He followed the giant into the bedroom, and hid under the bed. There was a golden harp standing in a corner of the room.

"Hello, my beautiful harp. Play, please!" said the giant. The harp began playing music with no one touching the strings.

"Wow! A magic harp!" whispered Jack. "That harp would make me rich and famous!"

When the giant fell asleep, Jack crawled out from under the bed. He took the magic harp and put it in his bag.

But this time Jack was less lucky.

The magic harp screamed, “Help me, master! A human is stealing me!”

The giant woke up and saw Jack with the magic harp, the golden hen, and his gold coins.

"STOP, THIEF!"

The giant chased Jack — out of the bedroom, down the hallway, through the kitchen, and out the front door.

But Jack was smaller and faster than the giant. Jack reached the beanstalk first and slid down. He arrived at the ground with all his treasures.

The giant reached the top of the beanstalk and looked down. He was afraid of heights. He slowly climbed down.

"BE CAREFUL, MY HUSBAND!" shouted the giantess from the castle. "HUMANS CAN BE DANGEROUS!"

Jack saw the giant coming down the beanstalk. So he ran into his house and grabbed an axe. He chopped the beanstalk. Whack! Whack! Whack!

Suddenly, the beanstalk snapped. The giant came tumbling down from the sky. He fell down, down, down, and landed far away, on the other side of the Foggy Mountains. Thud!

For a moment everything was silent. Then Jack heard a strange sound from far away.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo!"

It was the giant. The beanstalk had fallen, and now he had no way to get back up to his castle in the clouds.

The giant yelled so loudly that the clouds shook and turned gray. Then somewhere up in the sky, Jack heard Mrs. Giant start to cry. Her tears fell through the clouds in tiny drops and soaked the earth.

After that, Jack and his mother lived a very comfortable life. The golden hen made Jack a millionaire. The magic harp made him famous. Jack married a rich and famous woman and together they had ten children.

But Jack was never truly happy.

Every time the wind blew, Jack heard the giant calling for his wife. And every time it rained, he felt the giant-wife's tears falling on him.

Jack felt sad and guilty.

One day, when Jack was very old, he decided that he didn't want to be sad any more. He opened a box on his mantelpiece and pulled out one last shrivelled magic bean.

If he could find the giant, he could grow another beanstalk. Then the giant could climb back up to his castle in the clouds. If he could find the giant, he could also apologize for being so greedy.

Jack packed his bag and walked into the Foggy Mountains.

Did Jack find the giant? Did he grow a new beanstalk with the last magic bean? Nobody knows.

But people say, if you listen closely during a thunderstorm, you can hear the rumbling sound of two giants dancing together in the clouds.