The Giants and the Joneses Read Online Free Page A

because of the cloud, but there was no sign of any iggly plops.
    So this was it. The moment he had waited for all his life.
    Throg picked up the can of weedkiller. He unscrewed the lid, then leant carefully forwards and sloshed some of the powerful liquid on to the top leaf.
    The bimplestonk began to shrivel.

9
Snishsnosh
    ‘C AN’T YOU STOP Poppy bouncing?’ Stephen said to Colette. ‘It’s getting on my nerves.’
    ‘Bouncing’s better than moaning,’ replied Colette, secretly smiling to herself because Stephen was talking to her again.
    They were back in the doll’s house, where they had discovered a bedroom at the top of a flight of stairs. There were two plastic beds and a giant sardine tin. Inside the sardine tin were the cushions from the swing,and Poppy – the only cheerful one – was jumping up and down on them.
    ‘Why did we have to come back here?’ Stephen sat on one of the beds, his head in his hands.
    ‘You know why,’ Colette reminded him. ‘It’s best if Jumbeelia doesn’t realise we tried to escape.’
    As if on cue they heard giant footsteps and Jumbeelia’s voice. ‘Snishsnosh!’ she said.
    She lifted the front off the doll’s house and started to fiddle about in the kitchen. Poppy ran down the stairs. Colette and Stephen followed more slowly.
    On the kitchen table was an object which looked a bit like a very long loaf of bread. But it wasn’t crusty like bread; it was smooth, and slightly greasy-looking, and yellowish. A faint trail of steam was rising from it, and the smell was definitely not one of bread. Yet it was a smell that Colette knew very well, one of her favourite smells in fact, a mixture of salt and vinegar and …
    ‘Nice big chip,’ said Poppy.
    ‘It’s the biggest chip in the world!’ said Stephen, suddenly in a good mood, and Colette laughed.
    ‘Snishsnosh!’ said Jumbeelia again. Colette’s hungerdelicious smell was.
    The girl giant began to cut the chip into slices.
    ‘Watch it,’ said Stephen. ‘That’s a giant razor blade. She could be planning to carve us up with it.’ But when Jumbeelia handed out slices of the giant chip, he bit into his straight away.
    ‘This beats McDonald’s,’ he said.
    ‘It’s lucky she likes the same things as us, isn’t it?’ said Colette between mouthfuls. ‘Supposing they ate slug dumplings or something?’
    ‘Don’t speak too soon – what’s this?’
    The girl giant had put three round dark objects on the table. They looked a bit like bun-size Christmas puddings. Colette sniffed one, then nibbled at it. It tasted familiar.
    ‘Nice big raisin,’ said Poppy.
    As they munched away, Jumbeelia placed something else in front of them. It was a tube of toothpaste longer than the tabletop.
    ‘Trust her to think we want to eat toothpaste ,’ said Stephen.
    ‘Maybe she wants to clean our teeth,’ said Colette.
    They were both wrong. Jumbeelia unscrewed the lid of the tube. To the children this was the size of a large vase. She poured a few orange-coloured drops into it from a giant bottle. ‘Beely gloosh,’ she said.
    They let Jumbeelia hold the toothpaste lid to their lips and tilt it while they sipped, and only a little of the drink trickled down their chins.
    ‘It had better not be poison,’ muttered Stephen.
    ‘Don’t be silly – it’s orange juice,’ said Colette. ‘But what’s she got now?’
    ‘Peggy line!’ cried Poppy, recognising the washing line that had been in the bag with them.
    ‘Iggly swisheroo,’ said Jumbeelia.
    She picked up Poppy and took off her jumper.
    ‘All cold,’ complained Poppy as her skirt came off too, and, ‘Not bedtime,’ when Jumbeelia dressed her in a long lacy nighty. But she was delighted with the stripy football jumper which the giant girl then slipped over her head. ‘All pretty now,’ she said.
    ‘It looks like it’s your turn,’ said Stephen to Colette, as Jumbeelia reached out for her.
    Even though the girl giant was gentle in the way she handled