Just Remember - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

One morning, almost a year later, Jesse woke up with a start. What was happening? His hut shook, and Jesse jumped out of bed.

Thump, thump, thump! he heard as the hut rattled, Jesse ran to the door and looked out into the village. A terrible sight met his eyes. A huge giant, over sixteen feet tall, was thundering through town, grabbing chickens and goats and cows, stuffing them into his mouth and chomping down on them, blood drooling from his chin!

“Run!” Jesse heard people scream as he watched back doors burst open and whole families tear their way toward the edge of town and the tall trees of the forest where they could hide.

Thump! Thump! Thump! The giant smashed over fences and gardens and small buildings as his big feet stomped through town.

Jesse heard a terrified cry, and saw a father, on the edge of the forest, look back to see his little two year old daughter standing in the street, crying. Somehow she had been left behind as her family ran to safety.

The giant heard the child's cry, too. Jesse saw him drop the rooster he had grabbed from the top of a barn, and turn greedily to find where the crying came from.

“Ah ha!” he roared when he saw the tiny girl, and the giant turned towards the tasty morsel.

“No!” Jesse shouted in fear. He couldn't let the giant eat the little girl, but what could he do?

“You are a prince, the son of a king!” he told himself as he stood shaking in his front yard. “You have to do something to save that baby!” But what?

“What would the King do?” Jesse asked, and before he even answered he began running towards the giant, shouting, “Hey, you! You big, dumb old monster! You don't want to eat that little girl, she won't even make two mouthfuls! Come and catch me, if you can. I'm much juicier and crunchier and delicious!”

The giant stopped where he was and turned his head to see who was yelling at him. As soon as he saw Jesse, he changed directions and stomped toward him.

“Now what do I do?” Jesse thought as he saw how quickly the giant thundered through town.

There wasn't nearly enough time for Jesse to run to the forest, so he turned and ran the only way he could, toward the edge of the cliff and the deep canyon beyond.

The giant was nearly on him when he reached the rope fence he had made to protect Farmer Owen's sheep from falling over.

“Keep on the steady rocks,” he told himself as he scrambled over the huge boulders.

Jesse felt a rock wobble under his feet as he ran. Quickly he jumped off that boulder, and it crashed down into the canyon below. The giant, who didn't know which rocks were steady and which ones were loose, thumped his big feet onto a spot of loose boulders, and started to slide over the side of the cliff. Wildly grabbing at the steady rocks all around him, he teetered, but he was so heavy and big that the whole side of the cliff began to crumble away, rocks and dirt and the giant all falling down into the canyon below. Jesse grabbed onto the rope fence and held tight as the rocks and dirt fell, but the fence was strong and he was safe.

When the roaring of the rocks and the falling giant finally quieted, the hiding people peeked out of the forest and walked over to the side of the canyon. There was Jesse, hanging onto the rope fence, dangling over the side of the cliff. The villagers grabbed the rope and pulled Jesse back up to safety, hugging him and patting him on the back, thanking him for saving them from the giant.

Jesse smiled, but when he turned around and saw his tumbled down hut, destroyed by the giant, his knees began to shake. “I'm glad I didn't have time to think about what I was doing,” he thought to himself, “or I may not have had enough courage to act like a prince after all.”

That night Shiz came for his yearly visit. He found Jesse sleeping in Farmer Owen's barn.

“Are you crazy?” he yelled. “Why did you do such a stupid thing? Why didn't you run away like all the other people? You could have died! That giant could have eaten you! Don't you know what a fool you were, trying to save that little girl?”

Jesse cowered before the angry wizard, afraid to say anything until he stopped yelling. At last Shiz ran out of nasty names to call Jesse, and a wicked gleam began to shine in his eyes.

“But maybe you are craftier than I thought,” he finally said. “Maybe this was your plan all along. Now you are a hero! The villagers love you, and they will give you anything you want!”

“Oh, ho! You can use this, boy! You can tell them to give you the best house in payment for saving them, and make them give you food and drink and anything you want! You are a sly one, aren't you? I should have known you'd think like this. After all, you're the son of a robber!”

“No!” Jesse shouted back, then was terrified by the look in the wizard's eyes.

“No,” he said in a softer voice, but he wouldn't back down.

“I am not the son of a robber, and I didn't save the town so they would have to pay me, and I won't take their things from them. I am the son of a king, and I will act like one!”

Shiz flew at Jesse in a rage, shaking him and screaming, cursing him for being so stupid, but as he ranted and raved in the dark night, Jesse didn't listen. Inside, in his heart, he felt a warm glow, where he knew that he had not acted like a robber, but like the son of a king.

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“I think I will have to leave this village,” Jesse told Esmer the following morning when the good wizard came to visit.

“The giant broke down my house, and I have nowhere to live. The villagers want to pay me for saving them, but they don't have enough food to take care of themselves now, after the giant stomped on everything, and they are really going to have a hard time this winter.”

Esmer smiled proudly at Jesse. “You are just like your father,” he told the boy. “I am so proud of you. But where will you go, Your Majesty?”

“I don't know,” Jesse answered. “Someplace where people won't think they have to take care of me, I guess.”