Fire And Hemlock Part 2

Mr. Lynn did not reply, but he looked almost haughty too as he pa.s.sed the picture over. The silence was all wind blowing and leaves rattling, and most unfriendly. But Granny had clearly been looking out for Polly. As Polly hitched the picture under her armpit and managed to get the gate unlatched, the front door banged open. Mintchoc came out first. For some reason, she put her back and tail up and fled at the sight of them. Granny sailed out second, like a rather small d.u.c.h.ess.

"Inside, please, both of you," she said. "I want to know just where she's been."

Polly and Mr. Lynn stopped giving one another haughty looks and exchanged guilty ones instead. Humbly they followed Granny indoors and through to the kitchen. There sat Nina, over a half-eaten plate of lunch, staring wide-eyed and full-mouthed. By heaving a whole mouthful across into one side of her face, Nina managed to say, "Where did you go?"

"Yes," said Granny, crisp as a brandy-snap. "That's what I want to know too." She stared long and sharp at Mr. Lynn.

Mr. Lynn s.h.i.+fted the heavy pile of pictures to his other arm. His gla.s.ses flashed unhappily. "Hunsdon House," he admitted. "She-er-she wandered in. There's a funeral there today, you know. She-er-I thought she looked rather lost while they were reading the Will, but as she was wearing black, I didn't gather straightaway that she shouldn't have been there. After that, I'm afraid I delayed her a little by asking her to help me choose some pictures."

Granny's sharp brown stare traveled over Mr. Lynn's lean, dark suit and his black tie and possibly took in a great deal. "Yes," she said. "I saw the hea.r.s.e go down. A woman, wasn't it? So Madam gate-crashed the funeral, did she? And I'm to take it you looked after her, Mr.-er?"

"Well he did, did, Granny!" Polly cried out. Granny!" Polly cried out.

"Lynn," said Mr. Lynn. "She's very good company, Mrs.-er?"

"Whittacker," Granny said grimly. "And of course I'm very grateful if you kept her from mischief-"

"She was quite safe, I promise you," said Mr. Lynn.

Granny went on with her sentence as if Mr. Lynn had not spoken. "-Mr. Lynn, but what were you you up to there? Are you an art dealer?" up to there? Are you an art dealer?"

"Oh no," Mr. Lynn said, very fl.u.s.tered. "These pictures are just keepsakes-for pleasure-that old Mrs. Perry left me in her Will. I know very little about paintings-I'm a musician really-"

"What kind of musician?" said Granny.

"I play the cello," said Mr. Lynn, "with an orchestra."

"Which orchestra?" Granny asked inexorably.

"The British Philharmonic," said Mr. Lynn.

"So then how did you come to be at this funeral?" Granny demanded.

"Relation by marriage," Mr. Lynn explained. "I used to be married to Mrs. Perry's daughter--we were divorced earlier this year-"

"I see," said Granny. "Well thank you, Mr. Lynn. Have you had lunch?" Though Granny said this most unwelcomingly, Polly knew Granny was relenting. She relaxed a little. The way Granny was interrogating Mr. Lynn made her most uncomfortable.

But Mr. Lynn remained fl.u.s.tered. "Thank you-no-I'll get something on the station," he said. "I have to catch the two-forty." He managed somehow to haul up one cuff, and craned round the bundle of pictures to look at his watch. "I have to be in London for a concert this evening," he explained.

"Then you'd better run," said Granny. "Or is it Main Road you go from?"

"No, Miles Cross," said Mr. Lynn. "I must go." And go he did, nodding at Polly and Nina, murmuring goodbye to Granny, and diving through the house in big strides like a laden ostrich. The front door slammed heavily behind him. Mintchoc came back in through her cat-flap in the back door. Granny turned to Polly.

"Well, Madam?"

Polly had hoped the trouble was over. She found it had only begun. Granny was furious. Polly had not known before that Granny could be this angry. She spoke to Polly in sharp, snapping sentences, on and on, about trespa.s.sing and silliness and barging in on private funerals, and she said a lot about each thing. But there was one thing she snapped back to in between, most fiercely, over and over again. "Has n.o.body ever warned you, Polly, never never to speak with strange men?" to speak with strange men?"

This hurt Polly's feeling particularly. About the tenth time Granny asked it, she protested, "He isn't a strange man now. I know him quite well!"

It made no impression on Granny. "He was when you first spoke to him, Polly. Don't contradict." Then Polly tried to defend herself by explaining that she'd thought she was following Nina. Nina began making faces at Polly, winking and jerking and twisting her food-filled mouth. Polly had no idea what Nina had told Granny, and she saw she was going to get Nina into trouble as well. She said hurriedly that Mr. Lynn had taken her out of the funeral into the garden.

Granny did indeed shoot Nina a look sharp as a carving knife, which stopped Nina's jaws munching on the spot, but she only said, "Nina's got more sense than to walk into people's houses where she doesn't belong, I'm glad to see. But this Mr. Lynn took you back indoors again, didn't he? Why? He must have known by then that you didn't belong."

Granny seemed to know it all by instinct. "Yes. I mean, no. I told him," Polly said. And she knew it had somehow been wrong to go back into the house, even if she had not made it worse by rearranging the pictures. She thought of Laurel's scary eyes, and the way Mr. Lynn had been careful not to explain to Laurel who Polly was, and she found she could not quite be honest herself. "He needed me to choose the pictures," she said. "And he gave me this one for my own."

"Let's see it," said Granny.

Polly held the picture up in both hands. She was sure Granny was going to make her take it back to Hunsdon House at once. "I've never had had a picture of my own before," she said. Mintchoc, who was a most understanding cat, noticed her distress and came and rubbed consolingly round her legs. a picture of my own before," she said. Mintchoc, who was a most understanding cat, noticed her distress and came and rubbed consolingly round her legs.

"Hm," said Granny, surveying the fire and the smoke and the hemlock plant. "Well, it isn't an Old Master, I can tell you that. And Mr. Lynn gave it you himself? Without you asking? Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Polly. This was the truth, after all. "It was instead of a medal for life-saving."

"Very well," Granny said, to Polly's immense relief. "Keep it if you must. And you'd better get that old dress off you and some lunch inside you before it's time for tea."

Nina was on pudding by the time Polly was ready to eat, and Mintchoc came and stationed herself expectantly between them. Mintchoc had got her name for being frantically fond of mint-chocolate ice cream, which was what Nina had for pudding. But Mintchoc liked cottage pie too. "It was a very respectable funeral," Polly explained as she started on her cottage pie. "Boring really."

"Respectable!" Granny said, plucking Mintchoc off the table.

"And I like Mr. Lynn," Polly said defiantly.

"Oh, I daresay there's no harm in him," Granny admitted. "But you don't go in that house again, Polly. What kind of respectable people choose to get buried on Halloween?"

"Perhaps they didn't know the date?" Nina suggested.

Granny snorted.

Later that day Granny and Nina had helped Polly bang a picture hook into the wall and hang the picture above Polly's bed, where she could see it when she lay down to sleep. It had hung there ever since. Polly remembered staring at it while Nina clamored to be told about her adventures. Polly did not want to tell Nina. It was private. Besides, she was busy trying to make out whether the shapes in the smoke were really four running people or only people-shaped lumps of hedge. She put Nina off with vague answers and, long before Nina was satisfied, Polly fell asleep. She dreamed that the Chinese horse from one of Mr. Lynn's other pictures had somehow got into her photograph and was trampling and rearing behind the fire and the smoke.

3.

Abide you there a little s.p.a.ce And I will show you marvels three THOMAS THE RHYMER.

Polly forgot to take the picture home with her when she went back from Granny's. Granny did not remind her. Thinking about it nine years later, Polly wondered if it was not really because Granny disapproved of Mr. Lynn giving it to her. On the other hand, it could have been that Granny knew, as well as Polly did, that home was not a Fire and Hemlock Fire and Hemlock sort of place. sort of place.

Home had bright, flowered wallpaper with matching curtains. Polly thought, going to bed in her own room, that pulling the curtains was like pulling the walls across the windows.

When she did remember the picture, quite late that night, she opened her mouth to yell. Then she thought better of it. Mum was in one of her moods, stony-quiet and upright, and the slightest thing would send her off into one of her long grumbles. Polly knew this, although Dad was not there to say warningly, "Quiet-you'll have Ivy in her discontents again!" Dad had gone away on a course, Mum said. So Polly shut her mouth and did not raise an outcry at forgetting her picture.

School started again. Everybody was talking about fireworks and bonfires, except Nina, who had to be different. Nina went round claiming that she was being followed by sinister strangers. n.o.body knew whether to believe Nina or not, least of all Polly.

"You mustn't speak to them," she said, thinking of what Granny had said.

"No fear!" said Nina. "I'm going to tell my Dad about them."

That made Polly wish her her Dad would come home. She missed him. She spent a lot of time with Nina that week, round at Nina's house. Mum was still in the mood, not speaking much and not much company. Nina's house was much more fun. It was all lined with varnished wood inside and smelled of cooking spices. Nina's toys were allowed to lie about on the floor, just anywhere. Nina had cars and Action Men and guns and Lego and dozens of electronic machines. Most of the batteries were dead, but they were still fun. Dad would come home. She missed him. She spent a lot of time with Nina that week, round at Nina's house. Mum was still in the mood, not speaking much and not much company. Nina's house was much more fun. It was all lined with varnished wood inside and smelled of cooking spices. Nina's toys were allowed to lie about on the floor, just anywhere. Nina had cars and Action Men and guns and Lego and dozens of electronic machines. Most of the batteries were dead, but they were still fun.

Polly loved them.

The irony was that Nina much preferred Polly's toys. By Friday evening she was sick of playing with cars. "Let's go round to your your house," she said. "I want to play with your sewing machine and your dolls." house," she said. "I want to play with your sewing machine and your dolls."

Polly argued, but Nina won by saying, "I shan't be your friend if we don't."

They set off. Nina's Mum shrieked after them that Nina was not to be a nuisance and be back in an hour. It was getting dark by then, and streetlights were coming on. Nina's gla.s.ses flashed orange as she looked over her shoulder. "I am being followed," she said. It seemed to please her.

By this, Polly understood that it was a game of Nina's. She was glad, because the idea of being followed in the dark would have been very frightening. "How many are there of them?" she asked, humoring Nina.

"Two," Nina said. "When it's the man, he sits in his car pretending to be someone's Dad. The boy stands across the road, staring." They walked on until they came to the pillar box on the corner of Polly's road. Nina knew Polly did not believe her. "I told my Dad," she said, as if this proved it. "He took me to school this morning, but the man kept out of sight."

He would, Polly thought, if he wasn't there anyway. All the same, it was a relief to rush up the path to her own front door and burst breathlessly inside.

Ivy met them in the hall, carrying a long, fat envelope. She handed it to Polly. She was still in her mood. "This came for you," she said in her stony mood-voice. "What have you been up to now?"

"Nothing, Mum!" Polly exclaimed, genuinely surprised. The envelope was addressed in Granny's writing, to Miss Polly Whittacker. At the back, somewhat torn where Mum had slit the envelope open, Granny had written: Sorry, Polly. I opened this. It wasn't a mistake. You never know with strange men Sorry, Polly. I opened this. It wasn't a mistake. You never know with strange men . Inside was another envelope, fat and crackly, with a typed address to Polly at Granny's house. It was slit open too. Polly looked at it, mystified, . Inside was another envelope, fat and crackly, with a typed address to Polly at Granny's house. It was slit open too. Polly looked at it, mystified, and then up at her mother. "Why did you open it as well?"

Nina took a look at their faces and tiptoed away upstairs to Polly's room.

Ivy smoothed at her beautifully set hair. "It was from Granny," she said in the stony voice. "It might-I thought-It could have been something to do with your father." Two tears oozed from her eyes. She shook them away so angrily that some salty water splashed on Polly's mouth. "Stop standing staring at me, can't you!" she said. "Go upstairs and play!"

There seemed nothing Polly could do but climb the stairs to her room. There, Nina was busily setting out a dolls' tea party. Polly could taste salt still, but she pretended not to notice it and sat on her bed and opened her letter. It was typed, like the envelope, but not in an official way. Polly could see mistakes in it, all the way down the first page, some crossed out with the right word written above in ink, some crossed by typed slanting lines and sorry! sorry! typed before the right word. The paper it was typed on was a mad mixture, all different sizes. The first page was smooth and good and quite small. The next page was large and yellowish. There followed two pages of furry paper with blue lines on, which must have been torn out of a notebook, and the last pages had clumps of narrow lines, like telegraph wires, printed across them. Polly, after blinking a little, recognized these pages as music paper. At this stage, delicately and gently, almost holding her breath, Polly turned to the very last page. The end of the letter was halfway down it, followed by an extra bit labeled typed before the right word. The paper it was typed on was a mad mixture, all different sizes. The first page was smooth and good and quite small. The next page was large and yellowish. There followed two pages of furry paper with blue lines on, which must have been torn out of a notebook, and the last pages had clumps of narrow lines, like telegraph wires, printed across them. Polly, after blinking a little, recognized these pages as music paper. At this stage, delicately and gently, almost holding her breath, Polly turned to the very last page. The end of the letter was halfway down it, followed by an extra bit labeled P.S P.S . She read, . She read, With best wishes to my a.s.sistant trainee-hero, Thomas G. Lynn With best wishes to my a.s.sistant trainee-hero, Thomas G. Lynn . The name was signed in ink, but quite easy to read. . The name was signed in ink, but quite easy to read.

It really was from Mr. Lynn, then. Polly felt her whole face move, as if there was a tight layer under her skin, from solemn to a great, beaming smile. Polly, in those days, was slow at reading. Long before she had finished the letter, Nina had given up even threatening. She played crossly on the floor by herself, and only looked up once or twice when Polly laughed out loud.

Dear Polly, After I had to run away so abrbnbtly abrbnbtly-sorryl-suddendly, I had quite a while to sit on the train and think, and it seemed to me that we still had a lot of details to settle conconcerning our secret lives. Most of the things are questionoins-sorryi-I need to aks you. You know more about thseses things than I do. But one thing I could settle was our first avdenture-sorryi-vadntrue-sorryi-job with the giant. I think it happened like this. Of course if you think differntly, please say so, and I shall risk your annoyance by agreeing with you. Here goes.

The first thing you must rememember is that Mr. Thomas Piper is very strong. He may look exactly like me-not unlike and ostrich in gold-rimmed glases-but he has muscles which I, in my false ident.i.ty as a mere cellist, lack. Every morning he lifts mighty sin-sorryi-sun-blistered wooden shutters, two of them, from the windows of his shop and carries them away indoors. He follows this by carrying outside to the pavement such items as rolls of chicken wire neither you nor I could lift, piles of dustbins, graden rollers neither of us could move, and stacks of hefty white chamberpots that we would have to take one at a time. Every evening he takes it all in again and brings out the shuterts. He could, if he wished, win an Olympic Gold Medal for wieght-lifting, but this has never occurred to him.

In between customers, he idly sharpens axes and stares out into the street, thinking. Like me, he has an active mind, but not having been given the education which was thrust upon me, his mind whirrs about rather. He buys old books from junk shops and reads them all. Most of them are horribly out of date. His sister Edna, who, you tell me, hates him to spend money on useless things like books, tells him he is mad. Mr. Piper thinks she may be right. At any rate, on this particular morning his thoughts are whirring about worse than ever, because he has been reading an old book called ''Don Quixote,''about a tall thin man who had read books until he went mad and fought some windmills, thinking they were giants.

Mr. Piper is staring out between dangling scrubbing brushes as he sharpens his axe, wondering if he is that mad himself, when the light is blocked from the door, once, twice, by something enormous going by. The fire-irons round the door knock together. Mr. Piper blinks. For a moment he could have sworn that those were two huge legs, each ending in a foot the size of a Mini Metro, striding past his door. ''I am that mad,'' he thinks. He has gone back to sharpening his axe when he hears cras.h.i.+ng from up the street. Then screams. Then running feet.

Edna calles from the back room. ''What's going on, Tom?''

A girl Mr. Piper recofnises as Maisie Millet from the supermarket checkout goes running past, looking terrified. ''Something at the supermarket, dear,''he calls back.

''Go and seel''Edna screams at him. She is unbearably curious. She likes to know everything that goes on in Stow Whatyoumacallit. But she cannot go out herslef because she always wears a dressing gown to save money and never takes her hair out of curlers.

Mr. Piper, still holding his axe, goes out of his shop and stares up the srteet. Sure enough, there is broken gla.s.s over the pavement in front of the supermarket, and people are running away from it in all directions, shouting for help. A robbery, thinks Mr. Piper, and runs toward it, axe in hand. He pases the phone booth on the way. The manager of the supermarket is in it, white-faced, dialing 999. The plate gla.s.s window of the supermarket has a huge hole in it, with notices about this week's prices flapping in shreds around it. As Mr. Piper races up, a white deep-freeze sails out through the hole and crashes into a parked car. Dozens of pale pink frozen chickens drop like bricks and skid across the road. People scream and scatter.

One person does not run. This is a small boy with rather long, fair hair. As Mr. Piper stops and stares at the slithering chickens, this boy girl boy girl person comes hopping through the mess toward him. person comes hopping through the mess toward him.

''Thank goodness you've come, Tan Coull''this person calls. ''Do hurryl There's a giant in the supermarket.''

This child suffers from too much imagination, Mr. Piper thinks, looking down at her-sorryi-him. She-sorryi-he is madder than I am. ''There are no such things as giants,''he syas. ''What is really going on?''

Like an answer, there is a terrible roar from inside the broken window. Mr. Piper wonders if his gla.s.ses need cleaning. A young man in white overalls from the butchery departmnent leaps through the hole in the window and runs as if for his life. Something seems to grab at him as he leaps. Whatever it is is s.n.a.t.c.hed back immediately, and there is an even louder roar. It sounds like swearing.

Mr Piper is trying to convince himself that he did not, really and truly, see a huge hand trying to grab the younf man, when the boy says, ''See that, Tan Coul? That was the giant's hand. He cut his thumb on the window .

That's why he's swearing. Let's go in quickly, while he's sucking it. There may be some more people stuck inside.''

Mr. Piper looks down the street, where the supermarket manager is still frantically talking into the teolephone. There is no sign of police or fire brigade yet. It is clear something has to be done. Consoling himself with the thought that there must be a lunatic inside the supermarket even more insane than he is, he says, ''Very well. Stay there,''and crunches through the broken gla.s.s to the window. There is an awful mess inside. Shelves of things have been pushed this way and that. The floor is covered with mounds of salt and was.h.i.+ng powder, broken jam jars and pools of cooking oil. There are holes in the walls where freezers have been ripped out. Toilet paper has been unreeled across everything. But the thing which causes Mr. Piper to stop short by the checkout desks is the huge bulk he can see down at the far end. Something large and round s.h.i.+nes balefully at him from there, surrounded by what seems to be barbed wire. Could that thing really be a giant's eye, peering at him from a giant's hair, behind a giant's doubled-up knees?

''I don't think think it's a windmill,''he murmurs doubtfully to himself. it's a windmill,''he murmurs doubtfully to himself.

''Of course it isn't,''says a voise at his elbow. He sees that the boy has followed him inside. ''The giant's sitting down against the end wall, with his knees up. He's too big to stand up in here. That should make things easy. You can just chop his head off with your axe.''Mr. Piper does not like veeven killing flies. He is quite convinced that the huge thing down at the end is an optical illusion of some kind. He tucks his axe under his arm and takes his gla.s.ses off to clean. The giant-or whatever-dissolves into a blur, which makes him feel much happier. ''I told you to stay outsude,'1 he says to the boy. he says to the boy.

''I wouldn't be much use as an a.s.sistant if I did that,'1 the boy retorts. ''I've come miles from Middleton to be your trainee, Tan Coul, and I'm not going away now.'' the boy retorts. ''I've come miles from Middleton to be your trainee, Tan Coul, and I'm not going away now.''

''My name is Piper really,'' Mr. Piper says. ''I keep a hardware shope. Is that why you keep calling me Can Tool?''

''Not Can Tool, Tan Coul, stupid!''says the boy. ''The great hero-''

But at this moment the giant moves. The blur Mr. Piper can see produces a yard-long bent strip of white, unpleasantly like a glaoting grin. Something huge softly advances on them. Mr. Piper claps his gla.s.ses on his nose and sees an immense hand with a cut on its thumb reaching out to grab them. Illusion or not, he and the boy dive out of its way. The hand, with terrible speed, s.n.a.t.c.hes after them. The boy dodges behind a zig-zag of loose shelves. Mr. Piper is left out in the open and only a pool of was.h.i.+ng-up liquid saves him. He slides in it, falls flat on his back, and loses his gla.s.ses. Somehow the boy pulls him behind the shelves too. They crouch there, panting, while the giant, as far as Mr. Piper can tell, lumbers about the shop on his hands and knees. The giant is too big to see all in one piece, even if he had not lost his gla.s.ses. There are crashes, rendings and sliding sounds.

''What's he doing?'' pants Mr. Piper.

''Pus.h.i.+ng some freezers and the cash desks across the hole in the window,'' says the boy. ''Now he's put another freezer across the door at the back.''

''Oh,'' says Mr. Piper unhappily. The giant begind to roar again. His voice is almost too loud to hear, but Mr. Piper distinctly catches the words ''fresh warm meat on legsi'' and possibly something about Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum too. He does his best not to believe that he is trapped in a supermarket with a hungry giant. But the shelf they are hiding behind tips and begins to move. Four enormous fingers with dirty nails seem to be gripping it by one end. The boy and Mr. Piper get up and tiptoe hurriedly behind the next lot of shelves, skipping over smashed pickle jars and trying not to crunch in cornflakes. Mr. Piper has to do this by smell and instinct, since he can hardly see the floor.

''Kill himi'' the boy whispers as they tiptoe. ''You're a hero. You can't can't be a cowardi'' be a cowardi''

''Oh, can't I justi'' Mr. Piper whispers back. The shelf they are now behind gegins to move too. They tiptoe on, through tins of dogfood and mushy peas. ''There are no such things as giants,'' Mr. Piper explains as they go. ''This is some kind of illusion.'' The latest shelf moves, and they scuttle behind another. Now a low rumbling begins, getting gradually louder. If Mr. Piper were not doing his best to know better, he would swear it was the giant laughing with triumph, because the giant is moving his prey shelf by shelf into a corner where the upended freezers spill out squashed b.u.t.ter and squinched cartons of yoghurt. They will be trapped in that corner.

The boy sighs. ''Do me a favor, Tan Cou-er-Mr. Piper. Pretend there is a giant. Pretend we'll be dead in a minute unless you do something.'' Mr. Piper's foot slips in yoghurt. He goes down with one knee in a pound of b.u.t.ter. The giant's rumbles becomes a roar. The boy's advice suddenly seems excellent. Mr. Piper swings his axe round in threatening circles as he kneels. The laughter stops. The blurred shape of the giant, on all fours against the windows, looks at them with its bushy head tipped on one side. Then a vast arm stretches. Mr. Piper scrambles round on his knees and chops desperately at the huge hand reaching out at him.

''Throw tins at his face!'' he gasps to the boy. ''Get him to stand up!''

''Good idea,'' says the boy. He picks up a tin and hurls it, and another. His aim is good, but he is not strong enough to worry the giant, who just comes crawling toward them. Mr. Piper throws a tin himself and chops again with his axe at the reaching hand. The giant gives a roar that buzzes the windows. They s.n.a.t.c.h up tim after tin and bombard the giant's head. The giant, kneeling hugely opposite, keeps on grabbing at them. Mr. Piper chops at his fingers every time he does, keeping him at bay. He feels hopeless now. He can only see the reaching fingers when they are almost too close. He cannot see properly to aim tins. The boy keeps. .h.i.tting, but this does not worry the giant at all. On the rare occasions when Mr. Piper's tins. .h.i.t, they make him rear up and b.u.mp his head on the ceiling.

''What's up there?'' pants the boy. ''Anything that might help?''

As far as Mr. Piper knows, there is the supermarket manager's flat up above. He is hoping that there are iron girders in the ceiling, on which the giant might be induced to brain himself. But they run out of tins just then. Mr. Piper scrambles backward to the nearest shelf and seizes a packet off it at random. Beside him, the boy hurls a large cheese. It misses, because the giant moves his bushy head aside. He moves it into line with the packet Mr. Piper has just thrown.

It turns out to be a packet of flour. It succeeds beyond Mr. Piper's wildest hopes. It hits the giant in the eye and bursts all over his face. The giant howls, so loud it hurts their ears. He claps both fists to his face and, most unwisely, rears up on his knees. The great, bushy head goes straight through the ceiling. The giant howls again and falls over backward, smas.h.i.+ng two sets of shelves underneath him. And things begin to rain down on the giant through the hole in the ceiling. First comes a large sofa, then a television, followed by a squad of armchairs. While the giant is gasping from these, there is a pause, full of sliding noises. Then a kitchen table falls on him, followed by a was.h.i.+ng machine, a big refrigerator, a dishwasher, and finally a heavy gas oven. The gas oven hits the giant in the stomach and knocks the breath out of him with a WHOOF WHOOF that blows all the tiolet paper into the air. Mr. Piper picks his way among the fluttering streamers of it until he is so close that even he can see he is standing by a steep, bushy hill of head, beside a monstrous ear. He takes careful aim, swings the axe with all his great strength, and hits the giant with the flat of it, just behind that enormous ear. Everything goes quiet. In the qiet Mr. Piper becomes aware of sirnes-sorryi-sirens, and nee-nawing and whooping. Flas.h.i.+ng lights are arriving outside the window. that blows all the tiolet paper into the air. Mr. Piper picks his way among the fluttering streamers of it until he is so close that even he can see he is standing by a steep, bushy hill of head, beside a monstrous ear. He takes careful aim, swings the axe with all his great strength, and hits the giant with the flat of it, just behind that enormous ear. Everything goes quiet. In the qiet Mr. Piper becomes aware of sirnes-sorryi-sirens, and nee-nawing and whooping. Flas.h.i.+ng lights are arriving outside the window.

The boy appears at Mr. Piper's elbow again. "You didn't kill him,'' he says reproachfully. This is a very bloodthirsty child, Mr. Piper thinks. Does she-sorryi-he want me to cut the giant into joints and pack him in the freezers? He does not like to admit that he cannot even kill flies. He replies with dignity, ''I never kill a helpless enemy. Haven't you heard of chivalry? What's your name, by the way?''

''P-er-Hero,'' says the boy. ''There are police cars and fire engines outside. What shall we tell them?''

''Nothing,'' says Mr. Piper. ''We'll go out of the back door. I'll move that freezer as soon as I've found my gla.s.ses.''