Boarding School for Giants (G/T)

Part 13

The kitchen was noisy, hot, and chaotic. The waitress took all the dirty dishes she had brought and dumped them in a giant sink full of soapy water. I was plunged underwater and flailed to reach air, banging my limbs on silverware as I swam. I breached the surface, gasping for breath, and tried to climb out of the sink, but the metal walls were too high and slippery. Nobody could hear my sputtering cries for help among the clattering of pots and pans and other normal loud kitchen sounds. I treaded water over to a stack of wet plates and struggled to climb up, but kept sliding down the slick surfaces. My eyes were stinging from the soap and syrup.

Finally, after a whole lot of effort and trouble, I made it high enough up the stack to reach the edge of the sink. I crawled out of the sink and stumbled away from the edge, wary of falling in again. My eyes were inflamed with soap, so I rubbed my eyes with my forearm, but I only succeeded in blinding myself with more soap. I stepped forward, unable to see, trying to clear my vision and coughing up sudsy sink water. I tripped over something, a solid protrusion of some sort, and fell onto a cold, hard surface with a clatter. Before I could get up, something soft but hot and heavy collapsed on top of me.

For a second, I thought I had been crushed, but whatever it was didn't kill me. I couldn't lift it, however. I could barely breathe or move with the heavy mass pressing me down. I pushed up against the spongy surface. It was unpleasantly hot. I could smell pancakes. Pancakes? The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I was trapped under a stack of giant pancakes. The cold surface underneath me was a plate. Oh God, I was in someone's breakfast.

"Order up!" a giant voice called out. The plate was lifted high into the air. I could feel the rhythm of the waitress's long strides as she hustled over to a customer's table. I had to stop her, somehow.

"Stop! Help! I'm in here!" I rasped. Besides the fact that my lungs were being squished, my pleas for aid were muffled by the fluffy pancakes weighing me down. I tried to move, but I was stuck in place, like a fly in a spiderweb.

"Here you go," the waitress said, placing the plate on a table. My stomach did a flip.

"Thanks," a deep giant voice replied, sounding uncomfortably close. My heart was pounding hard. I heard the metallic scraping of a monstrous fork on the plate. From far away, among the usual sounds of the diner, I heard Joey calling my name, searching for me. He sounded concerned.

"Joey!" I cried pathetically. "Joey!" It would be impossible for him to hear my plaintive wails from so far away, or for anyone else to hear me for that matter. I started to panic, my breath coming out in ragged gasps. I struggled harder against the weight holding me down, but my limbs were pinned. The scraping of the fork was getting closer. I saw its huge metal splines slice down through the pancake around me, just missing my left arm. One wrong move and it could tear me into pieces. The fork cut through the pancake in front of my face, by some miracle just missing me again. The mass pressing me down was getting lighter as chunks of the pancake disappeared off the plate.

My legs were still stuck, but I could move my arms a bit, if I exerted considerable effort. With as much force as I could muster, I tried to drag myself out. I made some progress, managing to free one of my hands. My grip on the plate slipped as I became sticky with fresh syrup. I could see light, and strained to reach it, my head emerging from the doughy mass. My hopes were dashed when, to my horror, the fork slid underneath my body and I was raised into the air, still buried under a mound of food and unable to escape.

Oh no. Oh no! If I didn't do something fast, I was going to get eaten again, and there was no saving me this time. My worst nightmare was unfolding into reality. The giant holding the fork raised me up to his mouth, and his lips parted, revealing the deep, dark, wet cave within. The fork moved inside, the rows of ivory teeth advancing open to receive me. It was now or never.