Hi fellow readers, I'm planning on revising my first Fanfiction of James and the Giant Peach, by improving the grammar, characters, and making it interesting. Enjoy!
Chapter 1: The Beginning
This is James Henry Trotter. He lived with his mother, father and adopted older sister, Penelope Esmeralda Trotter, in a cozy little house by the sea.
On September 4, 1948, a little boy around seven years old is standing on the beach near his house. He picks up some rocks and threw them into the water of the salty Atlantic Ocean. He had a round face, fair skin, short brown hair, and big brown eyes. He wore a long sleeved yellow collared shirt, a light blue vest, knee length tan shorts with a black belt, knee length white socks and brown shoes.
As James threw another rock, his father appeared behind him and grabbed him and held him close. "Hey, I got ya!" Mr. Trotter said, making the boy giggle. Mr. Trotter has short brown hair and eyes, fair skin, and a round face. He wore a brown hat, an aquamarine long sleeved shirt, light grey pants, brown shoes, and he wore a watch on his right wrist.
"Happy Birthday, darling," A beautiful woman, smiled. James' mother wore a pale blue short sleeved, dress with buttons in the front, a pink headband on her head, a pink apron, and brown sandals.
Like her husband and son, she too had fair skin, brown hair and eyes, and a round face. She carried a cake with vanilla frosting with seven lit up candles, six were blue and in the center was a boy riding on a grasshopper. The woman stopped, looked around and called, "Penelope! Where are you sweetheart?"
"I'm coming, Mama!"
A thirteen-year-old petite and slender girl appeared with a white and grey goat following her. This girl is called Penelope. Unlike the Trotters, she had tan skin, emerald, green eyes, and an oval face with long wavy black hair that trembles to her waist. She wore a white short sleeved blouse, a light purple dress, white socks, black Mary Jane shoes, and gold stud earrings. She carried a bouquet of flowers she picked from a meadow.
Penelope is a gypsy; her parents were both gypsies and used to travel around the country in England looking for a place to stay with their caravan. Her parents both worked as fortune tellers, dancers, and animal trainers to keep food on the table. Every place they tried to stay at, they would get chased away by the police and threaten to arrest them.
James's parents were both kind enough to allow them stay on their land and provided them food, clothing, and healthcare and soon after, both of the families became good friends. When Penelope was eleven, her parents both died of a mysterious illness caused by a poison.
Since Penelope had no other family, the Trotters adopted Penelope and raised her as their own daughter. They also treated her and Jaelle with kindness and love just as they did with their son, James. Penelope happily became an older surrogate sister to James, making them both closer than ever. Penelope, Jaelle, and Mrs. Trotter joined with James and Mr. Trotter to celebrate.
"Now quickly, blow them out before the wind does," said Mrs. Trotter.
"Make a wish first," said Mr. Trotter with encouragement.
Mrs. Trotter placed the cake on a red and white checkered tablecloth filled with many presents for James. The boy closed his eyes and thought of a wish. After a moment, he blew out the candles.
Penelope grinned, "Happy Birthday James. Here is a bouquet for you." She handed the flowers to her adopted little brother and James took it and smiled at Penelope.
"Thank you, Penelope."
Jaelle bleated and James petted her head.
It was a wonderful life. They had each other, and they had their dreams.
Late on, the Trotter family laid themselves on an orange and white striped blanket in the sand. Mr. Trotter, James, Jaelle, Penelope, and Mrs. Trotter were looking at the clouds in the sky.
James spotted something in the sky and pointed at it, "Look! That cloud looks like a camel." A cloud appeared in the shape of a camel with two humps on its' back.
"And that one over there!" he added as he spotted another cloud that looked like a train. "It looks like a train engine."
"Can you two see the tallest building in the world?" Mr. Trotter asked.
Both James and Penelope looked at the sky and spotted a cloud and it looked like a building and it did not stand up straight. "I can't find it," James said, disappointed.
"Hmmm, hm, hm, hm, me neither," added the Gypsy girl, frowning.
Mrs. Trotter smiled at the children and recited the family motto, "Try looking at it another way."
James and Penelope both sat up, staring at the cloud, and tipped their heads to the right. At that angle, the cloud resembled the famous tower in New York City: The Empire State Building.
"I see it!" James exclaimed.
"Me too!" Penelope added.
"That's where we're going," said Mr. Trotter. He pulled out a small travel book and it had the words New York in blue with the Empire State Building in the front. "On a great ship that will take us across the ocean, and we'll go right on top of that building."
"The four of us?" the boy asked.
"Even Jaelle?" asked Penelope.
"The four of us, even Jaelle on top of the world."
"Are there any kids there like me?" James asked filled with excitement.
"And girls like me too?" Penelope asked curiously.
Mr. Trotter opened the travel book and showed some pictures of New York. "Hundreds of them," he said, giving the travel book to the children. "It's a wonderful place, James and Penelope. A city where dreams come true."
Then one day, a terrible thing happened.
James, Penelope, and Jaelle looked up at the sky and saw that Mr. and Mrs. Trotter had vanished. The sky turned black, lightning flashed, and thunder roared. The wind blew around them.
An angry rhinoceros appeared out of nowhere and gobbled up his poor mother and father.
James and Penelope hugged each other close and stared up at the sky and dark clouds in horror. Jaelle got into her guard form and bleated fiercely, willing to protect her girl and boy.
Their troubles, if they had any at all, were over in thirty-five seconds' flat.
Then out of the dark clouds, the silhouette of a rhinoceros with glowing yellow eyes appeared from the storm clouds and charged at them with a roar!
But James's and Penelope's troubles were just beginning.
James woke up with a start on his bed, sat up and panted. He realized that he had just had another nightmare about his parents' deaths again. The boy wore an old white nightshirt with blue stripes.
Next to him in another bed was Penelope, who sat up and rubbed her green eyes, and trembled from a nightmare. The Gypsy girl wore an old nightgown with a dark purple sash. Jaelle woke up, underneath the girl's bed and bleated. It had been nine months since the tragic deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Trotter, and Penelope turned fourteen. But things have gotten more worse for them after the tragedy.
James held on to his beloved travel book. He gasped and placed it underneath his limp pillow just in the nick of time when James's aunts, his and Penelope's new legal guardians barged into their bedroom.
For now, the two and the goat live here, with Aunt Sponge…
"Get up!" the first aunt, Sponge snapped. You lazy little bugs!" She was fat and cruel, had pale skin and beady hazel eyes. She had three warts on her face, one on the left side of her face near her ear, one underneath her right nostril, and one underneath her right eye.
Sponge wore a pink bathrobe, with hot pink fur in the center, slippers on her feet and a pale blue cloth that completely covered her head.
And Aunt Spiker.
Behind the fat woman, was the other aunt and Sponge's sister, Spiker. She was tall, skinny, and hideous. She had blue eyes and pale skin like Aunt Sponge. She wore a forest green bathrobe, slippers, and a pale blue cloth with a huge bow in the center on her head.
"You two've already wasted four minutes of daylight!" Aunt Spiker snapped, pointing to her watch.
The children were both terrified as they stared at their guardians. Penelope wrapped her arms around James and Jaelle to protect them. After the aunts adopted James, they knew that Penelope would be of good use to them as she could help James out with the chores faster. With the gypsy girl around, they treated her and the boy with cruelty and disrespect. Even Jaelle would charge and hit them in the guts, only for the goat to get kicked.
Sponge and Spiker hated gypsies, believing they are thieves, deceitful, inferior, and act as second class citizens. They were also bitter and jealous of Penelope's charm and beauty, fearing it would surpass their own. They dressed the gypsy girl in rags and forced her and James to work as servants in their own house.
"Look at them," Aunt Spiker mocked. "Lollygagging in dreamland, when there's so much work to do!"
"Weeds to pull, wood to chop," Aunt Sponge added.
The sisters chanted in unison, "Work, work, work, work, work!"