1 The secret box

      ‘BEESH, BEESH, BEESH!’ said the girl giant. In giant language, this meant, ‘Please, please, please!’

      The girl giant, Jumbeelia, was sitting up in bed and holding out a book to her mother. ‘Beesh, beesh, beesh, Mij!’ she pleaded again.

      Mij, Jumbeelia’s mother, sighed. Without even looking at the book, she knew that the picture on the front was of a tiny little man standing on a leaf. When would Jumbeelia, who was nearly nine and perfectly capable of reading to herself, grow out of these babyish bedtime stories about the iggly plops?

      Everyone knew that the iggly plops didn’t really exist. Just as well, since they were such nasty little things in all the stories about them. Jumbeelia’s big brother had stopped believing in them long before he was this age.

      Jumbeelia’s mother took a different book from the shelf. It had a picture of some nice normal giant children running about in school uniform.

      But Jumbeelia looked so disappointed that Mij gave in. Yet again she