EllRay Jakes and the Beanstalk by Sally Warner Read Free Book Online Page B

as usual these past couple of weeks.
    We have all been SNEAKING peeks at Kevin’s drawing. There are a lot of bloody body parts lying around, and a smiling boy is standing in the middle of them, hands on his hips.
    â€œIt’s for this cool story my dad helped me find,” Kevin reports after giving me a quick look. “It’s called ‘The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers.’”
    â€œThat’s not even a real story,” Cynthia informs him, adding some dots to the edge of Cinderella’s perfectly clean white apron. Lace, probably. Cynthia would never allow even
pretend
dirt on her drawing.
    â€œIt is, too,” Kevin says, not even looking at her.
    â€œWell,
I’ve
never heard of it,” she says, like that means anything.
    Heather comes back to the table. “Your turn, EllRay,” she says to me, and so I flip my illustration facedown on the table so no one can draw a mustache or something worse on Jack, get my story, and head for Ms. Sanchez’s desk.

    â€œSo, EllRay,” Ms. Sanchez begins, smiling at me as I hand her my paper to look at again. “Let’s talk. You wrote a lot, but I take it you were a little disappointed with ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’?”
    â€œIt wasn’t the way I remembered,” I try to explain. “Only it was too late for me to change stories.”
    â€œThat’s okay,” Ms. Sanchez says, pinning back some loose hair that has fallen from the shiny black bun at the back of her head. “You know, there are a couple of ways to look at this pickle you’re in. First, there are a number of versions of just about every folk tale or fairy story there is, did you know that?”
    â€œYou mean people just make stuff up and change the stories?” I ask, frowning.
    â€œWell, sure,” she says, laughing. “Writers tell the stories people want and need to hear, and those needs can change over time. And some of these stories go back hundreds—even thousands—of years, so naturally they evolve.”
    â€œHuh,” I say, trying to figure out what she’s saying.
    â€œAlso, people
remember
the stories the way they need to,” Ms. Sanchez continues. “Like you did with Jack in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,’ who you said ‘ended up being a hero,’ with nobody making fun of him anymore.”
    â€œBut when I looked on the Internet, nothing I read was the way I remembered it,” I remind her. “All the versions I read said he stole stuff from the giant.”
    â€œAnd stealing is wrong, as you pointed out,” Ms. Sanchez agrees, nodding. “But I think what those stories were really trying to say was that Jack was being clever, tricking the giant the way he did. He had to learn how to deal with someone who was mean and scary, like we all do. And remember, Jack was trying to help his mom.”
    â€œHe was trespassing,” I say. “
And
stealing. You can’t do that just because you don’t like someone, or because they’re a giant. Can you?”
    Maybe you can! That would be pretty cool if it were true, I think, imagining it. You could just make a list of everyone who deserves to be robbed, and—

    â€œEllRay?” Ms. Sanchez is saying. “You wandered off.”
    That means I stopped paying attention for a moment, which is true.
    I do that. It’s one of my things.
    â€œWhat I’m trying to tell you is that I’m very happy with the way you carried out the assignment,” Ms. Sanchez says. “You did your research, then you explained how the story differed from the way you remembered it.”
    â€œBut my research made a lie out of everything I liked about the story,” I say.
    â€œNot necessarily,” Ms. Sanchez tells me. “What I want you to do next is to remember why the story was important to you in the first place, For example, if you were Jack, who would be the giant in your