Free Firestar by Anne Forbes Page B

animal, who would not normally have gone anywhere near a road, feeling the smooth tarmac under its hooves, streaked along with the giant crashing heavily behind. Keep going, Prince Kalman urged the stag, willing it torun faster. Keep going and perhaps it’ll run out of energy like the others did.
    The giant, however, was gaining and again Kalman thought he was done for when, lights blazing, a huge trailer carrying a load of tree trunks came thundering round a sharp bend in the road. The stag gave a sudden, spectacular leap that cleared the road but the giant was not so fortunate; nor so agile. As the astonished driver slammed on his brakes, the momentum of the trailer sent it straight into the giant’s legs. It was what you might call a no-win situation. The giant didn’t stand a chance. It broke into hundreds of pieces as its legs were demolished under it and roaring with fury, fell over the trailer in a jumble of rocks, stones and earth.
    A van, headlights blazing, drew up with a screech of brakes behind the trailer. Kenny and Larry, sitting in the front seat, had been trying to overtake the monstrous vehicle for miles and its sudden halt took them by surprise and nearly sent them straight into the back of it.
    Kalman, surrounded by ferns at the side of the road, looked at the van curiously, through the eyes of the stag. He had never in his life seen anything to equal it, for in the light of its blazing headlights he could see that it had been painted in the weirdest mixture of fluorescent colours that he’d ever had the misfortune to clap eyes on. The two lads that jumped down from the front seats looked around seventeen or eighteen and, colourwise , weren’t actually that much better than their van. Their vivid trousers, horrendous jackets andfantastically belled hats, however, served to give Kalman a clue as to their identities. Light dawned! Jesters, he thought, that’s what they must be — the modern equivalent of jesters! There could be no other reason for the multi-coloured clothes that they sported. He eyed their vehicle speculatively as they rushed to help the driver of the trailer and gradually deciphered the mosaic of lettering that shone vividly from its side. “
The Jelly Beans,
” he read, frowning in puzzled wonder.
Jelly Beans?
    It was actually quite some time before Kenny and Larry returned. The huge trailer had suffered little or no damage from the collision with the giant and apart from being shaken, the driver had recovered quickly enough. Nevertheless, he had a tight schedule to follow and, anxious to get on his way, he’d enlisted their help to clear the stones from the road so that he could continue his journey.
    Kalman, by this time, had decided that the jesters and their van was just what he needed. As the two colourful figures strode back along the road, the stag limped forward and collapsed on its knees, seemingly totally exhausted. It lifted its head limply and eyed Larry beseechingly as he made to open the door.
    “Hey, Kenny,” Larry called to his mate, “there’s a muckle great stag here, by the side of the road!”
    Kenny appeared round the side of the van, the bells on his hat tinkling in the still night air. After a disaster at the hairdresser’s a while back that had left him looking like a fair-show freak, he’d decided to wear the multi-coloured hat all the time— or at least until his hair grew in again. This had proved a good move publicity-wise and although his hair had long since grown, they’d both continued to wear their startling outfits more or less all the time. Needless to say, the Jelly Beans, for that’s what they called themselves, were instantly recognizable in most towns and villages up and down the west coast of Scotland.
    “That must be the stag that the giant was chasing ,” he said, for the trailer driver had told him of the fantastic sight that had met his eyes as he took the bend. He walked up to it cautiously, mindful of the broad spread of