The Biggest Birthday

A childrens' story.

When winter break started, Liam went to his great-uncle’s in Redfield for the holidays, because his parents were travelling for work. He was going to turn eleven on his first day there, and he wondered what that would be like with just his uncle.

The car ride to great-uncle John’s house was very long, and the man talked a great deal, so Liam fell asleep in the car.

When he woke up the next morning it was still dark, because it was winter, so he walked around the room blindly to find a lightswitch. First he found a chair and a wardrobe by hitting his feet on them. Then, after swearing loudly, he bumped into a wall and there was the switch. He turned on the light, blinked against it, and was amazed. This whole room was stuffed with books! It was a miracle that he hadn’t knocked over one of these tall stacks of hardbacks on his search for light. His bed was surrounded by them.

Awed and with his mouth hanging open he sat crosslegged in front of one of the piles and read the spines. A huge red one didn’t have writing on it so he pulled it out and opened it. It smelled dusty and mucky and the pages were yellow and crispy. There were pictures of landscapes in them, hills and forests and sometimes a castle or a hut in the background, all really dull, Liam thought. Then one picture showed a girl. About his age, with a dress like a fairytale princess and long braids. She stood on one side of the picture looking down at her feet, but there was nothing there.

Liam looked very hard to see what she was looking at, but only discovered that there were letters written all around the picture like a frame. He found the place where the line was broken and slowly read the word-frame aloud:

‘If your home is grey and dull

If you think you’ve seen it all

If you really want to go

Join the world you want to know

Find a lone and empty hall

Say the spell out loud – and fall!’

Suddenly his toes and fingers began to tingle, then his stomach, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the picture! Then everything around him flimmered and tinkled, it felt like he was being tickled from all sides! He couldn’t help himself and had to giggle as this strange feeling tightened around him like a net and pulled him in!

He couldn’t see anything but white lights but had the strong impression of falling, with this feeling like his insides were lifted out of their usual places! It was like riding on a bike down a steep hill very fast! He squeezed his eyes shut.

Then it stopped. He opened his eyes and stared. There was a pair of HUGE legs standing in front of him. He looked up and straight into the face of the girl from the picture in the red book. She was TALL! She didn’t look older than he, but she was taller than the tallest person Liam had ever seen!

Liam muttered: ‘Wow.’ The girl grinned and giggled.

‘You’re small!’ said she. Her voice was big too! It wasn’t deep or anything, it was just a girl’s voice, but sort of loud!

‘You’re big!’ said Liam. He stood up and saw that he didn’t even go up to her knees. ‘You’re a GIANT!’ he said and pointed at her. The girl sat down on the grass and laughed.

‘No, YOU’re a dwarf!’

‘Is everybody so tall around here?’

‘Of course!’

Then something occured to him that he had heard of:

‘Do you eat people?!’

The girl laughed again.

‘Of course not!’ She stroked his head lightly and said: ‘You’re funny. I will keep you as my pet.’

‘No way!’

The girl just laughed, picked him up under his arms and held him like a doll in her arms. Liam struggled but gave up soon because she was much stronger than he was. The giant girl carried him over the field towards the castle he had seen in some of the pictures in the book. They passed cattle and people that were all even bigger than the girl.

‘What’s your name? Do you have a name? I’m Jenny. My father is King Jonas. There,’ she pointed to the castle walls they were approaching. ‘You’re going to live there with us, I’ll get you a small bed, small clothes, a small bathtub, and everything! And I can bake you small cakes, too!’

‘I’m not small! You’re just too big, all of you!’

Giant Jenny brought him into a huge hall with long torches and much straw on the ground and big, long tables. She put him on one of the tables.

‘Father, look! I found a dwarf!’

The table started to shake and Liam crouched so he wouldn’t fall. The source of the shaking was a big hairy fist that had pounded on the table.

‘IT CAN’T BE! IT’S A REAL, LIVING DWARF!’ boomed a large voice. A large bushy face loomed over Liam and stared at him.

‘You’re not going to eat me, King Jonas!’ shouted Liam bravely. The king laughed.

‘May I keep him?’ asked Jenny.

‘He seems harmless. Yes, you may keep him. But he is your responsibility. You have to clean up is litter and feed him regularly,’ said King Jonas. Liam couldn’t believe his ears.

‘What?! Clean up my litter?!’ he yelled.

Jenny nodded and beamed at the king. Liam slumped against a cauldron that was standing on the table and groaned: ‘Now I’m a giant princess’ pet! And this was going to be my birthday.’

‘It’s your birthday?’ cried Jenny happily. Liam nodded. ‘Father, can we have a birthday party and a cake for him?’ The king smiled and nodded. Jenny cheered and picked Liam up to carry him into the kitchen.

‘We’re going to bake you a cake and write your name on it!’

When the cake was done she asked his name and Liam helped spell it correctly by kneeling on the cake and pushing the sugar letters into place.

When he looked at the result he was pleased. After all, this was the biggest birthday cake he ever had! So he didn’t mind being small so much right then. And if these giants ate cake they probably didn’t eat people, too. So Liam decided to believe Jenny and expected to not be gobbled up by one.

They actually had a great party then, great and big in every sense, and very loud, and Liam taught Jenny a few games he knew. By the end of the day he was so exhausted that he let Jenny carry him into her room and tuck him into a doll bed.

‘Before you sleep, I will read you a bedtime story, alright?’ said Jenny. Liam was too tired and too stuffed with giant cake to argue, so he just shrugged. Lying in his doll bed, he watched Jenny the giant princess pull a big red book from a shelf. She kneeled next to him and held the book open for him. It showed pictures of fields with poppies and a train station, and a black car in the background. It all looked like Redfield to Liam. Around one picture of a pile of books there was a line of writing, and Jenny read it to him:

‘At evening into bed you creep

Close your eyes, and go to sleep’

There Liam couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, and heard Jenny’s voice read out the last words like whispers ...

‘Dream of having been a gnome

And then wake up and be at home.’

He drifted through a black mist and dreamed of running across a giant table, narrowly avoiding fists and cauldrons, and finally smashing into a soft cake. When he heaved himself out of it, he noticed that it wasn’t a cake at all, but his pillow, and that he was lying in great-uncle John’s guest bed again.