Because You Love to Hate Me(15)

I walk to the cabinet and pull open a drawer. I bet this is what a person feels like when they have to slaughter one of the chickens they’ve been feeding all year. But Jack isn’t a chicken and I’m not just any person. I’m the future Empress of the Northern Hemisphere, and just as Jack ingested the python, just as he ingested fierce, unflinching power incarnate, I have to ingest Jack so that I can take my people into our next era. There’s a lot to learn, and I can’t do it scared.

Jack wouldn’t want that.

I grab a box of matches and turn to face the bull. In one of those TV stories, this would be where I change my mind, where I think about all our conversations and how Jack has helped me open up, find myself. I’d overcome my natural instinct to see us as two different species and I’d let him out and we’d be friends or maybe even romantic interests while everyone pretends not to notice a relationship between a giantess and a normal-sized human boy would never work in the end because logistics, and that’s just for starters. But this isn’t TV—it’s real life.

So I swipe the match against the side of the matchbox and ignite the wood beneath the bronze bull. I consider staying here, because perhaps I owe Jack this much, but I’m not a masochist and punishing myself won’t change anything so I decide to do some work on that chair, maybe finally pick a leather piece for the seat. That’ll clear my head.

I open the door to the basement and hear the first of Jack’s shouting. I’ve seen Dad use the bull plenty while hosting feasts and barbecues, enough to know that about forty minutes from now, the echoed cries from inside the bull’s bowels will have long gone silent, and the smoke pouring from its nostrils (which were engineered with pipes to make human cries sound like a bull’s bellows) will have thinned to wisps, and all will be done. I shut the door behind me and walk down into the basement.

I shiver a little—maybe because it’s chilly, maybe because I feel bad about what I’m about to do tonight (you know, breaking my “I don’t eat anything with a face” motto), maybe because I feel the importance of this moment—and I tell myself, Even climbing Mount Everest starts with a single step. Considering everything to come, eating meat is a small sacrifice I’m willing to make for the greater good. And there’s a certain beauty in this, really, because it’s because of Jack’s belief in me that even this tiny step is possible.

I sit at the hearth and pick out a leather piece I saved from a while back, a skin I had tanned after one of Dad’s meals. Though I’ll probably need a few more, this piece is smooth and supple, which makes up for the stupid toad’s head marring its surface. Like I said, bad life choice. The boy and I never even got a chance to exchange more than five words before Dad snatched him up. But that’s okay. It’s cool, as they say below. Because I was smart enough to toss down two bags of beans instead of one, and in forty minutes, the fearless powers of the python will course through my veins.

The world was ours, once. Fee fi fo fum. Perhaps it can be ours again.

Thanks, Jack. This chair’s for you.





TINA BURKE’S VILLAIN CHALLENGE TO AMERIIE:

“Jack and the Beanstalk” Meets Phalaris of Agrigento





GIANTS AND TYRANTS





BY TINA BURKE



Surely you know “Jack and the Beanstalk,” but are you scratching your head over who Phalaris was? Be glad that you never met him! Phalaris of Agrigento was a Sicilian tyrant from the sixth century BC, who is included on many Most Horrifying Historical Figures lists. He might have been the epitome of villains, renowned for eating babies and roasting his enemies to death in a giant bronze bull.

Mashing “Jack and the Beanstalk” with Phalaris allows for a contrast between new and old villains in Ameriie’s story, “Jack.” To understand my point, let’s look more closely at giants and tyrants.

THE COMMON DENOMINATOR FOR BOTH IS HORROR.

Told in first person, Ameriie’s story subverts many tropes. The empress’s perspective allows the reader to explore the mind of a giant and the heart of her culture. The reader identifies with her and is lured in line by line, downgrading the horror happening around her—and ultimately the horror that befalls Jack.

GIANTS ACT AS A METAPHOR FOR GROWING UP.

“Jack” offers a new outlook through its focus on a giant at the cusp of adulthood. When we’re children, we can’t wait to grow up. We want to be adult-or giant-sized, yet somewhere along the way, we no longer admire and idolize the difference that we sense; we become afraid of the unknown. Ameriie’s giant feels the same way. She wants to see the world far below her cloud, but she’s afraid and can’t even peek over the rail. Ironically, Jack persuades her to do it, to be brave, to claim her future. He didn’t realize what that meant for him.

WE CAN OFFER NEW PERSPECTIVES THROUGH FAIRY-TALE RETELLINGS.

One common exploration of the struggle between good and evil, heroes and villains, is the fairy tale. Fairy tales speak to our love of happy endings, and fairy-tale retellings in particular speak to our moral codes while affording the opportunity for marvelous adventures. Although giants are normally considered mythical monsters, they become more in retellings; finally, they have been granted a chance for validation. Ameriie’s story provides a tipping point in favor of the giant. The reader likes Ameriie’s giant and roots for her. She’s more complex and layered than the giants in the original story.