Dad came home drunk again. Mum kicked him out. The cupboard was bare, except for a bag of dry beans well past their use-by date. Mum told me to go foraging.
I swept the beans into my hoody and wandered into the lane, hoping to sell them for some cows — the opposite of what Beanstalk Jack did in a story Dad told me when I was young.
Nobody was interested in giving me anything for them, let alone a cow or two. Until a giant strode into the lane from the forest. "I’m hungry," he roared.
"Would you like some beans?" I asked.
The Giant said yes, he would plant them and grow a beanstalk to climb back to his mother. He gave me a fat white goose in return.
I took the bird back to my Mum, who strangled, plucked and cooked it.
I was sad, because the way it nuzzled me with its orange beak reminded me of how Dad tickled my chin with his yellow fingers whenever he returned from the pub.
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