A story can be told in many ways. There are many different types of stories. There are many different ways a story can be written. There are many stories.

All stories involve imagination, from the reader and also the writer. Creativity, and interest. All stories must be written as if they were true, otherwise they are unbelievable, and unbelievable stories aren’t interesting.

My grandfather wrote a story. He wrote it and told it as if it were real. And, as I later found out, it was.

As told to me by Grandfather:

“I was a young boy. Older than you, Christalina. My two best friends were Tony and Mitch. We were a rowdy bunch. All of us together like that, we got into our share of trouble. But I think it was that one time, at the swamp, when the unthinkable, even unbelievable, happened.”

“What was that, Grandfather?” I asked as a small girl, “What was unbelievable?”

“Well, Christalina,” he would begin, “We were down in the swamp, Tony, Mitch, and I. We weren’t supposed to be there, as always we were disobeying our parents. You should never do that Christalina. That’s bad.”

“I know Grandfather. But what happened?”

“There was a loud footstep. Louder than normal footsteps are, or even can be. Tony was the first to hear it. BOOM! BOOM! That’s how it went. BOOM!” He jostled me on his knee, “Tony said ‘Hush’ and we all were quiet. We just stood there listening. Then, in the very top branches of a tree, we saw a face. It was quite a large face, Christalina, not like your’s or mine, but a lot bigger. I remember Mitch screamed and the face said ‘What?’ Scared us half to death, Christalina.”

“Then what happened Grandfather?”

“Then I said to it ‘What are you? Are you gonna eat us?’ I remember I said it with spunk too, lots of spunk. And the face said ‘I am a Harold. Do you want me to eat you? Do you taste good?’ And Mitch said ‘NO! We taste TERRIBLE!!!!’ and Tony said ‘You’re a Harold, or your name is Harold?’ The face looked confused. He asked ‘Is there a difference?’ And Tony answered ‘Well sure there is. I’m a person, but my name is Tony. Are you a face?’ The face moved. I looked at the base of the tree and saw a hairy leg come out from behind it. It was a huge leg, Christalina! You wouldn’t believe how big! Mitch screamed ‘It’s a giant!’ and ran. But me and Tony, we stayed put. We said to the giant ‘What are you doing here?’ And he said ‘I am looking for my home. Have you seen the stairs?’ I asked him ‘What stairs?’ and he said ‘The stairs to home.’ And he looked up.”

“Why did he look up Grandfather?” I asked.

“Because, as I know now, he was looking for the stairs. I remember how suddenly his face brightened and I looked where he was looking. There were stairs in the sky Christalina! It was beautiful. They were made of clouds and they seemed to be lined with a rainbow. And the giant looked down at us and smiled. ‘Home.’ He said to us, and took a giant step into the air, placing his foot firmly on the first step. ‘Good-bye’ he said. And he left us. But about 5 years later, when I was around 15, I went out to milk the 2 cows we had on out farm, Rudi and Buckwheat and I saw a giant footprint. I knew that somewhere, a giant was looking for the stairs in the clouds to take him home.”