If We Were Giants Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Disney Enterprises, Inc.

  Illustrations by Antonio Javier Caparo

  Cover illustration © 2020 by Antonio Javier Caparo

  Designed by Marci Senders

  Cover design by Marci Senders

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

  ISBN 978-1-368-00203-5

  Visit www.DisneyBooks.com

  For my kids, who were the first to hear the story

  —D.M.

  For Tyler Robbins

  —C.B.S.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One – The Volcano

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Two – The Tree Folk

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part Two – The Tree Folk

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Illustrations

  Authors’ Notes

  About the Authors

  ONLY A FEW PEOPLE were ever allowed to venture past the borders of Zedu. Ten-year-old Kirra was one of them.

  She should have been constantly aware that this was a great and serious responsibility. She should have remained on high alert for the many dangers. She should have made careful note of everything she saw and heard to bring knowledge back to her people.

  But mostly she liked to chase squirrels.

  Every square inch of the limited space back in Zedu was claimed for something useful—crop terraces, or thatched huts, or grazing plots for livestock. But here on the Outside, Kirra loved how the whole world could just relax and stretch itself right out. There were no forests inside the confines of Zedu’s walls, and out here, the miles upon miles of tall trees made for an irresistible playground. Her small feet were perfect for racing along branches—even the narrow ones—and her light body allowed her to take flying leaps from one tree to another without breaking the limbs in her sure-handed grip as she swung from them.

  And there were squirrels. So many squirrels. It was Kirra’s goal to capture one and bring it home to show Tiko, mostly because he just shook his head when she described the cutest creature she had ever seen. As much as her little brother loved hearing her stories about the Outside, she could tell he didn’t believe half of them.

  The squirrel she was after made its big mistake after leading Kirra up a hundred feet. Had it kept climbing, she might have eventually given up. But the creature suddenly shifted and changed course, apparently thinking it would have a better chance of escape on the ground, and it started scrambling down the tree trunk.

  Kirra, red-faced and panting after the long chase, suddenly had the advantage. Going down was much easier than climbing up. With a fearlessness that had always inspired envy in her brother and horror in her mother, Kirra hopped from branch to branch, scarcely balancing on one foot before bounding to the next limb, more like controlled falling than climbing down. So she was already on firm footing when the squirrel came blindly barreling down the tree trunk.

  Kirra waited…waited…and then suddenly lunged. She came away with two handfuls of squirming fur.

  “Aha! Finally got one!”

  She wasn’t sure who was more surprised—she or the squirrel. But as she watched it scrabble its tiny paws against her hands and frantically turn its head this way and that, she suddenly felt pity for it. After all, squirrels enjoyed running free through these glorious trees as much as she did.

  Kirra tilted her head and studied the creature. “So what do you think I should do with you?”

  The squirrel stopped squirming, looked right at her, and unleashed a stream of chittering.

  “You sound like Maja when she’s mad,” Kirra said, smiling.

  This observation didn’t sit well with the creature. It started thrashing around even more in its frenzied attempt to escape. Kirra held it in a gentle yet firm grip, then carefully removed one hand from the squirrel and felt for the pouch tied to her waist. She had brought it especially to carry back a fine specimen such as this.…

  But she just couldn’t do it.

  Kirra knelt on the forest floor. “You’re lucky I have such a soft heart today, my furry friend.” She lowered her hands to set it gently on the ground, but instead, the squirrel turned and, in a flash, raced up the length of her arm, scrambled onto the top of her head, and—digging its little paws into her thick hair—launched itself back into the tree, where it disappeared into the branches.

  Kirra smirked and shook her head. She was brushing dirt and little wisps of fur off of her hands, when—

  “Kirra!”

  Uh-oh. Her father. And the sound of his voice was so faint, she must have traveled farther than she’d meant to.

  “Kiiir-ra!”

  Much farther. She could barely hear him. That was not good.

  She ran in the direction of the voice, quickly finding the way blocked by thickets of brush, fallen logs, and rotting stumps with plants growing straight out of their tops.

  Better to go up and over.

  Kirra jumped to grab a low-hanging branch with both hands, pulled herself up, and swung her body around until she was straddling it. Then she hopped to her feet, ran along the sturdy limb, and leaped off, grabbing at the branches of the next tree. These were thinner and much more pliable, and she swung through the air in a dizzying rush, the broad leaves swiping her face, until she was able to pull herself hand over hand to thicker branches closer to the trunk. Then she scaled the limbs, ten, twenty, feet off the ground, and jumped to the next tree.

  “Kir-ra!”

  Closer now. She angled over to her left, bounced across a half-dozen more trees, and could finally see the trunks thinning out where the wide dirt road snaked through the forest.

  Soon she was able to get a glimpse of Taro. Big and broad-shouldered, he stood in road-dusty robes in front of their cart, cupping both hands around his mouth and shouting.

  This was not going to end well. She’d been gone too long, made her father worry. She could hear it in his voice. Kirra would certainly be punished this time.

  Unless…

  As she approached, she could see that Taro had his back to the cart as he yelled into the forest. The two-wheeled contraption was in the middle of the road, directly under an overhanging tree branch. Their supplies were covered by a clump of soft robes and blankets.

  Kirra leaped to that tree and found herself perched above his head. One of the talents she had discovered while traveling Outside was the ability to move silently.

  “Kir-ra! Come back here this instant!” His voice was booming now that she was so close. “If I have to go into that forest, you can forget about coming on the next trip!”

  As he was calling, Kirra stepped off the branch and dropped directly onto the
blankets in the cart. She quickly pulled a few of them over herself and started fake snoring. Loudly.

  Taro whirled around, surprised, and whipped the blankets off of Kirra. “Where have you been, daughter?”

  Kirra slowly blinked her eyes open and rubbed them with her fists. “Why, whatever do you mean, Paja?” she asked, her voice dripping with innocence. “I’ve been resting here the whole time.” Kirra let out a huge yawn and made an exaggerated show of looking around at their surroundings. “Oh! Are we almost there?”

  Taro just sighed and shook his head. “At least the Council chose my Helper well. I swear, you can sell a story better than anyone.” He narrowed his eyes and shook a finger at her. “Even the flimsiest and sketchiest of stories.”

  Kirra giggled. Taro grabbed her around the waist with both hands and lifted her out of the cart as if she weighed no more than a small sack of papayas. Then he set her down and pointed at the bend in the road up ahead. “We’re approaching Lukweii. You stay close to me now, understand?”

  “Yes, Paja.” Kirra sighed. “But there’s just so much to see out here.” She spread her arms and twirled in a circle, indicating the entire world. “I never have the chance to soak it all in before it’s time to go back home.”

  “I know, little one, I know.” He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “But we have a job to do. It’s time to get ready for the show!” Taro tapped both of his cheeks. “Go ahead…do your magic.”

  Kirra turned to the cart, rummaged around under the blankets, and came out with a small stool and a leather carrycase. Taro sat on the stool, eye to eye with his daughter.

  Kirra pulled a small pouch from the case, dipped her fingers in, and they came out covered in a sticky black mixture of sap from a gum tree mixed with charcoal. Taro grimaced, baring his teeth at her, and Kirra rubbed the paste over three of his front teeth. When she was done, it looked like those teeth had fallen out, leaving a black space.

  “Ach. I’ll never get used to the taste of that.”

  “Paja. Don’t talk. Let it dry.”

  He nodded obediently.

  After that, she pulled out a battered eye patch and slipped it over Taro’s head, settling the shabby fabric in place over his right eye.

  Next, she dipped into another pouch filled with ashes mixed with a bit of water and powdered milk, and Kirra ran her fingers over Taro’s head, giving his black curls a series of mangy gray streaks. She followed this up by grabbing a handful of hay and wedging some of the stalks into his mane, then rubbing her hands in the dirt before smudging them across her father’s brown cheeks.

  The final touch was to grab a lumpy pillow and a dark, threadbare cloak. Taro leaned forward and let Kirra drape the cloak over his shoulders and then shove the pillow underneath the collar of his robe so that it rested behind his neck, giving him the appearance of a hunchback.

  “So?” He rose from the stool but remained slightly bent over, scowling. When he spoke, it was with the raspy yet powerful voice that he would use in the village. “How do I look?”

  “Hideous.”

  “Perfect!” Taro indicated the cart with a nod of his head. “Now it’s your turn.”

  Kirra sighed again and pulled a battered straw sun hat from the cart. She tied up her long, curly dark hair with a bit of string, then pushed it all up inside of the hat as she set it on her head. Afterward, she slipped on an oversize cloak and rubbed some of the dirt on her own face as well.

  Taro tilted his head to study his daughter, then tsk-tsked at her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re becoming much too pretty to pull this off.”

  “Paja. Quit teasing. It’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not teasing. You are growing into a beautiful and intelligent young woman, Kirra.” Taro rubbed his chin as he studied her. “But we’re stuck with this for today, and the show will start soon. You remember how to act, yes?”

  “Of course.” Kirra rolled her eyes. “Like Tiko. Grunt a lot, use very small words, breathe loudly while never quite closing my mouth, and constantly scratch myself in unseemly places.”

  Taro laughed but wagged his finger at her. “Okay, no more jokes, and I mean it. Time to go over the rules.”

  “Again?” Kirra could do this routine in her sleep.

  “Yes, again. Now, what is your name?”

  “Kala.”

  “And what is the one thing we never ever do?” Taro’s voice was somber.

  “Answer any questions about our real home.”

  “Such as?”

  “Where it is, how long it would take to get there, what direction it’s in, what it’s like there, how many people live there.”

  Taro smiled. “That’s my daughter.”

  “No. You can’t say that, Paja. I’m your son, Kala.” Kirra scratched herself in an unseemly place for emphasis.

  Taro chuckled. “Point taken. Let’s get moving.” He reached into the cart for his cane and started to make his way down the dirt road, hunched over and favoring one leg.

  Kirra backed herself in between the cart’s two long handles, picked them off the ground, and placed them on her shoulders. Then she grunted with the effort of pulling it behind her.

  Even burdened as she was now, Kirra was able to keep her head up and take in the surroundings as she followed Taro down the road. This was so much better than being stuck at home doing chores, sweeping up their family’s hut for the seventeenth time a day at her mother’s insistence, or yet again gathering fuel for the community cook fires. Outside, there was something new everywhere she looked. Back in the familiar limits of Zedu, Kirra had already seen everything there was to see.

  As they wound around the final bend and the walls of the village came into sight, the front gate swung open and a gaggle of kids came pouring out. Kirra watched them as they rushed up the road. Kids she had never met, many of them her own age. They had stories she hadn’t heard a hundred times before, knew games she had never played, and ate food she had never tasted.

  But, just like always, these kids did not have eyes for her. They swarmed around the hunchbacked Taro, who limp-marched resolutely toward the gate and pretended not to notice them.

  “The Volcano Man! The Volcano Man!” the kids yelled as they escorted him to Lukweii’s entrance. Kirra trudged along behind with the cart.

  “The Volcano Man has come back!”

  THE ANNUAL STORYTELLING CONTEST in Lukweii was held at the end of summer to celebrate a successful hunting season and harvest. The hard work of collecting food was done, and the whole village took a break before the labor of salting meat, preserving fruit, and storing grain for the winter was begun.

  As everyone congregated in the huge common area in the center of the village—more people than Kirra had ever seen in one spot—she watched vendors push their way through the crowd, peddling roasted meat on sticks and bags of honeyed nuts. Parents bounced toddlers on their knees while clusters of friends drank deeply from wooden cups. Children close to Kirra’s age marked the perimeter of the storytellers’ circle, crammed shoulder to shoulder in the front row, leaning forward in eager anticipation.

  Kirra watched from her vantage point at the rear of the crowd, where she had made a perch by piling up the blankets in the cart so she could see over the heads of the grown-ups. (Taro was off preparing for the contest, and there was absolutely no need for him to know that Kirra was working her way through a third bag of the delicious nuts.)

  She sighed as she watched the huddled children jostling one another to get the position with the best view. Kirra wanted so badly to get right down in their jumbled ranks and join in the conversations. But she was under strict orders—when she and Taro encountered people Outside, it was her job to be forgettable, not to make friends. The only bad part about being her paja’s Helper was that she had to hide everything that made her Kirra in order to be Kala, the Volcano Man’s right hand. She didn’t even like Kala. He was dull and unimaginative and kept to himself, while Kirra w
anted to laugh and explore and connect.

  Kirra sighed again. Someday Taro would trust her to keep the secrets of the Zedu. She just wanted that someday to hurry up and get here.

  At last, the waiting for the celebration was almost done. As dusk settled over the village, one of the elders waded through the mob and stepped into the storytellers’ circle, carrying a torch. He bent over and touched it to the dried leaves and logs piled in the fire pit. Soon the faces of the children in the front row were glowing in the light of the dancing flames as the first storyteller entered the circle and began.

  As this was the fourth contest in as many villages that Kirra had witnessed, she knew how it worked. The schedule was rigged so that the beginner tale spinners went first, and each person who came after had more experience, so the stories got better and better as the night wore on. As they all came from neighboring villages, the accents varied a bit, and some of the words—especially slang—were unfamiliar due to regional dialects. But she could mostly follow everything that everyone was saying. Besides, as her father had told her many times, it’s not what you say but how you say it that really matters.

  As Kirra sat atop the cart and munched on her snacks, she heard tales of romance and adventure and exploring. There were stories about traveling priestesses, and talking animals, and giant warriors, and ships that could rise up from the ocean and sail among the stars.

  And always, saved for the grand finale, was the Volcano Man.

  Kirra felt a familiar surge of pride as she watched her father make his way to the center of the circle, but also a bundle of nerves buzzing in her stomach. Because someday that would be her down there, with every stranger’s eye trained on her expectantly.

  The crowd went completely quiet as Taro stood in the center of the circle. He turned slowly, his “good” eye boring into the mob, letting the silence stretch out until Kirra thought she was going to burst.

  Finally, he began by tapping his cane on the ground. Softly at first, and then more and more insistently. “Underneath your feet,” he rasped, “right now, beneath this very village, there lives an army of angry fire demons.”