The Giants and the Joneses Read Online Free PDF

almost impossible not to tread on something in her daughter’s messy bedroom. She looked down to see what was underfoot this time. It was a section of plastic railway track.
    And then something moved and she gasped.
    There at her feet was a nasty-looking grubby little creature with horns. She took a step back, in horror.
    Calm down, she told herself: it must be an iggly clockwork toy.
    She forced herself to squat down and inspect it. The creature made the sound again, and she noticed that it was surrounded by little brown balls, like mouse droppings.
    It wasn’t a toy. It was alive!
    It looked – but that was ridiculous, it couldn’t be! – like a tiny sheep.
    Whatever it was, it was disgusting and unhygienic, and must be disposed of without delay. Bracing herself, Mij trapped the revolting blebbery thing under an empty box. As she did so, she imagined she heard another sound, like a tiny gasp, coming from under Jumbeelia’s bed.
    She listened again but all was quiet.
    Now wasn’t the time to search the room, but in the morning she would force Jumbeelia to have a thorough clear-out.
    Meanwhile, back to her unpleasant task. She couldn’t bring herself to touch the nasty iggly creature. Rummaging under the bed, she grasped a furry slipper. That should do the job …
    Colette and Stephen watched helplessly from their hiding place under Jumbeelia’s bed as the giant mother used the slipper to sweep the sheep into the box. They saw her carry it out of the room, closing the door behind her.
    They heard footsteps, and more doors opening and closing, and then, a while later, the flushing of a giant toilet.

11
The return of Zab
    Z AB PULLED J UMBEELIA’S favourite scrunchy off her hair. When she tried to snatch it back he laughed. He had only been home from boarding school for half an hour and already he was being unbearable.
    Mij had given them a mid-morning snack: two packets of crisps and a bowl of cherries. Jumbeelia loved cherries – not just eating them, but finding the pairs with joined-together stalks and putting them over her ears like earrings. But as soon as Zab saw her do that hesnatched them off and popped them in his mouth. He had already eaten most of her crisps as well as his own.
    He was stretching and twanging the scrunchy now. Jumbeelia tried again to grab it from him but he held it above his head.
    She called out to her parents: ‘Mij! Pij!’
    Pij, in his police uniform, popped his head round the door for a hurried ‘yahaw’ and to tell them not to fight. He was late for his shift and didn’t have time to listen to Jumbeelia’s protests.
    Zab was quick to find a use for the scrunchy: as a catapult, to launch cherry stones at his sister.
    Jumbeelia tried to escape from the kitchen, sneaking the last two cherries into her nearly empty crisp packet. She hoped the iggly plops would like them. But before she was out of the room Zab came after her and grabbed the crisp bag.
    ‘Nug! Askorp!’ Jumbeelia’s shriek brought Mij to her rescue, but it was too late to retrieve the crisps and cherries: Zab had already eaten them.
    Their mother did her soothing act. She said that Zab must just be tired after his long term and thejourney home, and suggested that he had a sleep. Zab shrugged, and sloped off to his room.
    He was such a lazy boy, Jumbeelia thought, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain. Now she would be able to have some time on her own to play with the iggly plops; and to look for the iggly blebber, which had mysteriously disappeared during the night.
    But Mij had other ideas. It was time, she announced, to tidy Jumbeelia’s bedroom. They would do it together.
    Usually Jumbeelia could wriggle out of this task by putting it off to the next day. ‘Chingulay,’ she would plead. ‘Chingulay, Mij! Beesh, beesh, beesh!’ and finally Mij would cave in.
    But not today. Today Mij put her foot down. She propelled Jumbeelia into her bedroom, and there she told her about the disgusting little