1   The Doorbell Rings

 

  Long ago there were five giants who lived together on a farm.

  Grizzle was the biggest. He liked to build things.

  Dazzle was the roundest, and she loved to cook.

  Grab and Grub, the twins, always stuck together.

  Last was the little giant Dab, who loved to read.

  One day a mail carrier rang the doorbell. BONG! BONG! BONG!

  He held an enormous envelope tightly in his hands, as if afraid it might drop onto the ground.

  Little Dab answered the door. She didn’t recognize him. No one had ever sent a letter to Fe-Fi-Fo-Farm before. But she took the letter from the mail carrier.

 

   

 

He let out a huge sigh of relief.

  “For us?” asked Dab.

  “Heaviest letter I ever had to deliver,” the mail carrier said before speeding away on his bike.

  That seemed odd to little Dab. The letter wasn’t heavy for her at all.

  Little Dab brought the letter inside and put it on the dinner table. It was addressed to the giants in a kind of spiderweb handwriting.

  She did not feel she should open it but would wait till later, when everyone was inside together.

  Meanwhile, Dazzle was in the kitchen, cooking up a storm of stew with potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, and other yummy stuff.

   

  Little Dab could smell it from the dining room, where she was setting the table. She would have liked to watch things cooking.

  Learning about new stuff was what Dab loved best. But she would never bother Dazzle while she worked. Dazzle was not just a cook. She was an artist of the pot.

  So, having delivered the mail to the table, little Dab went to the room they all called the library, but it was really Dab’s special place. There she took out a book about large, wild vegetables and began to read.