Hamster Princess--Giant Trouble Read online

  The Ow! was because Harriet had just kicked him in the eyelid.

  He struck at her again, and succeeded in putting his own finger in his eye. “GYAAAAH!”

  “That’s for famster!” shouted Harriet.

  All the yelling and thumping had finally succeeded in waking up the goose, who began to honk.

  The giant finally got smart. He began shaking his head violently. His ears flapped around him like sails. Harriet had no choice but to cling to the giant’s furry forehead. Otherwise she’d be thrown across the room, and the very best-case scenario involved a thirty-foot vertical drop at high speed.

  The giant lifted his immense paws and slapped them down over Harriet.

  “Fee fie foe fow!” he cried. “I’ve got you now!”

  CHAPTER 19

  Harriet had been in tight spots before, but being clenched in a giant’s fist was a new one.

  She had a sudden appreciation of how Mumfrey must have felt earlier when the giant grabbed him.

  “I knew it!” said the giant. “I mean, fee fie foe fewit—”

  “Oh, don’t bother,” gasped Harriet.

  “Harp is such a liar, saying you left. Harp, you’re—”

  He turned toward the shelf where Strings had been imprisoned. His eyes swept over the bare boards. “What? Where did she go?”

  Harriet squirmed. The giant had tightened his grip in surprise and she could feel her ribs creaking.

  “Harp!” The giant swept his hand along the shelf, knocking the little pile of bedding apart. He ducked his head to look under it, and saw the missing chain. “She’s gone!”

  Harriet barely had enough breath, but she laughed anyway.

  The giant scowled hugely. He turned and shoved his foot under the goose, who erupted into the air, wings flailing. “Where is she?”

  “Escaped,” gasped Harriet. She managed to wedge her elbow between two fingers and get an inch of space to breathe.

  “Tell me where she is,” growled the giant, holding her up to eye level. “Tell me, or I’ll squeeze until your nasty little hamster eyeballs pop out!”

  “If you squeeze me, I’ll never tell you!” said Harriet. She hoped that Wilbur had managed to get Strings away, but she knew that she had to buy them as much time as possible.

  “Fee fie fo fass!” grumbled the giant. “It appears that we are at an impasse.”

  Harriet glared. Impasse was a really good word and it seemed like the villains always got to use it before she did.

  “Let me go and I’ll tell you where the harp went,” said Harriet.

  “Tell me where the harp went, and I’ll let you go!” countered the giant.

  This extraordinarily tense moment was broken by the goose, who honked once and dropped another egg on the floor.

  Both of them looked over at the goose. The goose looked embarrassed and shuffled her feet.

  There was no sign of the quail or her friends.

  Now I just have to get out of the giant’s fist and onto the goose’s back. No bird left behind!

  I . . . um . . . wish I knew how to do that . . .

  Once she was on the goose’s back, it should be easy. Admittedly, there wasn’t a saddle or reins, but Harriet was determined not to let a little thing like steering stop her. The giant reached down and picked up the cage that had held Mumfrey.

  “Sure,” she said, “go ahead and put me in that. I’m sure there’s no possible way to escape.”

  “Fee fie fo funny. I bet you think you’re funny.”

  “I know you can’t rhyme funny with funny,” said Harriet.

  The giant scowled. “Fee fie foe filarious—”

  “Hey!” shouted a voice from the doorway. “Hey, giant!”

  Once again, it was Wilbur.

  CHAPTER 20

  The giant wheeled around. Harriet let out a groan, and not just because his fingers had clenched involuntarily.

  “My innards!” she muttered. And then: “Wilbur, nooo. . . .”

  Harriet couldn’t believe this. Usually Wilbur was much better about letting her handle the heroic bits. He was supposed to be getting everybody to safety!

  “Fee fie foe fee! Who the heck are you supposed to be?”

  Wilbur stood in the doorway. It was so late at night now that it had come around to being early. Harriet could see the light of sunrise outlining her friend’s ears.

  Wilbur was not an intimidating presence at the best of times, but compared to the giant-sized door frame, he looked practically miniature.

  “I’m Wilbur!” he said. “Famed—um—giant-slayer! You better let my friend go!”

  The giant stared. So did Harriet.

  “You don’t look like a giant-slayer,” said the giant finally.

  He isn’t! thought Harriet. He’s a paperboy and sometimes he works in the stables to make extra money! He’s gonna get stepped on!

  “I am, though,” said Wilbur. “Famous for it. Super- famous.” Apparently he did not think this was convincing enough, because after a moment he added, “I’ve got medals.”

  “Medals!” said the giant. “For giant-slaying?” Then he seemed to remember himself. “I mean, fee fie foe faying . . .”

  The giant looked down at her. “Is he really a giant-slayer?”

  Harriet couldn’t think of a single person less likely to slay giants than Wilbur, but she certainly wasn’t going to say that. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Oodles of ’em. At least twenty. Most of them bigger than you, but I imagine he’ll make an exception.”

  “He’s a very small giant,” said Wilbur, “but of course, they can’t all be . . . uh . . .”

  “. . . Wormeater the Mighty,” said Harriet, inventing wildly. “He was huge. Like fifty feet tall.”

  “No way!” said the giant.

  Something odd was going on. Wilbur had come a little way into the castle, but Harriet saw, in the far corner of the door, a hand.

  It was waving wildly at . . . someone? And was it holding . . . a potato?

  The goose waddled forward, eyes on the potato, and suddenly Harriet realized what was going on. Of course! The goose eats potatoes! It’s Strings luring the goose out!

  If we can convince the giant that Wilbur will slay him, maybe he’ll drop me, and that’ll be all of us out of the castle—

  Unfortunately, the giant did not cooperate.

  “No!” he yelled. “I don’t believe it! You’re too puny to be a giant-slayer! But you might make a good lunch!”

  He charged at Wilbur.

  The goose, seeing the giant running at her, let out a honk of terror, dropped an egg, and fled through the open door, with Wilbur hot on her webbed heels.

  Harriet, for lack of anything better to do, bit the giant on the fingers.

  “Ow!” cried the giant.

  “Now!” cried Wilbur

  “Pull!” cried Strings.

  “HONK!” cried the goose.

  Chain rattled. The giant shouted. And quite suddenly Harriet was soaring through the air at great speed.

  CHAPTER 21

  She landed on the clouds and rolled to her feet. Cloud is very springy.

  Just outside the doorway, Hyacinth and Strings held either end of the chain that had bound Strings. They had been waiting for the giant to come running. As soon as he had, they had pulled the chain tight, and the giant had tripped over it and gone down hard.

  “Brilliant!” said Harriet.

  “No time!” said Strings. She yanked the chain back. She was still tied to Mumfrey. Wilbur leaped onto Hyacinth’s back.

  The giant was already starting to get up, and he was not happy. “Fee fie—oh, never mind! I’m gonna get you, Harp! And you, giant-slayer!”

  Wilbur galloped past Harriet on Hyacinth. Strings went past on Mumfrey.

  “Right!” said Harriet. �
��One left!”

  She launched herself at the goose as she waddled by, caught her around the neck, and swung herself up on her back.

  The giant climbed to his feet and roared.

  “I’ll get you!” he shouted. “I’ll get you all!”

  The goose, honking madly, flapped and waddled across the clouds. As high-speed chases went, she would probably elude the giant for the space of a brief chuckle.

  “Fly, you fool!” cried Harriet.

  The giant lunged.

  The goose suddenly remembered she had wings.

  She flew.

  The wingspan of a great goose is enormous. The giant grabbed for her and only caught a few tail feathers, which made the goose honk in fury. The tips of her wing struck Mumfrey and Strings and sent them rolling.

  Harriet, having neither reins nor saddle nor bridle nor any means of actually holding on, threw her arms around the goose’s neck and just tried not to fall off.

  She darted a glance to one side and saw Mumfrey and Strings righting themselves and shlopping forward. The giant either hadn’t seen them or was ignoring them, intent on Harriet and the goose. Wilbur and Hyacinth shlopped past at high speed.

  “I’ll get you!” shouted the giant. “I’ll get you! Fee fie—”

  Mumfrey darted in front of him, practically under his feet. Strings lashed out with the length of chain again and whacked the rabbit smartly across his toes.

  He grabbed his foot, hopping on the other one.

  Birds, hamster, and harp fled.

  “Toward the beanstalk!” said Harriet, pointing. “There!”

  The quail didn’t need to be told twice. They flung themselves across the cloud, toward the distant coil of green.

  “Fee fie foe fat! Harp, you’re gonna pay for that!” shouted the giant. The cloud rang with his footfalls. In the castle, they would have thundered, but on the soft cloud, they made a squishy thudding noise. It sounded as if they were being chased by a giant sponge.

  They reached the beanstalk.

  Mumfrey ducked under the goose’s wing and paused, looking around for Harriet.

  “Go!” shouted Harriet. “Go, go, go!”

  The quail hopped down onto the beanstalk. Strings jangled like a wind chime in a washing machine.

  “Right,” said Harriet. “Right. Okay. Goose! Err . . . goose?”

  The goose stamped her feet, looking nervous.

  “Down,” said Harriet. “You go down. Climb down, don’t fly.” The air at the top of the beanstalk was so thin and cold that the goose’s wings would be covered in ice.

  “Honk?”

  “Mumfrey takes orders! He’s a bird! Geese are birds!”

  “Mumfrey’s special!”

  Mumfrey rolled his eyes.

  Her faithful battle quail started down the beanstalk. His bobbing topknot vanished below the layer of cloud.

  The goose seemed to get the idea.

  She started down, gripping the stalk with her orange feet and her bill. Harriet leaned over and saw powerful hooked claws on the ends of her mount’s webbed feet.

  Geese are weird, she thought. She’d known a barbarian who insisted on riding a battle goose, but she couldn’t imagine trying to keep the thing fed.

  They too vanished into the cloud.

  Everything was white and wet and freezing. The goose’s feathers were adapted to swimming, which meant that they shed water beautifully. Unfortunately, that meant that she was slicker than snail slime and Harriet felt herself sliding off.

  She clutched for the feathers, got her grip back, felt a moment of optimism—

  And the beanstalk began to shake.

  “Fee fie foe feasily! You won’t escape that easily!”

  The giant was coming down after them.

  CHAPTER 22

  They broke through the cloud. It was better, because Harriet could see where they were going, but worse because she could see how far away the ground was.

  It was really really really really really far away.

  The beanstalk shuddered rhythmically as the giant climbed, like an old ladder creaking under someone’s weight.

  “Cut the beanstalk!” screamed Strings.

  “With what?!” Harriet shouted back.

  “I’m surprised you don’t have an ax with you,” muttered Wilbur. “After you took that class and all . . .”

  “People look at you funny if you carry an ax everywhere!”

  “Did you tell them you got an A in Brandishing?”

  “Well, obviously!”

  “Fee fie foe foo!” boomed the giant. “Better look out, I’m coming for you!”

  The goose honked in terror. Harriet felt the big feathery body tense underneath her.

  She’s going to lay an egg. She’s terrified, so she’s going to lay an egg, and it’ll be huge and . . .

  Something clicked in Harriet’s brain.

  She swung herself down from the goose’s neck, dangling by a handful of feathers, and grabbed one of the goose’s scaly orange ankles.

  “Honk!?”

  The goose squawked and honked. Harriet swung on the goose’s foot and stabbed her sword into the beanstalk for a handhold. “Look—right there! Lay the egg right there!”

  There was a spot a few feet down where a leaf had sprouted. The stem formed a ledge where a goose or a quail could stand normally.

  “Lay the egg on that ledge!”

  “Honk!” said the goose, which is Goose for “I can’t do it while you’re watching me!”

  The beanstalk shook as the giant came into view under the clouds. “I see you!” he roared. “Fee fie foe fun! It won’t matter where you run!”

  Harriet leaned in and hissed, “If you don’t lay that egg, the giant’s gonna catch us and he’s gonna scramble us like eggs!”

  “HONK!”

  This was all the incentive the goose needed. She dropped an egg on the ledge and began flapping and flailing downward, shedding feathers. Harriet grabbed for the egg, making sure that it was securely braced against the beanstalk.

  “Good goose!”

  “Hrroonk!”

  Harriet didn’t have time to waste. She pulled her sword out of the stem, lifted it up, and slashed downward.

  An ocean of egg white poured out of the punctured shell. A yolk twice the size of Harriet oozed after it, and Harriet stabbed the sword into it, popping it open. Orange goo spilled down the beanstalk.

  There was a lot of yolk. Harriet had to make her way halfway around the beanstalk to find a spot that wasn’t covered in raw egg.

  She made her way down, hand over hand. Mumfrey squawked below her, and Harriet yelled back, “Keep moving! I’m coming! I’ll be fine!”

  “Fee fie foe fot! No, little hamster, you will not!”

  Had he seen the egg? It was probably very hard to see over his own enormous feet. Harriet crouched against the beanstalk, her heart pounding.

  “I’ll eat you feet-first so you can watch it happen!” roared the giant. “I’ll keep that harp so weighed down with chains that she won’t be able to play ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’! I’ll—”

  What exactly he would do was lost as he put his foot squarely into the egg yolk.

  It was like grease. His foot went out from under him and he grabbed for the beanstalk, but he was already sliding. His hands went into the yolk next, and suddenly everything was slippery.

  “Fee fie foe NOOOOOOOO!”

  The giant skidded, flailed, and tried to grab hold. His yolk-slicked fingers closed over the beanstalk.

  He slipped so far down that he had nearly reached Harriet. One of his feet actually landed below the level of the egg, and for a moment, it looked like he might catch his balance.

  Harriet flung herself at his foot, stabbing with her sword.

 
“Fee fie foe YOWCH!”

  The giant jerked his foot back. It was the foot encased in the shoe with no shoelaces. The toe of the shoe stuck in the beanstalk, and his foot came halfway out.

  Harriet jabbed at his heel with her sword.

  There was a long teetering moment, and then the shoe came off.

  The giant fell.

  Unfortunately, so did Harriet.

  CHAPTER 23

  As Harriet fell, she could see the giant below her, his huge ears streaming behind him. He was flailing wildly and, possibly because of the ears or the wind or the flailing, was rapidly moving off to her left.

  This was a comfort. Harriet really didn’t want to land on him.

  Mumfrey let out a qwerking shriek and dove after her.

  Had she been able to, Harriet would have told him not to bother. Mumfrey was a quail, which are made for flight—short, awkward, flopping flight, but flight nonetheless. He weighed more than Harriet, particularly with Strings still tied to his back, but it was also spread out over a much larger area. His bones were hollow and the feathers caught the air like tiny parachutes.

  Harriet, by contrast, came from a line of sturdy little hamsters. Her fur was fluff over solid muscle. She spread herself out to try and present the maximum amount of wind resistance, which didn’t help much at all.

  Mumfrey fell like a feather. Harriet fell like a rock. There was no way that he was going to catch up to her before she went squish on the ground below.

  Her only consolation was that her mom wasn’t going to get a chance to say “I told you so!”

  She instinctively tried to work out the fractions—if Mumfrey weighs twice as much, but fell two-thirds as fast, hmm, should probably convert to sixes so we can cancel out the . . .