Read Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird for Free Online Page A

and laughed and sang, and the afternoon became evening, and the evening became night, and the night became earliest morning.
    "It's time for the tavern to close," the tavern keeper said to Jack, who was spread facedown on the bean-soup-and-beer-splattered table.
    Jack just snored.
    "Everybody else has gone home," the tavern keeper's wife said. "It's time for you to go home, too."
    Jack just snored.
    They tipped Jack off the table, but still he did not wake up.
    The tavern keeper's oldest son, who was not a lazy boy, rolled Jack out into the street and closed the door behind him.
    At the sound of the
thump
so close to his head, Jack woke up. All the other shops in the village had closed hours earlier, so there were no lights flickering in windows. Jack was lying flat on his back in a totally dark street, looking up at the stars.
    "Oh," he said, because he was very, very drunk from all that beer, "I must be in the sky. I must be in a city in the sky."
    As exciting as this thought was, Jack went back to sleep.
    Now at about this same time, Effie, the potter's daughter, was coming home from a church dance. Her father had told her she could stay till midnight, and here it was just about dawn, so she was hurrying along the street trying to think of good excuses. When you're six hours late and you've already been warned once and you don't have
any
excuse—much less a good one—it's hard to think of much else.
    Effie wasn't watching where she was going and she tripped over Jack.
    Which woke Jack up yet again.
    "Oh my," Effie said. "Are you all right? I hope you're all right. You are, aren't you?" She took a few more steps, but Jack didn't get up. Since Effie would never lie down in the middle of the street—dark hours of the morning or not—
she assumed there was something wrong with Jack; and since she held just tripped over him, she was afraid she was the cause of whatever was wrong with him. She walked back and leaned over him. "Please say you're all right," she said. "I really
have
to be getting home or my father will kill me."
    Jack focused his eyes on Effie leaning over him. "Whoa!" he said. "You're a tall one, aren't you?"
    Effie, who wasn't tall but
was
in a rush said, "Yes. Fine. Whatever you say. Are you all right?"
    Jack said, "Are all the people who live in the city in the sky so tall?"
    Which didn't sound at all to Effie as though he were all right. "Oh dear," she said, "what am I going to do with you?"
    "Good night," Jack said, and went back to sleep yet again.
    Well, Effie told herself, if he was going to be like that, there really wasn't much she could do.
    Home was just a few houses away, and once again she started walking.
    But then she stopped again.
    It really isn't any of my business,
she told herself. She took another step.
    It's not like I even know him,
she told herself. She took yet another step.
    It makes no difference to me if the next person to come by trips over him,
she told herself. And she took three more steps, one after the other.
    But the next person to come by might be in a horse-drawn cart, which would prove disastrous for anyone lying in the street talking about cities in the sky.
    What are you going to do?
Effie asked herself.
He's obviously in no condition to walk, and you certainly can't carry him.
    By this time Effie had reached the gate to her yard. She couldn't see any candlelight leaking out from around the shutters, which probably meant that her father had gone to bed rather than waiting up for her. Good news for her, bad news for Jack.
    Maybe she could find a rope, Effie thought. She could tie it to Jack's legs and drag him out of harm's way. Not that bouncing his head along the cobblestones was likely to improve his thinking.
    But then, even better than a rope, Effie spotted her father's wheelbarrow in the garden. She had been weeding before stopping to get ready for the dance, and now here it was: still half full of weeds, but at least not locked up in the shed.
    Effie