They called him Tom Thumb, because he was the size of a thumb. However, his spirit was the biggest in the whole world:
—Dad, Dad!
—Hmmmm?
—Dad!
—Yes, son?
—I’m going to travel the world.
—Very well, son.
—It’ll be just like in the stories!
I’ll find treasure, I’ll SLAY DRAGONS!
Although maybe I can’t… I’m too small.
—Hmmm
—No, Tom Thumb, of course you can
—he said, getting up from the armchair where he was sitting—.
But you’ll need this.
The father, who was a tailor, took a long darning needle and filled the eye with melted red wax, as if it were a diamond handle.
—Take your sword.
—Yay!! This deserves a great farewell feast!
He said, as he headed to the kitchen, leaping from one piece of furniture to another.
—I wonder what my mother is cooking…
When he arrived, he tried to find out what was bubbling in the big pot on top of the stove.
But he couldn’t get close enough, as it was too big and too hot for him to climb.
—If I can’t get close by land… then I’ll have to go by air!
Tom Thumb took a sheet of paper and made a little airplane out of it.
—Hmmm
—Eureka!
This flying contraption will take me wherever I want.
Then he climbed up onto the highest cupboard in the kitchen and stood at the edge with his plane.
He looked down at the precipice. Although he was used to heights, this one made him a little nervous.
Then he looked at the steaming pot. It was on the other side of the kitchen…
…quite a distance for little Tom Thumb.
He tightened his new sword at his belt…
…and jumped, riding on his paper airplane.
—Here we go!
He began to fly over the kitchen.
—This is incredible!
—he said, taking in the view.
—Aha! I can almost see what’s inside the pot. I just have to get a little closer…
Suddenly, the steam coming from the pot shook his little airplane hard. Tom Thumb began to lose control, and all at once a big puff of steam pushed him straight up the chimney.
—Aaaah!
He shot through the chimney flue and out into the open air.
In that moment, he was left floating outside on a splendid spring day.
—Phew, that was close… it seems things have calmed down now.
However, he stayed hovering in the air for a while, slowly drifting down and covering a long distance.
At last, he reached the ground, just a few meters away from a village.
—Now my adventure really begins!
And he headed towards the place.
—Hello, I’m looking for a job.
—he said to a seamstress.
—We have plenty of work here. What we don’t have is money to pay anyone.
—That’s alright, I’ll be happy as long as you feed me well.
And judging by your looks, you don’t seem to be short on that…
—he added in a lower voice.
—Do you know anything about tailoring?
—My father is a tailor! Stitching runs in my threads!… I mean, in my veins.
And just like that, Tom Thumb officially started working as an apprentice tailor.
However, it didn’t take long before he grew tired of the place.
—Ma’am, this soup is very watery.
—And these crumbs of bread wouldn’t fill a mouse.
—Ha! The food doesn’t satisfy your noble stomach?
Feel free to send a letter of complaint to the Guild of Spinners and Patchers.
Though don’t hold your breath. I doubt they’ll read it before the next solstice.
—Well then, if I don’t eat better, I’m leaving first thing tomorrow. And I’ll write on your door: “Here lives the queen of potatoes: lots of potato, little meat.”
The woman, red with anger, grabbed a frying pan to teach him a lesson.
But Tom Thumb had already hidden under a thimble.
—I’ve seen cows move faster than that, my friend!
The landlady quickly lifted the thimble, but Tom Thumb darted nimbly between the fabrics and slipped under the table.
—I’m down here!
The woman looked furiously under the table, but he had already hidden in the thread drawer.
—You’ve lost me again!
She yanked the drawer open with great force. Tom Thumb jumped out of it, but this time she grabbed him in midair.
—Out of here, you pest!
She said, throwing him out into the street.
—Well, seems good manners among tailors are going out of fashion.
He set off toward a dark forest.
Then he saw a campfire a short distance away and a group of men who looked suspicious.
—What if I ask them for some food?
he muttered as he approached.
One of the men, with a rough voice, said to him:
—Hey, tiny. Want to get rich?
—Rich?
—Yeah, we’re a group of honest entrepreneurs.
We like to think we innovate in alternative wealth redistribution.
—That sounds amazing, that way we tailors won’t have to eat watery soup anymore.
—Join our business: we’re looking for unique profiles, and someone as small as you would be perfect for getting into the king’s treasure vault.
—Steal from the king? No, I can’t do that.
—You’ll have food in abundance and gold coins. Isn’t that what you wanted?
Tom Thumb thought about it for a moment and finally nodded:
—Alright. But I’ll only do it this once.
They reached the king’s castle, and Tom Thumb slipped through the main gate without being noticed.
Then he wandered through the corridors until he found the treasure room, guarded by two soldiers.
He discovered a tiny crack next to the door.
—Aha!
As he was about to squeeze through, he heard one guard’s voice:
—Look at that spider. I’m going to crush it.
—No! What if it’s a mother spider carrying food to her babies?
the other broke in, just before Tom Thumb was crushed.
—Food? It’s a spider!
—Everyone has the right to eat. Even spiders.
—Guards too, and they don’t pay me to listen to nonsense.
—Well, I like to imagine there’s still a bit of kindness in this world.
—Kindness? What are you talking about?
Now you’ve made me hungry with all that talk of food!
Taking advantage of the confusion, Tom Thumb slipped inside.
—Yeah, you just keep thinking about your stomach…
He opened a window from the inside and began tossing coins, one after another, down to the bandits, who started cheering below.
Suddenly he heard footsteps approaching:
—Someone’s coming!
The king entered to inspect the room.
He went over to the piles of coins with a frown and muttered:
—This doesn’t add up… there should be twelve piles, and here there are only ten and a half…
Have I not raised taxes enough, or is someone stealing from me?
He spun around and shouted to his guards:
—Stay alert, someone is stealing my gold!
When the king left, Tom Thumb kept throwing coins.
The noise alerted the guards, who rushed in, but they didn’t see anyone.
—Impossible! There’s nobody here.
—I’m right here!
said Tom Thumb, popping out from behind a pile of coins.
The guards lunged at him, but Tom Thumb slipped away nimbly.
They ran from one side to the other trying to catch him, but Tom Thumb always escaped, hiding behind the coins.
—Over here!
Now I’m over here!
No, man, on the other side!
At last, exhausted, the guards gave up.
—It must be a ghost…
—A ghost?
—Yes, a tax-collecting specter. It comes in, takes gold and vanishes. They’re in all the legends.
—And we can’t catch it or dodge it?
—These ghosts? Impossible!
—Well then, the king should move his gold somewhere else.
When he came out, Tom Thumb went back to the thieves, who clapped for him in admiration:
—You’re our hero! Stay with us!
—I’m sorry, but I must continue my journey.
He said with a smile, taking one coin as a reward, as it was the only thing he could carry.
He continued his trip working from tailor shop to tailor shop, though none of them truly pleased him.
In the end, he took a job as an assistant in an inn run by an elderly, half-blind, kind innkeeper, whom the maids shamelessly took advantage of.
—Hey, Tom Thumb! Put another round on table fourteen!
—Right away, boss.
There, the maids began to really resent him, because Tom Thumb, who felt sorry for the innkeeper, always uncovered their little thefts and tricks.
—Let’s teach him a lesson.
they whispered among themselves.
One day, while cutting grass, one maid caught Tom Thumb with the scythe and, without thinking, wrapped him in a handkerchief and tossed him into the cows’ trough.
A big black cow swallowed him whole without even noticing.
Tom Thumb, very uncomfortable inside the dark stomach, heard the innkeeper say:
—Tomorrow we’ll slaughter this cow.
—I’m here!
Get me out of here!
shouted Tom Thumb in despair, but no one heard him.
The next day, after the slaughter, Tom Thumb managed to jump between the innkeeper’s knives, who, half-blind as he was, couldn’t tell Tom Thumb from the blood sausage and meat.
—If I weren’t half-blind, I’d swear this meat has legs and is running away from my knife!
In the end he ended up trapped inside a blood sausage.
He hung for a long time over the fireplace, bored and resigned.
—Maybe I should have stayed with those honest entrepreneurs… or maybe I should have filled in that complaint form…
At last, the innkeeper took the sausage for a special guest. At the very first cut, Tom Thumb sprang out with all his strength.
—Free, at last!
But his joy didn’t last long: he had barely left the village when a fox swallowed him in one gulp.
—Oh, come on! This has to be a joke.
—Mr. Fox, I’m stuck in your throat. If you let me go, I promise you my father’s chickens.
—All the chickens?
—All of them!
The fox let him go and walked with him back home. When he saw him, his father happily handed over the chickens.
—Here you go, Dad, I’ve brought you a coin I earned as an entrepreneur.
But… why did you let him take all the chickens?
—Silly boy, don’t you think your father would give away the whole henhouse to have his son back?
The father hugged little Tom Thumb tightly, knowing there was no greater treasure in the world.
—You know what, Dad?
I went out to conquer the world, but I think the world ended up conquering me.
And that is all… for the moment.
Til the next tale.