In a Glass Grimmly by Adam Gidwitz Read Free Book Online Page A

laughter.
    Jack’s own smile faded.
    The other boys joined Marie in his hysterics. They were slapping their knees, laughing so hard they wanted to cry.
    They were not the only ones who, all of a sudden, wanted to cry.
    ----
    The village boys had decided to follow Jack, instead of the man with the cart.
“Jack took a cow to the market fair . . .”
they chanted.
    Jack’s face was hard and set as he walked toward home. Dusty tear-trails streaked both cheeks.
    “Jack took a cow to the market fair,
    Met him a swindler on the way there!”
    He had chased down the man on the cart and asked him to trade back. The man had laughed at him at first. Then he had hit him with his horse switch.
    “Jack took a cow to the market fair,
    Met him a swindler on the way there!
    Dumbest boy you’ve ever seen,
    gave his cow up for a bean!”
    Jack glanced over his shoulder. Marie led the other children in the chant, waving his fingers back and forth to keep time. Jack wiped his eyes with his sleeve and hurried home.
    Jack’s father did not listen to his story. He took one look at the bean in the little boy’s hand, shouted at the top of his lungs a word that I cannot print here, and then flung the bean straight out the window. Jack went scurrying after it.
    He crawled around on his hands and knees in the yard, his eyes brimming with tears.
    Inside the house, his father banged doors and cabinets and occasionally shouted that word that I cannot print.
    As the sun was dipping below the horizon, Jack finally found the bean. He sat by it and watched the sky light up a hundred colors. Purples and reds and oranges that had no names, as far as Jack knew. He felt as if he were burning in them. He could barely breathe. Every time his father slammed another door, he shuddered.
    Happy birthday,
he thought.
Today you could have become your own man
.
    And then, at the edge of his father’s property, Jack saw a small form crest the hill. It came toward him slowly, shufflingly. Jack watched it approach. It seemed to be a lump of brown, with two dirty human feet sticking out the bottom. It waddled right up to where Jack was sitting.
    “Hello,” said Jack. “What are you?”
    “Your cousin,” said the lump. “Dummy.”
    And the lump sat down on the grass beside Jack. It began to molt. The brown fell back from its head. The brown was actually just a filthy blanket, Jack could see now. Jill, also filthy (but, I should add, now wearing clothing), had been hiding under it. She smiled at him wanly.
    “I had a bad day,” she said.
    Jack smiled in a scrunched up way. “Me too,” he said. “It was my birthday.”
    “It was my mom’s half birthday.”
    “I got in trouble. Really bad.”
    “Me too.”
    “What’d you do?”
    “I went out in front of the whole kingdom naked.”
    Jack tried to stifle a laugh.
    “Hey!” Jill said.
    “Why did you do that?”
    Jill shrugged. Then she said, “What’d
you
do?”
    “I traded Milky for a bean.”
    Jill laughed out loud.
    “The bean’s magic,” Jack insisted. “Wanna see?” He held it up. The moon illuminated it. It did look magic.
    “It isn’t magic,” said Jill.
    Jack looked at it. “No,” he said. “I guess not.” Suddenly, inside the house, Jack’s father slammed something and again shouted that word I’m still not printing. Jill put her arm around Jack’s shoulders. He returned the favor.
    Besides being cousins, you see, Jack and Jill were best friends. Whenever one visited the other, they played imaginary games and told each other stories and made up stupid jokes together. And, every once in a while, when they really needed it, they put an arm around the other’s shoulders.
    “Oh, I want to introduce you to someone,” said Jill.
    She reached into her brown blanket and produced a frog.
    “Ooh!” cried Jack. “A big fat frog!” And he grabbed the frog and held him up.
    Jill tried to stop him, but Jack was too excited. “He’s big and he’s fat and he only has three