"I'll see you at lunch, girl," Aliyah says, turning to go down a different hallway than the one I'm going to. I wave as I head down to pre-calc, the only class I share with my brother.

I'm a sophomore in high school, but I'm only fourteen years old because my parents put me into school early. Kaliq is a senior in high school and about to turn eighteen. Both of our birthdays fall during the fall period, mine being September 30th and Kaliq's being November 17th. Kaliq is also very bad at math so he took Algebra 1 during his freshman year of high school. I was able to take Algebra 2 during my freshman year and now I take pre-calc.

I walk into the classroom and take a seat towards the back. Very few kids in my grade take precalc so I'm in a class with a bunch of upperclassmen. Jasper is even in this class talking loudly to his friend Jake about a football game.

"Please pass up your homework," Mrs. Monroe says. She's a small old woman with round glasses that actually make it onto the bridge of her nose. I've seen so many teachers with their glasses barely grazing the tips of their noses. She's a pretty nice teacher and she doesn't give out too much work.

I take out my homework and hand it to the girl in front of me. I search my pocket for my phone, by instinct, forgetting that Mr. Escalante has it. Mrs. Monroe goes over a new lesson and I understand it instantly. We're still in review mode going over polynomial long division and stuff like that.

In no time, the bell rings for lunch. This class always goes by fast, unlike Logic. I shoulder my bag and head out the door.

"Kiko!" Kaliq calls out, pushing through the crowd of students. I slow down to let him catch up to me.

"What happened to your phone?" he asks.

"What?" I ask, pretending I have no clue what he's talking about. Did word spread already?

"Kiko, you are always on your phone to and from class. Did you get it taken away?" I don't respond and Kaliq takes that as a yes. "You had Mr. Escalante, right? Wait, did you get detention?"

"Yes," I respond, annoyed, there's no point in lying anyway. "I had my phone out for two seconds and he took it away."

"Kiko, Kiko, Kiko, you can't spend one class without going on your phone, can you?" Kaliq doesn't get it, unlike him I hate school. The only way I can get through it is if I scroll away on my phone.

"You're not going to tell mom and dad are you?" I ask. I trust Kaliq, but sometimes he blabs or lets something slip.

"Of course not, they're going to find out once I come home without you. But, that's on you, sis."

"You're not helping," I bite back. We walk up to my locker, which for some reason was slammed shut. I have no clue how to solve a lock so I usually leave it ajar. It seems like someone either accidentally or purposefully closed my locker. "Can you open my locker for me, Kaliq?"

Kaliq turns the lock left, right, and left again and tries to open the lock, but it doesn't budge. He tries twisting the lock again and it still doesn't budge. I reach for my phone for the locker code remembering once again that I don't have my phone with me. Ugh, the one time I actually need my phone. I watch as Kaliq continues to struggle with opening the locker. I then remember that I had a little paper slip in my bag with my code on it. I pull out the slip and hand it to Kaliq.

"Wow. You finally decided to end my suffering, huh," he says, playfully snatching the slip from me.

"Yeah, I really wanted to wait it out, but I'm kinda hungry for lunch," I tease.

"You're always hungry, Kiko," Kaliq replies, finally opening my locker.

With the amount of times I've asked him to open my locker for me, one would think he had my code memorized. When he opens the locker door, a bottle of Tylenol pills falls out. Kaliq gives me a look of sympathy, probably thinking it's my time of the month, but they're not mine.

"Who put these in here," I ask aloud.

"They're not yours?" Kaliq asks, confused.

"No, maybe my locker neighbor accidentally put it in mine?" I examine the bottle and I immediately rule out that idea. "Kaliq, look."

On the bottle there is a taped message that reads For Kiko. Open the bottle and read the note.

"Is this some sort of prank?" Kaliq asks me. I shrug, trying to figure out who might have thrown this into my locker. The message is typed out in an Arial font, so I wouldn't be able to decipher the author from their handwriting.

"I'm going to open it and if it's a spider I'm throwing the bottle at you," I say. I'm not really scared of spiders, but Kaliq is terrified of them. Before Kaliq can protest, I twist the cap and look into the bottle. Inside there are some weird shaped beans and a note. "Oh my gosh."

"What?" Kaliq asks, anticipating a spider to be thrown at him.

"There are beans and a note. I'll read it for you." I take out the note typed in the same Arial font. "Plant these beans on the corner of Barry St. You don't need water as in no time a beanstalk will grow in front of your eyes. Climb up this stalk and you will finally get the answer to your question." I let out a guffaw that I didn't even know I was capable of making.

Kaliq takes the bottle and note from me and examines them. I still can't stop laughing. This is straight out of Jack and the Beanstalk. Couldn't the orchestrator of this prank be a little more original? Whoever planted this in my locker is probably disappointed that I didn't fall for this. But how can anyone take this seriously?

"I think this might be real," Kaliq says, answering my unsaid question.

"What?" I ask, still laughing. "Did you put this into my locker Kaliq? Because this really brightens my day. I have to show Aliyah this, too."

"Kiko," Kaliq says, pouring the beans into his palm, "I think these are legit."

"Kaliq, you've got to be kidding me. Giants are one thing, but now magic beans? We've all learned in English about Aesop's Fables. They may have 'lessons,' but they aren't real stories," I say, taking the beans back from Kaliq.

"Two things," Kaliq starts, looking at me all serious. "One, Jack and the Beanstalk is not an Aesop fable, it's just a silly fairytale with no life lessons. Two, this reminds me of what I learned in history last year: The Story of Archie." Oh, Kaliq the historian. I'm convinced he's going to become an anthropologist one day because he soaks up every history story, real or fake, about past humans and their lives. He also somehow remembers all these stories no matter how long ago they had been taught to him. It doesn't matter that he sucks at math because you don't need math when it comes to pursuing humanities.

"Fine. Tell me your theory Mr. Njoku," I say, jokingly. I finally stop laughing when Kaliq gives me a dead serious look.

~~~

Archie was a tall, blond man from almost seven centuries ago. He was five or six generations from the first people to set foot on this planet. He had a radical mind and didn't believe that giants were real. In fact, he knew giants were not real. He had screamed and shouted in public before and other than the occasional dark clouds, no giants had ever appeared, let alone eaten him. Archie thought that everyone around him was beneath him and unable to determine between truth and lies. He said that everyone that believed that giants were real were simple-minded.

He went along making noise as he pleased. He would blast music outside during his workouts early in the morning, just because 'he could.' 

He would open his windows up whenever he was home, which allowed the noise from his TV, washing machine, radio, and vacuum cleaner to carry through the town. These appliances weren't even solar powered, in fact, Archie was proud of himself for making an energy source out of metal scraps, pulleys, and mechanical gears. Archie claimed that this was a much cheaper alternative than paying for solar panels and would allow him to spend his money elsewhere. His contraption would clank all day everyday and contribute to the noise already created by him and the items in his home. 

Along with this, he had a big black dog, he had bought from the sketchiest breeder from all the land, that would bark all day everyday and sometimes even in the middle of the night. He had even torn apart his silent car and turned it into a machine that made a roar every time the ignition was turned on and sputtered the thickest gray smoke anyone had ever seen. According to him, his new customized car drove faster than all the rest and allowed him to speed along the road and catch the breeze in his hair.

Archie was fined and thrown in jail multiple times for doing all these things, but he was still stuck in his ways and refused to heed the law. Nothing could convince him that giants were real; nothing except an encounter with a mysterious old woman.

One day, Archie was walking down the street singing a terrible song, receiving stern glances from all the passersby. An old woman suddenly stopped him in his tracks and called him over to her shop. Archie had nothing better to do so he followed the old woman into the shop.

"Here is what you seek," the old woman says in a groggy voice, handing him a sack of beans.

"What could I possibly do with this?" he asked.

"It will solve all your problems. It will show you things you've never imagined," she said. "Do not eat it. Just plant it into the ground near your house and you'll know what to do."

"Ok. If you say so," Archie replies. He was skeptical about what the old woman had said, but he decided he had nothing to lose if he tried it out. He left the shop and numerous questions flooded his head. What will these beans solve? Would he be able to solve world hunger? He was an excellent inventor with the wildest imagination, what else is there that he had not imagined? Archie turned around to ask the old woman these questions when he noticed that the shop had completely disappeared. There were two shops on either side of where the shop should have been and just a big gap between them. He was a little confused how the shop magically disappeared, but didn't think too much of it.

Archie whistled his way home, crumpling a fine that an angry police officer had just given him, excited to see what the beans would provide. Once he got home, he grabbed a shovel, dug a small hole, threw the beans in, and waited. After an hour, he gave up and went inside. He scolded himself for getting his hopes up. He shouldn't have expected anything from a random old lady who gave him beans for free. He went to bed upset that the beans didn't work.

When Archie woke up the next day, he was confused as to why it was so dark, he had never woken up in the middle of the night before. He looked over at his grandfather's clock and saw that it read 7:37. He went to bed at around nine last night, so he knew it had to be seven in the morning. He walked outside to find out what was making it so dark.

Once Archie stepped outside, his jaw dropped. In front of him, stood a beanstalk that reached into the clouds. The stalk towered over his house covering his window and preventing the sun from lighting his room. It was a green stalk that stretched thousands of feet up, with secondary branches, vines, and leaves wrapping all around it. Archie jumped around excitedly and ran over to the stalk to climb it. He didn't give it a second thought, whatever was at the top of the stalk would belong to him.

The climb was simple, Archie was afraid that it might be treacherous, but he didn't even feel the effects of the change in altitude. In no time, he reached the end of the beanstalk.

Archie looked around in awe. The floor was covered in soft clouds that gave Archie the ability to jump a little higher than before. The sky up there looked as if it had a permanent sunset. He could see an almost orange sun and the sky was painted with different hues of pink, purple, orange, and yellow. Archie thought he might be in heaven.

Not too far away, were majestic and enormous palaces that lined a stony path. Each palace had a fountain in the shape of a fish, a beautiful green lawn that looked well maintained, and a doorway missing. When Archie got a little closer to the palaces, he couldn't see much of the inside. He actually saw a reflection of himself as if the doorway was a mirror. Curious, Archie inched closer and closer to one of the palaces until he was standing right on top of the door mat. Suddenly, he was sucked into the house.

Archie landed on the tile floor with a thud. He instantly got up and tried to go back the way he came. That was not possible, though, as when he turned around, he was face to face with just a wall. The previous entrance was now a dead end. Archie tried to search the wall for a way to get out, but couldn't find anything.

Archie turned around to find the palace bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. All the items in the house were also bigger than Archie had ever seen. From where he stood on the floor, he saw a big couch and TV set, a huge dining table, and two very large doorways that probably led into the other rooms in this house. What looked like a palace from the outside, was an ordinary house just scaled a couple decimeters up. Archie was so amazed that it didn't occur to him that the things in the house might be large because the palace belonged to a rather large individual.

Archie made his way to the dining table, curious to see if there was any food lying around. He couldn't reach the table by himself, so he tried to climb the chair to get onto the table. Thankfully, Archie was an excellent climber and was able to make his way onto the dining room table without much struggle. On the table, there were trays of delicious foods. There was a huge bowl of salad, a huge pan of casserole, a huge tray of a gigantic salmon, and in the center of the table was the biggest turkey Archie had ever seen. The turkey was both taller and wider than Archie by a couple of feet.

"Just a leg from this turkey could feed my whole village!! I guess the old woman meant that these beans would solve world hunger!" Archie exclaimed. He made his way to the turkey and stuck his hand into it to taste the turkey.

"Oh my," Archie said, after tasting the turkey, "This is the best turkey I've ever had!" With that Archie continued to stuff his face with the turkey. He shoveled bite after bite in his mouth not worrying about savoring the taste. There was so much turkey for him he could probably eat it for days.

Archie was so busy devouring the delicious food, he didn't realize that he was no longer alone in the room. A giant had come in and was licking his lips while watching Archie eat. It had been a while since that giant had the pleasure of eating a human due to the giant laws. In their world up in the clouds, it was against the law for a giant to simply pluck a human up and eat them. It had been done before without consequence, though. There were some cases where a giant plucked an old woman or man who had no family or no one who cared if they had disappeared. However, those giants claimed that these old people didn't taste very good. It was the young and strong that tasted the best. Especially, if they were on the rounder side.

Now, the giant was looking at the first human he had seen in a decade. And he didn't even have to work for it. The human simply walked into his house. Even though the human wasn't as fat as he would like, the giant was eager to eat him.. Besides, he didn't want to wait for him to fatten up, anyway.

Archie was still stuffing his face when he heard large thunderous footsteps behind him. He turned to see a giant with lanky hair arms, messy hair, and wild blood shot orange eyes charging at him. Archie's face looked aghast. Never in a million years, would he have thought that giants were real. Archie tried to think of a plan to escape the giant, but he was too late. In no time, the giant was upon him, had scooped him up, and finished him in two clean bites. Sadly, Archie never got the chance to physically tell anyone that they were right and he was wrong.

~~~

"If Archie was eaten, how did historians even hear about his story," I ask Kaliq. This furthers my point that there is no way that giants could be real.

"Well, he was a well-known guy during that time and once people realized it was so quiet, they knew something had happened to Archie," Kaliq says matter-of-factly.

"Well, how did they know what the giant looked like? Or what Archie had eaten when he was in the giant's house? How were there so many details in the story, if people just assumed Archie was eaten?" I ask, trying to convince Kaliq that his story is fake.

"Remember, our theology class? How people believed in gods without seeing them. How they knew all these stories that happened years before they were even alive."

"That's different," I say.

"No, it's the same," Kaliq responds. "These historians also saw visions and such that revealed the truth to them."

"There is no way that you are comparing religion to giants. These are two different things, Kaliq. You of all people should know that."

"You're just making up excuses, so you don't have to admit giants are real, Kiko."

I ask Kaliq another question that I believe will help me win this argument. "You said Archie was making noise while he was on Ethoria?"

"Yeah."

"How come the giants didn't simply pluck him off Ethoria then?"

"Well.." Kaliq starts, struggling to come up with an explanation.

"See! The story is fake and these beans are fake," I say. I grab my lunch box and start heading towards the cafeteria.

"Oh my gosh Kiko, you'll never believe anything unless it's right in front of you. Why can't you just believe what everyone's been telling you?" Kaliq asks, exasperated.

I turn around and retort, "How come you're so quick to believe everything you hear, Kaliq? There is no proof that giants are real."

I storm off into the cafeteria and slide into the table next to Aliyah. She's busy talking to some of our other friends, but I'm not in the mood to join in the conversation. I wonder who put those magic beans into my locker. They were unlike any beans I had ever seen. It probably wasn't Kaliq, but it has to be someone who knows I don't believe in giants. Maybe it was someone in my logic class...

"Kiko, are you okay?" Aliyah asks me, looking concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"Well, you haven't touched your food and you walked into the cafeteria late, so I could kinda tell..." she says trailing off.

I think about telling her about what I found in my locker, but decide against it since I don't want to tell the whole story to a crowd. "I'm not that hungry, I guess," I respond.

"Is it because of Mr. Escalante? I still can't believe he gave us detention."

"Yeah, I'm worried about what my parents are going to do," I lie. I love Aliyah, but I really want her to drop the topic.

"Oh, I hope they won't be too harsh on you," is all she says. Soon the bell rings, and we all head to our afternoon classes.