John scampered up the edge. He'd finally made it to the top. Though being up top was no better than being on the floor, he could find no food. John walked along the edge, looking around the vast room he'd stumbled into. Old Ferguson had promised he'd find food if he went into the old abandoned wooden house. Well, here he was, and there was no food. Not even crumbs.
As John sat at the edge of the table wondering what to do next, he heard a soft bang. It sounded like a distant cannon shot. He soon became aware of rumblings which were growing in intensity. The bottles on the table trembled, then started knocking against each other.
The table vibrated and everything shook. The tremors had a pattern similar to footsteps. John got up and held his breath. Slowly, he inched his way between the salt and pepper bottles and sank to the floor.
"Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum... I smell the blood of an Englishman...When I find him, he best be dead...Then I'll grind his bones to make my bread." The giant said, stopping at the table.
The giant slapped the table top, and that sent John bouncing from behind the salt. John stood up and dusted himself off, and in the most French-sounding accent he could muster, he shouted.
"I am not English, I am French!" John said, stressing the F.
The giant then turned his attention to John.
"You don't sound French." The giant said this as he turned to face him squarely."And French is on Wednesday." He added, looking at a menu stuck to one of the cupboard doors.
John rubbed his hands on his pants and stuck his chest out.
"I mean... Ich...Ich bin Deutscher." John stuttered.
The giant bent to meet John eye-to-eye, then inhaled deeply. When he exhaled, the dust on the table blew around John, getting into his eyes. Intent on keeping his eyes on the giant, John closed one eye at a time as he rubbed the dust from them.
"You smell like an Englishman. Musty and mouldy." The giant stated, frankly.
"What are you trying to say about Englishmen. That we're old? That we're stale?"
With that, the giant grabbed John tightly and stood straight up, raising him to his face.
"That may be so, but either way, I do not care. Today is English day. You will be added to dinner's soup and bread."
The giant put John in a glass jar, sealed the top, and put the jar in a basket on the top shelf. When John looked around, he saw other jars in the basket. The jars had other men. Some looked starved, and others, well, they were bones, but they all looked frightened.
That night, John was added to the giant's meal as promised.
"Mmmm. That young one is crunchy. It makes a nice sound in my ears." The giant said, smiling as he took another bite of the bread."
"Is there really a need to bake your bread with fish bones?" John asked fighting with a small bone stuck in his teeth.
"They taste good." The giant answered.
John ate well that night, and every night that it was English night. Just like Old Ferguson had promised, John had found food in the old, not quite abandoned, wooden house.
ns 15.158.61.21da2
