yappy howl. ‘Ki-yi-yi-yi-yi!’ His nose was burning with too much scent and his eyes were watering.

  When hunting a giant, you don’t need sharp eyesight to spot him. He’s not like deer that can disappear into a forest, or sleek hares that lie low and blend into the ground – this giant blocked the sunlight. His feet and legs, thicker and bigger than tree trunks, towered above the flat, fertile lands of the Plain Green Plains.

  Jellybean stopped dead a good kilometre from the giant boots. So did Bennett’s pony, Thunderer, and they both kept a close watch on a giant bootlace as big as a rope from a sailing ship, which was undone and snaking across the road.

  Samson blinked miserably and growled under his breath.

  This really was a very big giant indeed. Florizella and Bennett had been privately certain that the messenger from the Plain Green Plains had been exaggerating about the size of the giant. Their high spirits on the day-long ride had been because they thought they were on their way to a giant perhaps three metres tall. But now they were close to him they could see why the messenger had been so determined that the king himself should come and sort out the problem. The adventure suddenly seemed very serious.

  Even sitting on their horses, Bennett and Florizella were only just level with the giant’s ankles in his thick knitted socks. Standing on the ground, they only came up to his big polished toecaps. They couldn’t even see his head. His broad legs, dressed in socks and big baggy breeches, and his tummy, straining against a green jerkin and belt, blocked the view upwards like an overhanging balcony on a house.

  Florizella and Bennett got off their horses and turned them loose in a nearby field. The horses kicked up their heels, rushed over to the far side and tried, very foolishly, to hide behind a tree. Horses hate giants and Jellybean especially disliked Florizella’s more dangerous adventures.

  ‘I have a plan,’ said Bennett. ‘We will summonhim to a parley. And then we will issue our challenge to him.’

  ‘Challenging him to what?’ Florizella asked.

  ‘Single combat with sword and lance,’ Bennett said promptly. ‘You’ll have to fight him, Florizella. It’s your kingdom, after all.’

  ‘Not me,’ Florizella said equally promptly. ‘You must be crazy, Bennett. It would be like a mouse challenging one of us to single combat. I think we should talk to him. He may be lost. Or just passing through.’

  ‘Combat would be more princely,’ Bennett said regretfully. ‘But I suppose you’re right. How shall we talk to him?’

  ‘We need a white flag,’ Florizella said. ‘To show that we want a peaceful talk. Have you got a clean hankie?’

  Bennett just laughed. Neither of them ever had a clean handkerchief.

  ‘We’ll use your shirt,’ Florizella said. ‘It’s white under the dirt. And, anyway, we’re not asking him to check up on the laundry. We just want to attract his attention and show him we mean peace.’

  Bennett took off his shirt and they tied it to a fallen branch of a tree. Then they went as close to the giant boots as they thought safe and waved the flag in the air.

  They waved for a long time.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘I don’t think he can see us,’ Florizella said.

  ‘My arms are tired,’ Bennett said. ‘Let’s shout at him.’

  The two children bawled upwards. ‘EXCUSE US! WE WANT TO TALK TO YOU!’

  Absolutely nothing happened.

  ‘This is stupid,’ Florizella said. ‘We’ll have to get him to look down. I’ll stab him in the ankle with my sword.’

  ‘Better not,’ Bennett said cautiously. ‘It might hurt him.’

  ‘No,’ Florizella said. ‘Look at the thickness of his socks. It would only be like a little mosquito bite.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Bennett. ‘And what do people do to mosquitoes?’

  ‘Swat them,’ Florizella replied. Then she said, ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘We have to get him down to our level, without making him angry,’ Bennett said thoughtfully. He was staring at the great rope of bootlace. Then he snapped his fingers. ‘I am a genius!’ he said. ‘We’ll knot his bootlace to that tree, then he’ll notice it has come undone and kneel down to do it up. Then he’ll see us, and we can talk to him.’

  ‘Great,’ said Florizella.

  The two of them took hold of the rope and, with much heaving and shoving, got it tied round a sturdy oak that grew in a little copse of other trees at the side of the road.

  Samson sat down beside the rope and tried to look optimistic. He was a very unhappy wolf cub.

  ‘Look out!’ Florizella yelled. ‘He’s moving!’

  She was right.

  One giant boot strode forward. The other one that was securely fastened to the oak tree moved a little. The rope strained tight, tight, tighter, and then …

  … pee-yoing!

  The rope snapped, the great boot shot forward, the giant stumbled and with a crash like a thousand earthquakes he fell to the earth, crushing two fences and sprawling over four fields.

  ‘Well done, genius!’ Florizella said crossly. ‘Now he’s knocked himself out!’

  The two children walked past the fallen body to the giant’s head. It was as big as a small hill. His skin was as rugged and as rough as a pebbly beach. His beard was a forest of thick golden hair. The hair on his head was a jungle of curls. He had fallen with his head turned to one side, and he was smiling slightly as if he were having pleasant dreams.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ Florizella asked Bennett. ‘Have you got another plan?’

  ‘Wait till he wakes up, I suppose,’ Bennett said. ‘I hope he won’t have a headache,’ he added a little nervously. ‘I think he hit his head as he fell.’

  ‘He can’t eat us,’ Florizella said without thinking. Then she said, ‘Oh! I suppose he could.’

  A small crowd of people of the Plain Green Plains had come running when they’d heard the great thunder of the falling giant.

  ‘Cut his throat, Princess Florizella!’ someone shouted from the back of the crowd. ‘Before he wakes up.’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Florizella and Bennett both said at once.

  ‘He’s eaten all our food and destroyed hundreds of houses,’ a woman cried. ‘He should be punished.’

  ‘In the old days a true prince would have challenged him to single combat,’ a man said, looking at Bennett.

  ‘Those days are gone,’ Bennett said firmly. ‘Anyway, we don’t want to kill him – we just want to move him on somewhere else.’

  The giant stirred slightly. Everyone in the crowd – especially the people who had talked very boldly about cutting his throat, or challenging him to single combat – rushed backwards and stayed out of reach. Only Florizella and Bennett waited where they were, right in front of the giant’s face.

  Slowly the giant opened his huge blue eyes.

  ‘Hello,’ Florizella squeaked. Because she was scared, her voice came out too high. She tried again. ‘Hello!’ she said, trying for a deep, comforting voice. This time she sounded like a cow mooing.

  ‘This is the land of the Seven Kingdoms,’ Bennett bellowed. ‘This is Her Royal
Highness, Florizella, princess of this realm. I am Prince Bennett of the next-door kingdom, the Land of Deep Lakes.’ He bowed very politely, then he glanced back at Florizella. ‘She really is a princess,’ he added. ‘She looks like a princess when she is clean.’

  Florizella scowled at Bennett. ‘I welcome you to my country,’ she said politely to the giant. ‘Er … will you be staying long?’

  The giant’s blue eyes at once filled with great round pools of tears.

  ‘Unh-hunh,’ he bellowed.

  He was crying with great loud sobs, so noisy that they were like thunderclaps roaring one after another. Florizella and Bennett were bowled over by the blast of his grief. They clung to each other on the ground while the onion-scented gale nearly blew them away.

  Samson tried to rush to Florizella’s side, but was blown over and over until he got stuck in a bush.

  ‘Go up!’ Bennett yelled in Florizella’s ear. ‘Up! Away from his mouth!’

  The two of them, clinging to bushes and grass, crawled away from the giant’s mouth towards his nose.

  ‘Unh-hunh! Unh-hunh! Unh-hunh!’

  The giant was sobbing now as if he would never stop. Great fat, round tears as big as boulders rained down on Florizella and Bennett, drenching them with warm, salty water as they struggled to get away from the hurricane of the giant’s sorrow.

  ‘Stop crying!’ Florizella yelled. ‘Stop crying!’

  ‘Unh-hunh!’ the giant went, as loudly as ever.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Bennett shouted.

  A huge teardrop splashed to the ground, drenching them both as if someone was throwing buckets of warm water at them.

  ‘I’m hungry! And I’m l-l-lost!’

  Another thunderstorm of tears poured down upon the children. Another ear-splitting sob nearly blew them away.

  ‘We can’t survive much more of this!’ Bennett yelled to Florizella. ‘He must stop!’

  Florizella nodded. ‘Shove me up towards his ear,’ she said.

  Bennett bent down and pushed Florizella up towards the giant’s bushy yellow beard, and then higher – to the great dark cavern of his earhole.

  ‘Don’t fall in!’ Bennett yelled. ‘Don’t go near the edge.’

  Florizella nodded and took a firm grip on the soft undergrowth of the giant’s beard. ‘We are your friends!’ she bawled down the cave of his earhole. ‘We will get you some food. We will help you find your way home. STOP CRYING!’

  The giant stopped suddenly. The silence was so startling after the roaring sobs and crashing tears that Bennett shook his head, thinking he had gone deaf.

  Samson struggled out of the bushes and sat down sulkily to lick his paws.

  ‘You’ll be my friend?’ the giant said. The earth shook slightly. Behind Bennett a tree crashed to the ground.

  ‘You must whisper!’ Florizella shouted. ‘You nearly blew us away just now. We are very small. You have to whisper to us.’

  ‘You’ll be my friend?’ the giant whispered.

  Cautiously, Bennett sat up. ‘Yes!’ he yelled. ‘And we will help you. What are you doing in this country?’

  The giant’s huge lower lip quivered. His eyes filled with tears.

  ‘He’s off again!’ Bennett yelled to Florizella. ‘Watch out!’

  ‘DON’T CRY!’ Florizella shouted. ‘We will help you! There’s nothing to cry about!’

  ‘There isn’t?’ the giant asked hopefully.

  ‘NO! Not at all!’ the two children yelled together.

  A little smile came across the giant’s huge, handsome, moon face. ‘I was hungry,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a mother or a father to care for me. I’m an orphan. I live alone and I have to grow my own food.’ His lower lip trembled.

  ‘Watch out,’ Bennett said warningly, getting a good grip round a small tree trunk.

  ‘But I can’t read the writing on the seed packets that I bought to plant in my garden. I thought I had planted tomato seeds and lettuce seeds, but all that came up were flowers.’

  Florizella dropped down from the giant’s beard and stood beside Bennett.

  ‘Poppies!’ the giant said sadly. ‘Very pretty. But I was hungry.’

  ‘You poor thing,’ Florizella said comfortingly.

  The giant’s huge misty blue eyes turned towards her. He let out a soft sob.

  ‘Don’t be nice to him,’ Bennett said urgently. ‘You’ll set him off again.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’ The giant snuffled a little. ‘Like a friend. I’ve never had a proper friend.’

  ‘Watch out,’ Bennett said. ‘Here we go.’

  ‘Don’t cry!’ Florizella yelled. ‘I would never be friends with a crybaby.’

  With a great gulp, the giant swallowed his sorrow. ‘I’ll try not to,’ he said humbly. ‘But I’ve come an awfully long way, and I’ve been very lonely and very hungry. I left my little cottage weeks ago. I walked and walked until I came here. There were lots of things to eat when I arrived. But there seems to be less now.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve eaten it all!’ Bennett shouted severely. ‘Perhaps you should go on.’

  The giant sat up. The little wood shook as he moved. He put his hand down and the two children climbed into the warm palm. He lifted them up in the air, higher, higher, higher, until they were level with his face and he could see them. He sighed sadly. Bennett and Florizella clung to his thumb until the storm passed.

  ‘But I’m lost,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘I can’t find my way home now. It’s horrible being lost, and hungry, and not knowing your way home.’

  Florizella and Bennett glanced at each other. ‘We know the direction you came from,’ Bennett said. ‘We could put you on the right road. Would you know your way from the borders of the Seven Kingdoms?’ He paused. ‘Avoiding the Land of Deep Lakes?’ he suggested. Bennett didn’t think his mother and father, the king and queen of the Land of Deep Lakes, would be too pleased if he directed a huge and hungry giant across their realm.

  The giant shook his enormous head. ‘I don’t think so. I couldn’t see very well. I just wandered around, but it was all a blur to me. And what shall I do when I get home? There’ll be nothing for me to eat. I’ve got nothing to plant in my garden, and I need the right seeds. Vegetable seeds.’

  ‘But, if we gave you some vegetable seeds from our gardeners, they would grow too small, wouldn’t they?’ Florizella asked.

  ‘Not in my country,’ the giant said a little more cheerfully. ‘It’s just great there. As soon as anything is planted into the earth of my country it grows to the right size for us. Our tomatoes grow as big as your elephants!’ He snuffled. ‘But I can’t even see your elephants clearly!’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Bennett reassured him. ‘We didn’t bring any elephants with us.’

  The giant bent down to peer at the horses. The horses, insulted, looked right back at him.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  Florizella tugged at Bennett’s arm. ‘D’you think his eyesight is all right?’ she whispered. ‘He couldn’t read the seed packets, and he couldn’t see where he was going. If he can’t even see elephants, he must be very short-sighted!’

  ‘A short-sighted giant would have real trouble,’ Bennett said. ‘He’d have to be long-sighted just to be able to see his feet.’

  ‘Have you ever been able to see things clearly?’ Florizella yelled at the giant.

  Slowly he shook his big handsome head. ‘No. I couldn’t see the blackboard at school, or my books. Everybody just thought I was stupid.’ His big mouth turned down again. ‘Stupid,’ he said sadly. ‘They called me stupid at school.’

  ‘We don’t think you’re stupid,’ Bennett said quickly. ‘We like you. We said that we will be your friends. What’s your name?’

  ‘Simon,’ the giant said solemnly. ‘My name is Simon. I’m very pleased to meet you.’

  Bennett did his most princely bow. ‘I’m pleased to meet you too, Simon,’ he said kindly. ‘And we’re going to help you. Wai
t right there and we’ll be back in a little while.’

  ‘All right,’ Simon the giant said.

  ‘You have to put us down,’ Florizella pointed out.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, lowering his mighty hand to earth so that the children could jump off.

  ‘Don’t go away, Simon!’ Florizella warned him. ‘Actually, don’t move. We won’t be long. And you don’t want to tread on us!’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that! I’ll stay still! I love little tiddly mice.’

  ‘Mice?’ Florizella asked Bennett. ‘Did he say mice?’

  ‘Never mind that now,’ Bennett said quickly. ‘We’ve got an awful lot to do. We’ve got to feed him and get him something to drink. We’ve got to persuade everyone not to challenge him to combat.’

  ‘That won’t be too hard!’ Florizella said, nodding towards the people of the Plain Green Plains, who were still keeping a very safe distance away.

  ‘And we’ve got to solve all his problems!’ Bennett went on.

  Florizella stopped dead. ‘All of them! How?’ she asked.

  ‘Glasses!’ Bennett said triumphantly. ‘We’re going to make him a pair of glasses!’

  Within an hour, Bennett had the Seven Kingdoms’ fire brigade – all twenty-three fire engines – lined up beside the largest lake in the kingdom, pumping kilos of sugar and litres of lemon juice into it, and then pumping the whole sticky, sweet, glorious lake of lemonade into their enormous tanks.

  All the children from the nearest school – Great Valley Lake School – played truant for the whole day and went down to the lakeside with straws and sucked until they were blue in the face from lack of air, and then green in the face from too much lemonade.

  Then, with Bennett sitting beside the driver on the box of the leading fire engine (he had always longed to do that) and with the siren going Honk! Honk! Honk!, the entire brigade of twenty-three fire engines went roaring down the road to the Plain Green Plains where the giant was sitting patiently, as still as a rock in the little wood, waiting for Florizella and Bennett to come back.