Jacked-up Beansprout

I went to see a man by the name of Jack about a new bean crop. As an experienced officer in His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Magically Modified Crops, I like to arrive unannounced and catch people by surprise, but my bicycle has a squeaky wheel so Mr Jack heard me coming.

“Should have walked the last bit,” my talking hamster said from my shoulder.

I miss the days when I rode a talking horse.

“Can I help you, Mister?” Jack said, doing all those annoying yokel things, chewing on a piece of straw, leaning on a pitchfork and mopping his brow with a very grubby kerchief, against a background of a field of gently wafting wheat. Honestly, you have to watch these rural folks carefully because all of that stuff is just to distract the unwary Royal Inspector – that pitchfork could do me a lot of damage if Mr Jack was trying to hide illicit magical modification.

“I am Inspector Aculeos and I received reports of a magically modified bean, Mr Jack.”

“It’s Just Jack, Mister. No Mr at all.” He gave his straw a contemplative chew which convinced me that I was dealing with a sharp and dangerous character. “Don’t you fellas normally ride a talking horse?”

“Cut-backs,” I told him.

In my grandfather’s day, it was a winged chariot, but there were so many problems. I remember, when I was growing up, grandfather complaining about the feed shortages for the chariots and the child-tax, because one medium-sized chariot could eat three kids a month. That’s why they moved to unicorns in my father’s day, which was another poor choice. There was apparently no problem in finding young women who wanted to be unicorn wranglers, but then there was a sudden surge in the number of handsome young princes and before you know it the unicorn wranglers have been swept off their feet and the recruitment process has to start all over again.

Unicorns can turn nasty without an appropriate young woman to look after them.

“So, you’ll be wanting to see the beanstalk,” Jack said, shifting his weight off the pitchfork.

I tried not to tense up, and keep light on my feet, because these country-types can hurl a pitchfork with blinding speed and accuracy. Instead he propped it against a bush, causing a faint tinkle of magical bell-flowers. It’s best to overlook that sort of thing with a pitchfork still so close to hand.

“So it’s just the one beanstalk?”

“Yeah, yeah, Mister. I thought I’d start small. This way.”

I followed him on a winding track through fields of corn, perfectly ordinary corn, not the gold stuff that crashed the economy three years ago and led to the talking horses being phased out in favour of talking hamsters and a bicycle. The path brought us into the shade of a looming tree.

“Here it is, Mister.” Jack showed me his beanstalk, which honestly looked like a sickly carrot, growing in the shadow. “Not bad, eh?”

I stared at the carrotish bean sprout. “Seriously?”

“What?” Jack shook his head. “Sorry, fella, that’s just my rabbit who keeps planting carrots. I tell him they needs sunshine, but he keeps on putting them under here.” Jack pointed up. “Just look at them beans.”

I looked, up, and felt a chill in my bones. The beanstalk tree was tall, very tall, and hung with maturing seed pods as long as my arm, heavy enough to cause harm if they fell.

“How do you harvest?” I asked, picturing a man in armour.

“Work in progress, Mister,” Jack said. “Probably have to use a pitchfork.”

“Right. Of course. So what do these beans do? What’s the advantage over ordinary beans?”

“Glad you asked that, Mister, glad you asked. Just look at the size of them, right? One pod will feed a family for a day, but when they’re ripe, one bean will feed a family for a week.”

“What happens if a bean falls?” From the look of them, one bean dropping from the top of the beanstalk, or tree as I like to call it, would kill a whole family instantly.

“That’s not a problem, Mister. They just float down, soft as you like, with a bit of magic, or float away sometimes, which is where the pitchfork comes in handy.”

That, as we say in the business, is a problem. “Wait, you mean these are magic beans. Not just magically modified?”

“You got it, fella. Proper magic beans.”

“That people are supposed to eat?”

“Yeah, yeah, a bit of magic in every bite. It will put hairs on your chest.”

That’s the sort of thing I was afraid of. “Is it safe?”

Frankly, magically modified crops can have all sorts of surprising consequences, but actual magical crops are like the Wild West, which is far less wild now that all of those Handsome Princes have settled out that way with their former unicorn-wrangler princesses. It turns out that witches’ curses are a big concern in Royal circles, so they have field after field of dwarf ogre bushes since finely ground baby ogre bones are excellent for warding off curses, and fully grown dwarf ogres are both very loyal and excellent at law-enforcement.

For those of us in the know, there are problems ahead, because one day the dwarf ogres will notice how many young dwarf ogres are picked from the bush far too young and ground up to ward off curses. It will be just like the old High Kings of West Loathing who worked out how to bottle trouble in great glass jars and have an easy life, until that pesky earthquake.

Jack gave me a joyful smile. “Fella, I’ve been eating magic since I were a kid. Look at me now.” He opened his shirt to reveal a jungle of hair. “My dear widdered mother knits a new doormat from that every month. Fetch a pretty penny, they do. Jack’s Widdered Mother’s Famous Doormat. Nice little earner, fella. Magic just sucks the dirt off yer boots.”

“Mister Jack…” I hesitated as he gave me a look that said he could fetch his pitchfork in no time. “I mean Just Jack… do you have a magic licence?”

“Me? Course I do, Mister.” He delved back inside his shirt and pulled out a battered scroll. “Here you go, fella, magic licence.”

I unrolled it.

“Jack, heretofore known as Just Jack, is hereby licensed and approved in the use, manipulation, promulgation and baking of magic in all crops, livestock, dairy products and other foodstuffs, by order of His Majesty’s Expectorate of Magical Practitioners.”

I examined the watermark, which sloshed exactly the way it’s supposed to, and the King’s Seal clapped its flippers before diving into the watermark exactly right, but it ought to say His Majesty’s Inspectorate, not Expectorate. So, it might be a fake, or it might be that the scribe was having an off-day.

I handed the licence back. “That’s fine.” Because one way of dealing with an inspector who spots a fake licence involves blinding speed and accuracy with a pitchfork. “How many beans are you expecting to produce?”

“Ah, now there I’ve got a problem, fella.” He nudged the bean tree a couple of times with his shoulder and half a bone dropped out of the air. A very human-looking leg bone in fact.

“HEY!” A thunderous shout echoed overhead. “Stop shaking the beanstalk. I’m trying to make my bread.”

Jack pointed up. “I’ve got a giant infestation. If I can’t get that sorted, I could lose the whole crop. When they can’t find people to eat they start on the beans.”

All giant infestations have to be reported, and then exterminated, which might shut Jack’s farm down completely. Or burn it down, depending on how bad the problem is.

“I can ask the new pest-control department to take a look,” I offered, my mind on getting away without pitchfork interaction. “They’ve got all sorts of new methods for getting rid of giant infestations.” Mostly, now, they use dragons, which are faster and hotter than traditional burning techniques. “Would that help?”

Just Jack gave me a huge smile. “Thanks fella. Say, could I interest you in a flying pitchfork? Better than that old bicycle of yours.”

“Flying pitchfork?” Flying towards me, perhaps? “I thought it was broomsticks.”

“Too many associations with witches, fella. Flying pitchforks are the thing, you just gotta be careful reversing.”

I was more certain than ever that Jack, like his pitchfork, was a sharp and dangerous character.

“Are they cheap to run?”

“Dead cheap.”

“Oh. Excellent. The Chief Inspector will drop by next week.” With backup, and dragons, and pitchfork-resistant armour. “He’s always looking for new opportunities. You could join the Inspectorate’s preferred supplier list.” Or, more likely, our recently detained list.

I bade farewell to Just Jack, after buying a new doormat from his mother, and pedalled as fast as my squeaky bicycle would go, only finally feeling safe when I was away from the growing shadow of the beanstalk tree.

Just as I like to arrive unannounced and catch people by surprise, I like to leave in a hurry before people can catch me by surprise. A whole fleet of flying pitchforks might be just what the Inspectorate needs if we can sort out traffic-safety during reversing.

My talking hamster whispered in my ear.

“Next job, is a man called Cousin Jack with a goose that lays golden eggs.”

Oh, please, not more gold. It was bad enough when it grew on trees.

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This was inspired by the November #BlogBattle prompt of Cultivate, because it was the wrong time of year to talk about what’s growing in the greenhouse.

Images from pixabay,com.

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