Mountain Moss and the Mouse Who Wasn’t Scary

Chapter 1: A giant who is the size of a mountain but is scared of tiny mice

Beyond the farthest hills of a land called Pebbleton, there lived a giant named Moss.

Moss was as big as a mountain. His head poked through the clouds, his feet made valleys where he stepped, and when he sneezed, the pine trees leaned over like grass in a gale. Birds built nests in his beard without even asking.

The villagers of Pebbleton looked up at him from far below and whispered, "Imagine being so strong. Imagine being afraid of nothing."

But Moss was afraid of something.

He was afraid of mice.

It had started when he was small, which for a giant meant about the size of a barn. One night, a tiny gray mouse had scurried across his toe. Moss had shrieked, leaped into the air, and landed so hard that a lake appeared where a meadow used to be.

Ever since, the smallest squeak made his knees knock together.

"They're so quick," he would moan. "And so twitchy. And their little whiskers! What if one runs up my leg? What if it gets in my sock?"

So Moss lived carefully. He never wore socks, just in case. He slept sitting up on a hilltop, with his feet tucked under him. He kept a large bell by his bed to ring if he heard any rustling in the grass. Whenever he walked, he looked at the ground, tiptoeing in huge, slow steps, and wobbling at every little sound.

Sometimes his wobbling flattened a barn. Sometimes it knocked down a bridge. The villagers were kind about it, but they were tired of rebuilding.