There's no place like home 7/9

Fundin eventually turned up three days later. Jennifer Jane had taken to making a quick visit to the giant’s pool everyday, when she got home from school, to see how the giant was getting on with his enlarging box.

Secretly she was rather proud of herself and the part she’d played in the opening ceremony.

The giant had also found a new routine. He’d have a quick cry in the morning to top up the pool, then the goblins would bring him his lunch. After he’d eaten that, he’d have forty winks, while the goblin firemen stood by to pump more water into the pool if it became necessary.

In the evening he’d have another good cry, which hopefully provided enough water to last through the night. He’d never had such a wonderfully lazy time before.

On the third day, Jennifer Jane arrived and as usual asked him if he’d enjoyed his meal. The giant was enthusiastically describing what he’d eaten for lunch, just as Abigail and Rebecca flew in on their brooms.

Each of the witches had a dwarf sitting behind them and carried a set of pannier bags slung across their broom handles in front. When the brooms had been unloaded, Fundin picked up a parcel and asked Abigail to fly him up to the giant’s shoulder. The giant held the palm of his hand level so that the dwarf could use it as a platform to work from at tree top level.

Fundin carefully unwrapped the solar panels that were in his parcel and fixed them high up in a convenient tree. Finally he connected the wires and dropped the free ends to the ground.

In the meantime, the other dwarf had put what appeared to be a boulder over the spring.

“It’s got all the machinery inside,” he said, ”we made the cover look like a rock so that it wouldn’t be too noticeable to any passing humans.”

He dug a shallow trench, laid the wires into it, made some connections inside the boulder and refilled the trench.

Fundin came across and inspected the work. “That looks fine; no one will know there’s anything there when the grass grows back. I’ve told the giant how to switch it on and off, so that should be that!”

Everybody stood back as the giant reached over with his foot and tapped the boulder. Water from the spring began to flow slowly into the pool.

“How does the salt get into the water?” asked Jennifer Jane.

“The witches gave us a spell package to put inside the pumping unit,” replied Fundin, “it’ll need renewing once a year but the fairies at your Wish Warehouse will replace it when required.”

‘Well that all seems foolproof,’ Jennifer Jane thought to herself, ‘I don’t see that anything can go wrong.’

The giant beamed happily as he waved good bye to everybody as they left. Then with the pump running smoothly, he settled down in his nice warm cloak for his usual after dinner forty winks.