Zoe Whitaker

This is Jet’s plan:
On Friday morning, Jet will move out. He will grab his backpack full of clothes and his notebook full of doodles. Then, he’ll catch the first bus from the farm to the city. Jet assumes that the bus will provide free meals and that an employer will hand him a job as soon as he arrives. He will present his doodles to the richest man in the city, who will then say, “You’re hired, kid!” and Jet will become a successful artist.
Jet told his parents this plan when he was eighteen. That Friday, his dad got the flu so Jet had to stay home to tend to the vineyard. When Jet was nineteen, he proposed the plan again. That Friday, his sister’s water broke so Jet had to stay home to tend to the vineyard as the family took care of the newborn. Now, the baby is one, Jet’s dad is healthy, and Jet’s parents finally agree that it is time for his plan to come to fruition.
It is Friday morning, and Jet wakes up to bad news. His mom sits at the foot of his bed and tells him that another crop has gone missing in their vineyard. She says the wire fence is completely ripped and loose dirt scatters in place of the grapevine. She describes to him how she ran her hands through the dirt and searched for any seedlings or buds left to salvage. She dug elbows deep into the dirt but found nothing. They’ll have to wait until next spring to replant. She worries that they will lose too many crops to keep them afloat until then. Her only request, she says, is that Jet stays to catch the animal thief and kill it once and for all.
Jet wants to yell. If he was a different person, he would say that it isn’t his responsibility to put aside his dreams. He would say that he’s done a lot for the family already and it is time that they learn to live without him. He is an adult, after all. But, Jet doesn’t say any of that because he can barely forgive himself for thinking it. He’s too kind and stupid to satisfy that part of him that wants to yell.
When night comes, Jet does what a good son would do. He puts a kitchen knife in one pocket and his notebook in the other before he ventures into the vineyard. Rows of vines extend over the hilly land from the family’s small home all the way to the untended forest of redwoods. Jet walks between rows and stops at the damaged debris of the stolen crops. He plants himself between the vineyard and the dark forest as he waits for the thief to make its entrance.
As Jet stares into the darkness, he can’t help but wonder what he would be doing now if he had left. His stomach churns with guilt for imagining it, but his thoughts wander anyway. He flips open his notebook to a blank page and draws what he imagines he’d look like as a city gentleman. He’d start wearing tall hats and bow ties. He’d get a pair of leather shoes, although he doesn’t quite know how to draw texture like that. With only the dim light of the moon, Jet’s doodle doesn’t turn out very good, but truthfully they never do. But still, he is proud of it. He pictures himself on the bus making tons of new friends. He scribbles himself seated at a restaurant, trying some new dish that he hasn’t even heard of before. His new friends would wait in anticipation for his reaction after he takes the first bite. After a couple seconds to chew, swallow, and think, he’d announce, “I like it!” and all his friends would cheer, “He likes it!” He wonders what food that wasn’t made by his mom tastes like. Jet scolds himself for wondering that. He reminds himself to be grateful that his mom cooks for the family. It’s not fair for him to crave independence when he’s so lucky to have someone to depend on.
Jet halts his doodling at the sound of rustling branches. He tucks the notebook back in his pocket and stumbles his way onto his feet. His shaky hand pulls out the kitchen knife and extends it outward in a hesitant motion. Jet doesn’t know how to sound scary. He tries his best.
“Hey! If you’re there… Um… I’m here, too!” Jet sighs in disappointment at his lame statement. He tries again.
“I… have a knife! So stay back!” Jet straightens his posture, proud of his improved threat.
The redwood trees shake and wind blows through their branches. Jet staggers a few steps back. He tries to estimate the location of the thief but can’t seem to find it. The movement echoes from the base of the trees, to the very top. Jet tries to envision what creature could cause the redwoods to tremble. It’s too big to be a bear. There must be at least three bears. Or ten bears. Or the more likely option of twenty bears all standing on each other’s backs.
What Jet’s limited imagination did not predict was a giant girl. With her enormous hands, she pushes the redwood trees away from her face. She stands a few feet away from Jet, and he has to bend his head all the way back to look up at her face. He estimates her to be about 8 Jets tall. He figures his sleep deprived mind has run wild and she’s only a figment of his imagination. To break the trance, he lunges towards the girl and stabs her ankle.
“Ow! What’s your problem?” She crouches down and plucks the knife out of her skin, like it's a shallow splinter. She flicks the knife on the floor and Jet stares at it in stunned silence. He is too entranced to hear her question. He takes quick panicked breaths as he tries to process what he sees. Her big brown eyes stare at him and wait for an answer. Jet wants to avert his gaze and turn back to see nothing. He’s sure that if he could break eye contact with the girl, that he’d wake up from some dream and none of this would be real. The only problem is that he can not, no matter how hard he tries, stop staring at her. He locks in on her glossy eyes, her dewy face lit by the moon and her dark hair that blends into the blackness of the forest. Her blush lips turn up in a slight smile that he’s pretty sure is mocking him, but he doesn’t care.
“Dude. Can you breathe?” she asks in that mocking tone. Her voice is the richest and clearest thing he’s ever heard. His body responds to her cue and takes a deep, calming breath in. After a few moments to lower his heart rate, Jet remembers his goal and jumps back into defense.
“You need to get out of here.” he tries to yell at her. It comes off much nicer than he intended.
“Jeez! Why are you freaking out? You’re the one who stabbed me!”
“Leave my family alone! Don’t touch our vineyard!” he works up the courage to yell at her, despite the pang it causes in his chest. Jet trembles as he stands before the giant girl, not out of fear of her, but out of uncertainty in himself.
When she stands straight, she reaches almost halfway up the redwood trees. Her ankle is at Jet’s eye level and he feels another pang of regret when he spots the small gash he left in it.
“Look, you’re very funny and all! It’s adorable that you thought you could hurt me with your little knife. But a girl’s gotta eat! Your vineyard can spare a few crops!” she reaches to pull out another grapevine. Jet forces his body between her hand and the plant in a stubborn attempt to stop her. It takes all his body’s strength to push against her forceful hand.
“Please! I’m begging you not to take anything! I’ll do whatever I have to! Please leave my family alone.” Although it’s Jet’s voice that says these words and Jet’s body that pushes against her, he doesn’t feel like these actions are his own. Jet fights his instinct to tell her to stay and have everything she wants and sit with him forever. The voice of his family echoes in his mind to fight his desires and prioritize the vineyard. Out of habit, he listens. He digs his heels deep into the dirt to stay grounded but can’t help the tears that stream down his face as his body fights a giant and his mind fights himself. Jet sobs into her palm as he screams at her to leave.
The giant girl relaxes her hand and pulls it away from Jet with a gentle movement. He collapses onto his knees at the sudden loss of pressure.
“Are you… crying?” she laughs as she rubs the wet tears off her palm onto her shorts. Jet remains on the ground, with his warm face turned down into the dirt.
“I’ve had a hard day,” his muffled voice replies. The girl plucks the collar of his shirt with the tip of her finger and carefully lifts Jet’s body into the air. She places him into the palm of her other hand and holds his body up to her eye level. She stifles her laughter and tries to be supportive.
“Hey… I’m sorry… Sometimes I forget I’m so scary.”
Jet wipes the tears off his face and tries not to focus on the fact that he is 50 feet in the air. He lifts his upper body to face her, without shifting his weight from its balanced position in her palm. He finds comfort in her eyes as they politely encourage him to speak. Maybe it’s because he’s completely exhausted from his fight against her hand. Maybe it’s because he’s distracted by her pretty face. Either way, something about this girl makes Jet not think about his response. He just says what he feels.
“I don’t think you’re scary.”
“Really? I'm literally a giant.”
“I don’t mind.”
The statement surprises both of them. But as Jet relaxes against her hand in dreamlike wonder, he notices that he actually meant it. His panic melts as he brushes his hands against her skin and takes in the sight of her face up close. She fills his entire vision in an energetic display of a tan complexion and a bright, toothy smile. He could sit in her palm forever and admire her like a mural.
“My name is Venus,” she says.
“Venus…” he says her name in a delicate whisper to get a sense of how it feels in his breath. It’s like his voice always wanted to shape that word but didn’t know how until now. When he tells her his own name, he checks if she repeats it back in the same way. She does.
“Okay, Jet. Since you’re such a cry baby, I’ll stop stealing from your family’s vineyard. On one condition! You need to get me something else to eat.”
Jet thinks it over. He contemplates going inside the house and giving Venus whatever is left of his mom’s soup. He eliminates that option because there is definitely not enough soup for a giant. He wonders if they could steal any crops from the neighboring farms. He eliminates that option because it would cause another family to be on the hunt for Venus. The only other option Jet can think of is to go into the city. There would be plenty of merchants, markets, and muncheries with enough food for a giant girl.
The guilty part of him wants to eliminate that option. He’s convinced himself that going to the city is the selfish choice and if he leaves, his family will not forgive him. He worries that he’ll be gone too long and cause his family a lot of stress trying to cope with his absence. The main reason Jet feels hesitant to go to the city is because he’s afraid that he’ll never want to come back. Jet fears the part of him that makes its own choices. He worries that the more he lets it take control, the harder it will be to suppress.
“Hey, you need to give me an answer or I’m going to eat your crops,” Venus interrupts his train of thought.
“Um…” Jet tries to stall even more. As he looks into Venus’ warm eyes awaiting his answer, he knows it would be impossible to fight himself on this one. “Let’s go.”
Venus brushes her hair towards her back and places Jet onto her shoulder. He makes himself comfortable leaning against her neck as she walks back into the forest. Jet relaxes to the rhythm of her footsteps, like a baby being rocked to sleep. He dreams of the city, what he imagines it to be, and of all the possible versions of himself he could become there.
Jet wakes up to the morning sun gleaming in his eyes and a sudden fear of falling to his death. He jerks his body up and almost slips off Venus’ shoulder, had she not held her hand up to steady him. He recovers from his shock and lets the memories of the night settle over him. With a now clear mind, he registers how rude it was to fall asleep.
“I’m so sorry for sleeping! I’m supposed to be helping you!” he says in a guilty frenzy. Venus only laughs, and tells him that it’s ridiculous to apologize for something your body needed to do. This is the first time Jet has been given permission to listen to himself. He can’t understand why something so simple can feel so relieving.
“Besides, we’re almost there!” Venus announces, reminding Jet to take in his new surroundings. He has always avoided the forest and now that he gazes down upon it in the daylight, he wishes he came here sooner. From the tall height of Venus’ shoulder, everything looks small. It all blends together in a glossy green hue of plants, flowers, and grass all soaked in morning dew and sunshine. Jet didn’t expect so many wild overgrown plants to develop under the shade of the tall redwoods. In his life on the vineyard, he had no idea what was beyond their edge of the forest. The redwoods subside from their dense abundance and become scarce and scattered. Here, the environment is rich in variety and random in its plotting of California poppies. The only thing Jet recognizes is the familiar shape of a giant foot imprinted in the grass. In all directions, he spots Venus' footprints, in her own intricately designed pathway.
“You must spend a lot of time in the forest,” he says.
“I live here.”
“Really? You don’t live in a cloud? Or a giant neighborhood for giants?”
“You have a crazy imagination, Jet. It’s only me in the forest. There’s not really anywhere else to go.” Venus says, like she doesn’t really mind. But the idea of Venus hiding by herself all day saddens Jet, and he can’t help but to wonder if it saddens her too.
He doesn’t pry. Instead, he takes out his notebook to draw what he sees. If he wakes up tomorrow with no memories of the giant, he wants to leave a reminder of what’s waiting for him in the forest. He only has one pen so he can’t exactly get the bright colors of the forest replicated on his page. But he does his best to draw a flower, a tree, and a really giant girl.
Venus stops walking when the redwoods condense and form a fenced cluster around them. Past these trees, there is no path left by her footprints.
“The city is past these trees,” she says to Jet as she lifts him off her shoulder and places his feet onto the ground. Venus crouches down to meet him at his level. “Go on, Jet! I’m starving!”
Jet gets confused.
“What? Why aren’t you coming with me?”
“Jet. I’m huge.”
“But…” Jet tries to think of one reason why Venus should come with him to the city. He knows it’s not enough that he wants her around. In the city, she’ll be seen, judged, harassed, and most likely attacked. It makes sense for Jet to go alone. It just didn’t dawn on him until now that this was the plan. Why wouldn’t he go alone, right? He’s never been to the city before, but he’s an adult and he can figure it out. So Jet doesn’t know why he’s so worried.
He stands with his back to the towering redwood trees, too scared to turn around and face them. He looks ahead, at the giant girl kneeled before him. Along her forehead and down her neck, sweat slowly slides down her skin. He notices her heavy breaths and remembers that she’s been walking all night in hopes that it will bring her a meal. He wonders how she stays so calm when her life is much harder than his.
“Do you ever wish you were small? Not small. I mean like, my size. Do you wish you didn’t take up so much space?” his curiosity gets the best of him.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking up space. It’s who I am. It’s everyone else who seems to have a problem with it.”
“I don’t have a problem with it.” he says with all honesty. “It just seems really hard to live a life that’s so different from everyone else’s.”
“It’s easier than trying to be something I’m not. You can’t beat yourself up trying to compress yourself into what everyone expects you to be. I’m never going to be small so why worry about it? I have to accept who I am and trust that it’s the way I’m supposed to be.”
Jet already knew Venus was smarter than him but this time it hits even harder. He would pin the credit on her enormous brain if he didn’t know better. Their difference in size isn’t the reason that she knows all the things that he doesn’t. Jet’s own lack of judgment is what prevented him from seeing how all his problems are simple. Normally he’d blame himself for being so dumb but this time, he’s okay with it. He figures his naivety and hopeful foolishness are the way he is supposed to be.
Jet turns to face the redwoods and walks towards the city of his dreams. He accepts that the only reason he will turn back is for Venus.