Gotcha, Little Guy!

If he were totally honest with himself, David would admit that he suspected something from the very beginning.

It was an average July day in Forteville — humid, buggy, and stupidly hot. Despite the Jurassic weather conditions, David was still out for his daily 4-mile run. Three miles in, his whole body was drenched in sweat and his feet were aching, but he was deep in an endorphin-driven euphoria. Last year, his 11th grade year in high school, he came in third in the state junior triathlon. He was determined to win next time, his last chance before graduation.

But July heat takes no prisoners, and even Forteville High’s golden boy had to slow down and take a swig of water as he passed the 7th Street playground. No kids were around because of the heat — in fact he hadn’t even seen anyone else on the street — but he was surprised to suddenly find himself watched by two sets of curious eyes at the level of his elbows.

Looking down, he saw that he was being followed by two boys, now keeping pace with him. They were identical in every way save the colors of their clothes, and they were gazing up at him and smiling. Where did they come from? Was this some kind of goofy ambush?

“Hi!” said the one on his left.

“What’s your name?” said the one on his right.

David chuckled and slowed to a stop, taking another gulp of water before he answered. “My name’s David. Who are you guys?”

The boys stood next to each other in front of him. They looked about 9 or 10, had long, curly, brown hair, well-tanned skin, and smiles that reached their gray eyes brightly. They both wore tank tops, basketball shorts and running shoes, but one was dressed all in white, and the other was dressed all in light blue.

“I’m Cade,” said the one in white.

“And I’m Conor,” said the one in blue.

David couldn’t help smiling back. “Do you guys take turns on who gets to answer first?” he asked, and the boys immediately blushed without answering. How did he know?

“Well, anyway, it’s been nice meeting you, guys! I’m going to finish my run,” David said, and gradually started building up speed again.

But the kids still followed. They ran up on both sides and stayed with him, even as he hit his stride. Breathlessly, they asked him questions, and he politely answered, amused at their curiosity and apparent stamina.

“How old are you?”

“I’m 17.”

“Do you run a lot?”

“I try to.”

“How come nobody else is playing outside today?”

“Because they don’t want to melt, I guess.”

At that answer, Conor (the one in blue, right?) gave his brother an incredulous look, and huffed out, “They’ll melt??”

Cade was unfazed, still staring at his new older friend. “We were hoping to meet more kids outside,” he said.

David whipped his longish crop of sweat-soaked blond hair and wiped his brow, his legs still pumping. “Are you guys new in town or something?” he asked, and added, “Don’t strain yourselves too much to keep up with me, little bros.”

Conor laughed and repeated the “little bros” phrase to himself. He seemed unusually tickled by it.

“We live nearby, but we haven’t been around here before,” Cade said. “And we really like running. We’ll keep up.”

And so they did. At first, David generously kept his pace pretty light, but as he saw the boys were having no trouble, he resumed his quick training speed and was delighted to find that they barely struggled. Thinking they must be serious athletes like himself, he hatched a plan when he saw that his house was only one block away.

“Hey guys, see that yellow Jeep up there?”

“Uh … huff … yeah?”

“Well … RACE YA TO IT!”

David took off like a rocket. Reacting after only a split second of surprise, Cade and Conor took off after him. All three flew through the air like falcons toward their goal, enjoying the thrill and the sudden rush of air on their glistening skin.

David of course reached the end first and started cooling down, walking in circles in his front yard. Gently, he instructed his young friends to do the same as Conor reached the Jeep and then Cade after him. They all breathed heavily, but showed no signs of exhaustion. In fact, David felt the introduction of these kids to his workout seemed to make it more fun and less strenuous for him.

Cade ran his hand along the front of the yellow vehicle in the driveway. “This is your Jeep?” he asked.

“No, it’s my mom’s,” David answered. “Hey, you guys are really good runners! Do you play a lot of sports at your school?”

“No, our school is really small,” Conor said, now acting a little shy as he gazed over the front of David’s house. It was a simple ranch-style place with red brick walls, blue drapes in the windows and a small garden with lilac bushes and white irises in the front. “You’re a really fast runner. You beat us by a lot!”

“Well, that doesn’t mean that much, man, I’m a lot bigger than you,” David said, and didn’t see the twins grin at each other.

Eventually, David invited his new buddies in to rehydrate themselves and meet his mom, and he laughed as they seemed to marvel at all his stuff, especially all the electronics and appliances. It was like they had never seen a TV like his before, even though it was a cheap, generic flatscreen — but all little kids are weird and curious like that, right?

When they went back outside, something a little stranger happened: Conor pointed to the basketball hoop bolted above David’s garage door and asked, “What’s that?” Cade gave his twin a severe look and loudly whispered, “You know what that is! Remember?”

David, bemused, figured Conor might have some sort of memory problem, or maybe he and his brother came from some kind of anti-TV cult or something. Either way, he humored him.

“That’s a basketball hoop. Do you want to play?”

And with that, David spent the next two hours — two more hours in the heat that he hadn’t been counting on before — teaching these lively kids how to dribble and shoot. They picked it up very naturally and laughed like maniacs. At one point, David showed them a dunk, and for some reason the twins joked about how “impossibly high” the hoop was.

As the sun started to set, all three guys were sighing and wrapping their sopping wet shirts around their necks. Conor and Cade accepted parting water bottles from David and walked away, claiming that their home was “not too far away.”

Retreating to his living room and sitting next to his mom on the couch after pouring a glass of iced tea, he whistled and said, “Whew! Those little guys kept me busy!”

Those kids, he realized, really reminded him of his little step-brother, Paul, who was 10 years old. Even though his parents were divorced, the two sides of the family got along fairly well, and David warmed up to his father’s new wife and son very quickly. However, last January, David’s dad got transferred to the east coast, and he hadn’t seen any of them since then. He had loved having a little brother to mentor and pick on, so Paul’s departure had left a sizable hole in his life.

For the next few days, David kept running, but he spent much more time outside because Cade and Conor kept ambushing him to play games. The weather was more agreeable, mostly, and so more kids came out to play, and the twins were fast to make friends and goof around all over the neighborhood. But if they ever saw David, they would always drop what they were doing and gravitate toward him, usually with a fair share of funny questions to ask.

It ended up being like a week at sports camp. One day, they would run, then play basketball and tag. The next day, they would play soccer, run rampant on the playground equipment, and jump around in sprinklers. On Thursday, the sky dropped buckets of rain, and after running around in the rain for a while, the twins retired to David’s house for some chocolate milk and air hockey (a game at which they SMOKED their host).

The rain continued until evening, and David and his mother happily shared dinner with their young guests, but wondered whether the kids’ parents might be worrying. Cade assured them that everything was fine, but admitted that he and his brother needed to go home soon, so David led them to the front door and the little umbrella holder in the corner of the entryway.

“What’s this?” Conor asked, reaching out his hand.

A little house spider had spun her web from the wall to one of the umbrellas, and she hung there placidly, a couple of dusty bug corpses suspended near her. Conor’s finger inched closer and closer …

“Watch out, dude, that’s a spider!” David said, and swiftly knocked the creature down onto the floor with one of the other umbrella handles. An almost inaudible crunch sounded as he flattened the arachnid under his sandal.

Cade gasped, his eyes glued to the mashed remains on the floor. Conor, however, looked up at David with accusation written all over his face, his eyes brimming with tears.

“Why did you do that?” he asked, holding himself back from shouting.

The look in the boy’s eyes shocked David. “It … it was a spider,” he said. “Spiders are dangerous. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Spiders are dangerous?” Cade asked in a quiet voice, still looking down. “But they’re so small …”

“What test tube did these kids come out of?” David thought. “Spider’s bite,” he said. “They can be very poisonous. And anyway, it’s better for them to be outside.”

Conor and Cade both nodded their heads in understanding as David found them an umbrella to borrow. He had asked them before if they wanted him to walk them home in the rain, but they quickly refused. They appreciated an umbrella, but they wanted to walk alone. Three times he tried to argue with them that they should let him come, but they would have none of it. It bothered him and made him wonder if they were embarrassed about their house or something.

Before they walked out the door, Cade turned to David and suddenly gave him a tight hug. The hug was so strong, it momentarily knocked the wind out of him, and Conor joined in.

“Oof! Aw, guys! You’re the best,” David said. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow, right?”

Conor looked up at him and nodded. “Uh huh, we’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. Cade looked up, too, but with a more grave expression.

“David,” he asked. “Is it OK if we show you something tomorrow afternoon?”

“Sure,” David said. “What is it you want to show me?”

“It’s something special,” Conor said, disengaging from the hug and pointing north. “It’s in the woods up in that direction.”

David raised one eyebrow. He knew those woods, having had explored them a little. As far as he knew, they didn’t contain much. No dangerous wildlife had ever been seen there, so that made it OK to visit — the dangerous stuff lay on the other side of the woods.

“Yeah, I can go with you guys to the woods tomorrow, but we need to be careful not to go in too deep,” David said. “There’s a border with the giant territory, you know.”

“Yeah, we know,” Cade said with a twinkle in his eye.

Saying last goodbyes, the twins headed off down the street, huddled under their big, borrowed umbrella. David waited a few moments before surreptitiously grabbing an umbrella himself and attempting to tail them. He managed to follow them for a few blocks before they made a right turn during a pretty aggressive rain shower and disappeared. David gave up and went home, wondering what they had in store for him the next day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four little fists beat on the front door at around 1 o’clock, and David, still full from lunch, met the twins outside. Both boys looked energized and ready to go, but David noticed their smiles weren’t as bright as usual. Still, they tag teamed him with questions.

“Are you ready, David?”

“Are your shoes good for hiking?”

“Have you been in the woods before?”

“Did you have a good lunch? We did!”

David laughed, answering their questions and following them north through the housing development. They only had four or five blocks to go before they reached the edge of the forest and passed the large, fenced-in yard of a quaint wooden house backed up next to a creek. Since the rains of the previous day, the water was still flowing swiftly and all the grass had a touch of dampness. The sun was partially covered by clouds and its uneven beams cast deep and dappled shade as the three friends moved under the canopies of big maples, gums and chestnut trees. The woods were almost inviting with small natural trails and sparse brambles or bushes all constituting a blanket of life butting up against the foothills and the giant territories beyond.

Like a cliché woodsman from old cartoons, David started whistling as he tromped, and very soon Conor joined in, though considerably off key. Cade blew a couple times in a spitty whistling attempt, but failed, and walked somberly. Deeper and deeper they hiked over small hill and vale, and David glanced behind him, noticing that soon the house by the creek would be totally gone from their sight. They were moving rapidly.

“Hey guys, what exactly is it we’re going to see?” he asked.

Cade looked over at him and smiled. “You’ll see when we get there,” he said.

“It’s not too much farther,” Conor said.

For about twenty minutes more they walked, maneuvering over ravines, roots and large rocks as the ground became gradually more rugged. Both boys seemed to slow down on occasion, but it didn’t seem like it was because of tiredness. Instead, David noticed both of them were occasionally sighing.

“Are you guys feeling OK, today, or what?” he finally asked, leading them onto step stones to get over a muddy swath. “You seem a little sad about something.”

Both boys looked shyly up at him, hesitant to answer. “It’s nothing,” Cade said, but almost at the same time, Conor whined, “We’ve had such a good time this week!”

“Huh? What do you mean, little bro?” David asked, knowing that the boys, for some reason, liked it when he called them that. The trio paused briefly for a rest.

“It’s no big deal,” Cade said, though his face and shoulders betrayed his despair. “We’ve had a lot of fun with you and the other kids around here, but … we have to go away for a while.”

Conor sighed heavily. “Today’s our last day,” he said, dramatically slumped next to an old stump.

David put on his “there there, buddy” face, but deep inside shared their dismay. “What, are your parents taking you on vacation?”

“Yeah,” Cade answered, a little too quickly. “We’re going on vacation to boring …” — he kicked a rock — “…boring …” — he kicked a pinecone — “…sucky-land.”

“Well,” David said, “I guess we better have as much fun as we can, then.” He picked up a large, soggy pinecone and chucked it straight at Cade’s stomach. The projectile stung a little bit, but its mushiness ensured a good, wet, muddy splat on the boy’s shirt. Then, David took off running. The twins both roared and gave chase, grabbing their own soggy pinecones along the way.

David was fast, but he didn’t want the boys to trip over the rough ground. Also, he wanted to give them at least a little chance to use their ammunition (and miss him, of course), so he jogged at a medium pace. After their little mud bombs were spent in the dirt, he turned on them and, grabbing Conor, gave the kid a monster noogie. Cade jumped on his back throwing his arms around David’s neck.

“Get off my back or I’ll torture him!” David said as he tickled Conor’s ribs, making him guffaw like a lunatic. But Cade was no pushover — he reached down and jabbed a hand into David’s armpit. The older boy yelped and released his young prisoner before leaping away and facing his twin opponents.

The boys’ old genuine smiles were back, though Cade’s looked a bit menacing at the moment. “You shouldn’t tickle people if you can’t take it yourself,” he said, and with that David led them on another chase.

Their stamina flagging, the three explorers eventually settled for walking again, and David asked again, twice, whether they were nearing the point of interest. He received no definite answer until finally, at around 2:30, he noticed that the trees were getting bigger … MUCH bigger … and farther apart. He slowed to a stop.

“Um, guys? Do you see how the forest is here? I think we might be getting a little too close to the giant territory.”

Instead of stopping right next to him, David was surprised to see that Cade and Conor had, at this point, kept a good amount of distance from him.

“It’s OK, David,” Cade said. “We can show you here.”

“Just stay right there!” Conor said, his voice quaking with nerves. “And close your eyes …”

“And we will give you a big surprise!” they both cried in unison.

David found himself feeling a little uneasy here, standing in the shade of a gigantic chestnut tree, several yards away from his young friends on either side of him. “Close my eyes … why?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cade said, his eyes glinting. “It’s just part of the game. Go ahead and close your eyes!”

Reluctantly, David obeyed.

Waiting there, in the still air of the forest, he first heard a slight “whoosh!” sound, then the creaking of nearby trees. The air seemed to feel a little different, and he was covered over with an unexplainable sense of foreboding — like one feels in the middle of the night when odd sounds drift through an open window. He heard a small branch snap and fall to the ground a little ways away from him, and something clicked in his mind.

Maybe not consciously, but subconsciously, he knew what he was going to see when he opened his eyes.

“You can look now!” said Conor’s voice, but strangely louder, more resonant, and farther away.

David opened his eyes and darted them left: He saw a pair of huge, light blue sneakers with blotchy smudges on them. One of those sneakers was about the size of a school bus. His heart started to pound violently in his chest.

His eyes darted right, and he heard and felt a small tremor as the equally huge sneakers in that direction shifted a little bit on the ground. His gaze slowly panned upward, past tanned legs, past white basketball shorts that could cover his house, past nervous fists tugging at the edge of a billowing tank top up to the billboard-sized smile on Cade’s face.

David wasn’t a screamer, but his face blanched as the truth overwhelmed him. “They’re giants,” he muttered, and his legs turned to jelly. Had he been fully lucid, he might have yelped at the colossal form of a giant boy in white swiftly stooping to pick him up, and he felt faint, his stomach doing flips, as he was suddenly moved upward to Cade’s face.

“Please don’t freak out,” Cade said softly, holding David gently nestled in his palm. Conor gingerly approached, only causing minor tremors with each step.

David looked back and forth at the enormous faces. He shook with instinctive fright, thankful that he had enough control to not pee his pants, but as he saw tears creeping into the corners of the twins’ eyes, he somehow knew that he wasn’t in danger.

“You … y-you … you guys are stinkin’ huge,” he said.

Conor chuckled a little, though his face was full of concern. “We won’t hurt you … ‘big bro,’ ” he said. “We just wanted to show the truth before we said … sigh … goodbye.” The massive boy looked down at his feet.

“Thank you for being our friend,” Cade said in a quavering voice before closing his eyes and holding the human up against his cheek in a gentle hug.

David did what he could to spread his arms and hug back. His heart, still beating like a thundering bass drum, was feeling the warm fuzzies, but the bizarreness of the situation remained.

“H-how … why …?” he began to ask as Cade brought him down, the giant hand hovering at chest level.

“Our birthday was last week,” Conor said from above, his warm breath enveloping the human. “Our mom got us five shrinking scrolls, each, to use for five days.”

“And we knew we wanted to visit the human village,” Cade continued, using his other hand to wipe tears from his face. “We’d never seen a human before. We didn’t know what to think. We always thought humans were just weird and really really little. We read some things …”

“But we didn’t know anything,” Conor said. “Then we came down off the hills through the forest, and nobody was around at all. We looked in some windows, but we thought that might be kind of creepy, and then …” his voice started to choke up, “we saw you.”

Starting to sniffle in earnest, he said to his brother, “Can I have a turn?” and Cade passed David forward. David, finally starting to calm down, carefully maneuvered himself down onto Conor’s open hand. Immediately, Connor did the same as Cade before and held his human friend up to his colossal cheek. “You were so nice to us,” he said, near hysterics now. “I wish I had a big brother just like you.”

David patted the increasingly wet giant face, not really knowing what else to do.

Cade let out a heavy sigh. “Well, I guess we should go ahead and get back. Giants aren’t supposed to be at normal size over the border,” he said. “Go ahead and put him down, Conor.”

But the boy in light blue only nodded, and didn’t put the human down right away. He stared forlornly at David’s face. “You know …” he mused, “we could take him with us.”

David gulped.

“Conor, no!” Cade whispered, stepping closer.

Conor held the little human closer to his chest and looked back defiantly at his twin. Emotion was visibly getting the better of him. “I’m not saying we should keep him!” he said. “He could just visit us for a while and we could play some more!”

“No, Conor, come on!” Cade said. “Just put him down! He needs to go home. We can’t just, y’know, kidnap him.”

To David’s relief, Conor seemed to calm down. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” the giant boy said. “But … but …”

Suddenly, with an extraordinary leap, Conor bounded southward and ran like the wind, his feet creating small earthquakes with every step, the human still in his clutches. “There’s still just one more thing I want to see!” he shouted.

“Crap crap crap! Conor, we’ll get in big trouble!” Cade yelled as he ran after his brother.

Banishing any thoughts of caution, Conor left deep footprints and bulldozed smaller trees as he made for his goal. David just froze, grasping a giant finger and waiting for the ride to end. “Where are we going?” he squeaked.

“I just want to see what a human house looks like while I’m big!” Conor huffed.

“Are you crazy?” Cade said, overhearing his twin but unable to catch up with him. Unlike when they were human-sized, they were making their way to the edge of the woods in no time at all. “At least do the soft step spell!”

“Oh yeah.” Conor slowed down briefly and, with his free hand, made an odd gesture at his feet. After he whispered a few unintelligible words, his footsteps stopped shaking the earth, and not a moment too soon they were approaching the little house by the creek.

As Conor slowed, so did the beating of David’s heart. “So giants do magic,” he thought, and the idea wasn’t especially alien to him. He had known about magic’s existence, and he had met a few magical creatures — in fact, one of his favorite teachers in middle school was a pixie. But giants were a different experience. From his vantage point, even still at a good distance, he could see that a real life house holding real life people looked like a toy to a giant. Also, to his alarm, he thought he saw movement in the back yard.

“You’ll be seen, Conor!” he gasped.

At this, the boy crouched, and Cade took the same cue behind him. “We’ll be seen, Conor! Come on!” he whispered.

Conor just stayed still for a while, looking longingly through the trees at the little house. He let out a deep breath and looked down into his hand.

His eyes were glistening. His brows were furrowed in a look of regret.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and gently placed David onto the ground.

David turned and looked up at the huge kid. “It’s OK,” he said, and tried to lighten things up with a smile. “Be careful going back home, I guess.”

Conor let out another heavy sigh, and it almost made the human stumble backward. “I’ll miss you,” he said. He held out a finger to his little friend. David touched it for a sort-of handshake. “I’ll miss you, too,” he said, and with that Conor shifted his massive body and started sneaking off into the woods, back toward the giant territory.

Cade remained crouched there, staring soulfully at David for a moment before suddenly moving forward. Causing David one more fright for the day, he gently snatched the teen up in his hand.

“Gotcha, little guy,” he whispered, and gave the human one last giant hug against his chest. “Goodbye.”

“Bye, little bro,” David said, as he was once more placed back onto the moist earth and watched a humongous friend retreat with magical silence into the wilderness.

As David walked home that afternoon, he felt emotionally drained and still a little bit shaken. “I should have guessed,” he thought, but at the same time, he realized the past week had been really fun. He’d had a blast with those kids, giant or not.

Reaching his house as storm clouds gathered in the distance, he wondered if he could ever tell anyone about that day, and he wondered if he would ever see Cade and Conor again.