Then Marjorie said evenly, "I want to tell you something about communicating with the giants. I was on the Anne and we were brought here just like you were. Say a space warp did it because we don't know what a space warp is. But we made a bad landing. We couldn't take off again and our communicator was smashed. We had no food to speak of. So we decided to try to make contact with the giants. We'd seen them, and they were civilized. If we showed them that we were civilized too ... So we marched down a sidewalk in the city, two by two. We thought it would prove we were intelligent, and human, and they'd help us out of curiosity, anyhow."
There was silence in the Spindrift, as it rested on the wide moonlit beach with dark seas glittering as they raced ashore.
"But," said Marjorie in a painstakingly unemotional tone, "it was children who discovered us. Giant children! They thought we were pet animals somebody had dressed and maybe plasticked to make us into living toys. They snatched us - as toys! They squabbled over us. They seized us. They snatched us from each other. Maybe they didn't intend to kill us, but we - broke so easily! If they squeezed too hard, we crushed and died."
Betty Hamilton shivered. Valerie's features almost lost their sophisticated look. She couldn't wholly keep it. Marjorie said harshly, "A boy - a giant boy, bigger than most of the others - took me to the giant who collected small animals and sold me to that giant as a runaway pet animal. They never grasped the idea that I was anything else. They took me for a stray, a creature whose former owner had dressed me up, so I'd look like a - a tiny giant!" Then she added grimly, "That's the answer to the idea of communicating with the giants!"