Kevin Conley, the Giant,. . .

. . .has been a really fun character to bring to life.  There's an irony about the Giant.  In a tenth grade, super crush sort of way, he is stalking Tisha.  Then he appoints himself her protector when he realizes a real stalker is after her.  So Tisha is being double-stalked, one stalker good, one stalker evil.  As the story develops, the Giant matures in both positive and negative ways.  The following is The Giant's Prologue, the second prologue in TISHA AND THE GIANT.

The Giant’s Prologue

The same afternoon that Tisha was suffering in the dirt, the Giant, who was yet to have that name or identity, was having a farting contest with his sister.  They were playing Racko at the kitchen table, and the Giant had farted sort of by mistake. April, who was 10, laughed and grimaced.  The Giant, proud of his fart, grinned and listened to the house.  His grandpa was snoring on the living room couch, and his mom and dad were talking way out in the front yard.  It was a perfect time to fart for pleasure, and to make things even better, their mom had made them eat cabbage for lunch.

“Bet you can’t blow one like that,” the Giant challenged April.

April grinned and grunted and produced a little squeak which cracked both of them up.

“Listen to this one,” the Giant grinned, groaned, and ripped off a beauty. “Superfart!” 

         April was laughing so hard, tears were running down her face. 

“You’re laughing so hard you don’t know how bad it stinks,” the Giant said and waved his hands in front of his face.  April laughed even harder.  He loved to see his little sister laugh.   “Here comes another!” The Giant scrunched up his face and strained and grunted and “prrrrrrrrip,” out came another monster of a fart.  it was then the Giant saw that April’s face was all pale, and her mouth was open but not laughing.  The Giant knew who was behind him and what was going to happen without even turning around.

“Where’s your manners?” his dad growled, and the Giant braced himself.  His dad smacked him so hard right in the ear that the Giant fell off his chair.  His ear hurt awful, but he waited for more, and his dad kicked him in the butt.  

April ran away from the table crying.  The Giant’s mom was standing by the kitchen door, her hand to her mouth.  From the living room, Grandpa called, “What the H is goin’ on?”

The Giant didn’t make a sound.  He just waited for more, and more came, and when he knew it was over, he got to his feet and hurried to his room.  There he remained behind his closed door, wiping the blood off his ear, and rubbing the sore spots on his bottom.  But he did not cry.

Sometime, later that afternoon, the Giant decided he was a superhero and his name was the Giant.  He was big and strong and helped people.  And he never cried.

  Having decided that, the Giant went to his desk, and from the bottom drawer, he took out his secret notebook, opened it, and wrote “Tisha” five times very slowly and deliberately.  He looked at the name repeated 5 times, and again realized that he had really crappy penmanship.  But he had a really good imagination; his teachers always told him that .  And now he was a superhero.

He put his notebook away in the back of the bottom drawer, just like he had done after writing Tisha’s name 5 times every day that summer.  The porch door slammed, and it seemed to shake the house.  His dad had come back from the store, where he had gone to buy a case of beer.  The Giant curled up on his bed and began reading his new SPIDERMAN comic, very glad that he was now a superhero.  His house was a good house to be a superhero in.