Goat Pie

by Alan MacDonald

  As luck would have it, no one answered the door.

  ‘I think they’re out, Grumpa,’ said Ulrik.

  Grumpa puzzled over the holly wreath on the front door which said ‘Merry Christmas!’

  ‘What’s down there?’ He pointed at the gravel path leading to the side gate.

  ‘Oh, that goes to the back but we can’t go in there, Grumpa …’

  Too late. Grumpa had bulldozed through the gate and disappeared.

  The back garden was empty and there was no sign of the Priddles when they peered through the French windows. Ulrik caught sight of a head peering at him over the garden fence. It was making some complicated hand signals, but he had no idea what they were supposed to mean.

  ‘Maybe we should go, Grumpa,’ he said anxiously.

  ‘Hogswoggle!’ replied Grumpa. ‘They’re trolls. They won’t mind if we make ourselves at home.’

  Grumpa rattled the back door. It was locked but that didn’t stop him. He took a run at it and butted it with his head. There was a splintering of wood as the bolt buckled and the door gave way, falling inwards. They left it hanging by one hinge as they walked into the kitchen.

  Grumpa stared at the rows of neat cupboards and the spotless cooker. He continued into the lounge, where he gaped at the cream-coloured carpet, the leather sofa and the TV in the corner.

  ‘What kind of trolls are they?’ he asked in disgust. ‘It’s clean! It smells sweet as buttercups!’

  ‘Maybe they haven’t dirtied it for a while,’ said Ulrik. ‘Come on, Grumpa – let’s go!’ He tugged at the sleeve of his coat. If the Priddles came back now and discovered them in the house, there would be all kinds of trouble.

  Grumpa shook his head stubbornly. ‘We’ll go hunting later,’ he said. ‘First I want to meet these trolls. Someone needs to speak to them. They’re living like peeples. It’s disgustive!’

  The Priddles’ car turned into the drive and parked in front of the garage. Poking out of the boot was the Christmas tree they’d bought from the garden centre.

  ‘Can we put it up now, Mum?’ asked Warren excitedly.

  ‘Of course we can, darling,’ said Mrs Priddle. ‘Help your dad to carry it through to the back.’

  As they were dragging the tree out of the boot, Mr and Mrs Troll came rushing out of their house. They had seen the Priddles’ car pull into the drive and were anxious to head them off.

  ‘Piddle!’ said Mr Troll.

  ‘Can’t stop – got to get this tree put up,’ said Mr Priddle.

  ‘Don’t do it now,’ said Mr Troll. ‘Come round. Have some pots of tea.’

  ‘No thanks!’ said Mr Priddle, heading for the gate. ‘We’ve had one.’

  ‘Breakfast then!’ said Mrs Troll. ‘I’ve got eggs and jam.’

  ‘Another time,’ said Mrs Priddle. They disappeared through the side gate, leaving the Trolls looking after them helplessly.

  Warren helped his dad carry the tree to the back door, where they halted unexpectedly. ‘Ow!’ cried Warren, getting tangled up with the rear end.

  ‘Where’s the back door?’ asked Mr Priddle. He stared at the gap where the door used to be.

  ‘Didn’t you lock it when we went out?’ asked Mrs Priddle.

  ‘Of course I locked it! Look! Someone’s broken it down!’

  ‘Shhh!’ Mrs Priddle held up a hand for silence. ‘I can hear someone. They’re inside!’

  ‘Burglars!’ gasped Warren.

  Mrs Priddle clutched at her husband’s arm. ‘They’re in the house! Call the police, Roger!’

  Mr Priddle checked his pockets. ‘I left my phone upstairs,’ he groaned.

  ‘What’s it doing up there?’

  ‘I don’t know! I wasn’t expecting to be burgled today!’

  ‘See?’ said Warren triumphantly. ‘If I had a mobile phone, I could phone the police!’

  ‘Be quiet, Warren!’ hissed Mrs Priddle. ‘What are we going to do? They’re in there now stealing our things. My jewellery, Roger. The TV’s brand new. And all the presents are on top of the wardrobe!’

  ‘Are they?’ said Warren, who had been trying to find them for some time.

  ‘You’ll just have to scare them off,’ Mrs Priddle continued.

  ‘Me?’ said Mr Priddle. ‘What if they’re dangerous? They might be thugs! Criminals!’

  ‘Of course they’re criminals – they’re burgling our house!’ said Mrs Priddle. ‘Make a lot of noise – that’s what they say you should do.’

  ‘Do they?’ said Mr Priddle nervously. ‘Don’t they say you should wait for the police?’

  ‘Roger! They’re in our house! Are you just going to stand there and let them get away?’

  Mr Priddle could see his wife was working herself into a temper. He wasn’t sure if he would rather face her or the burglars. Screwing up his courage, he gripped the only weapon he had – the bushy green Christmas tree. It wasn’t much but it would certainly give them a scratch or two.

  ‘When I count to three, shout and make a racket,’ he said.

  ‘Can I shout “bogeys”?’ asked Warren.

  ‘Certainly not!’ said Mrs Priddle.

  ‘Shout anything! Just make it loud!’ said Mr Priddle. He decided he was better holding the base of the Christmas tree – that way the burglars would get the pointy end. He took a deep breath. This was probably the bravest thing he’d ever done in his life – or the stupidest. ‘I’m starting to count,’ he said. ‘One … two … three!’

  ‘Arghhhh!’ screamed Mrs Priddle.

  ‘BOGEYS!’ hollered Warren.

  ‘Raaaaarrrrr!’ roared Mr Priddle, charging in through the kitchen and shedding pine needles in all directions. He burst in through the lounge door and found he was running so fast that it was impossible to stop.

  There was a loud BANG! followed by a shattering of glass as the point of the Christmas tree embedded itself in the screen of the new television.

  Ulrik had leapt to his feet. So had Grumpa, who was roaring partly from fright and partly because trolls never miss a chance to roar.

  Mr Priddle looked round slowly and saw a large elderly troll staring at him. He was dressed in a filthy coat and standing on their sofa.

  ‘Who … who are you?’ asked Mr Priddle.

  ‘Never mind that,’ growled Grumpa. ‘Who the bogles are you?’

  Ulrik looked from one face to the other. He could see this was going to take quite a bit of explaining.

  Saving Trollmas

  Mr Troll had been trying to clamber over the back fence when he heard the bang from inside the house. He had hoped he could get Grumpa out before things got awkward, but the bang and the shouting told him he was too late.

  When he and Mrs Troll finally went round to ring the doorbell it was answered by a very cross-looking Mrs Priddle. She had a good mind, she said, to report the whole matter to the police. If they couldn’t control their elderly relatives, they ought to be kept indoors.

  What did Grumpa think he was doing breaking into houses and stealing food from the fridge? (The remains of three chicken drumsticks had been found on the carpet.) The back door was hanging off and the new TV they’d bought for Christmas had shattered in a million pieces. (Mr Priddle pointed out he was partly to blame for the TV, but Mrs Priddle shouted at him not to interrupt.)

  ‘And that isn’t the worst of it,’ she concluded. ‘Do you know what he called me?’

  ‘What?’ sighed Mrs Troll.

  ‘A pasty-faced peeples!’ said Mrs Priddle. ‘I’ve never been so insulted in my whole life.’

  Mr Troll found this hard to believe – he could certainly think of some much better insults.

  Once everyone had calmed down, the Trolls promised they would pay for the damage and returned to their own house. They sat at the breakfast table, trying to decide what to do. In all the confusion, Grumpa had disappeared.

  ‘Where did he go?’ asked Mrs Troll.

  ‘I don’t know! He just tromped off down the road,’ replied Ulr
ik.

  ‘Well, is he coming back?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’ Ulrik propped his chin in his hands. It was partly his fault. He should have got Grumpa out of the house before the Priddles arrived. But it was difficult to persuade Grumpa to do anything – he was as stubborn as a mule and now he’d stormed off in a terrible sulk.

  He looked at his mum. ‘He will be all right, won’t he?’

  ‘Of course he will, my ugglesome. He’s a grown troll. He’s just in a bit of a temper, that’s all.’

  Mr Troll shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t blame him.’

  ‘Oh, and who do you blame?’ replied Mrs Troll irritably.

  ‘Well, you,’ said Mr Troll.

  ‘ME?’

  ‘Yes, you wrote him the letters!’ said Mr Troll. ‘You’re the one telling all the fibwoppers!’

  Mrs Troll snorted in disbelief. ‘And have you ever stopped to think why?’

  Mr Troll shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea.

  ‘Because I wanted him to be proud of you!’ said Mrs Troll. ‘I wanted him to think we live in a stinksome cave with nice trolls next door. I wanted him to imagine we have forests and mountains to look at and roast goat on the table every night.’

  ‘But we don’t!’ said Mr Troll, puzzled.

  ‘No, we don’t,’ replied Mrs Troll, her voice rising. ‘We don’t because we had to leave home. Because you, Egbert, got frighted by a billy goat on a bridge!’

  ‘I was never frighted,’ said Mr Troll indignantly.

  ‘All right, beated, butted, whatever you want to call it.’

  ‘GRARGH!’ roared Mr Troll, standing up and kicking over his chair.

  ‘Grargh yourself!’ replied Mrs Troll.

  Mr Troll stormed out of the room and slammed the door so hard that the clock fell off the wall.

  Ulrik sighed. There was a long silence. It was always the same when his mum brought up the bridge thing. It ended with roaring and door-slamming.

  His mum had gone to the window and was looking anxiously along the road. Ulrik tried to think of something to cheer her up. It was only five days until Trollmas. He was looking forward to that.

  ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘can we have a tree?’

  ‘What, my hairling?’ said Mrs Troll absently.

  ‘A tree. For Trollmas.’

  ‘What do you want with a tree?’

  ‘Peeples have trees in their houses. The Priddles have got one.’

  ‘Really? What do you do with them?’

  ‘You hang things on them,’ explained Ulrik. ‘Lights and shiny balls and socks.’

  ‘Socks? You mean to dry them?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Ulrik, who was a little hazy about the details. ‘I think Warren said socks. You hang them on a tree and then you go to bed. And in the night, Father Trollmas comes and leaves you a sack.’

  Mrs Troll looked bewildered. The strange habits of peeples never ceased to amaze her. ‘But can we have one, Mum? A tree?’ begged Ulrik.

  ‘If you really want, my ugglesome. But just now we’ve got to find your grumpa.’

  Ulrik nodded. ‘Is he still staying for Trollmas?’

  ‘Of course he is,’ said Mrs Troll. She hoped he hadn’t got into any trouble. He didn’t know his way round and he had no experience of towns like Biddlesden. What if he wandered into the middle of the road or got arrested? Maybe Egbert ought to go and look for him.

  ‘I know what would put Grumpa in a gladful mood,’ said Ulrik.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A nice goat pie.’

  Mrs Troll smiled. ‘I wish I had one. It’s nearly Trollmas and I still don’t know where we’re going to find a goat.’

  Ulrik rested his chin on the table. ‘It’s a pity that farm can’t give us one,’ he said.

  ‘What farm?’

  ‘You know, the one I went to with school.’

  Mrs Troll’s eyes widened. She had forgotten all about Ulrik’s trip to the farm last term. ‘They had goats?’ she said.

  ‘I told you! There was one called Victor.’

  ‘But lots of goats? A whole herd?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Mrs Troll clasped him by the cheeks and planted a wet kiss on his snout.

  ‘You are my big, clever ugglesome!’ she said. ‘Wait till your dad hears this!’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Ulrik.

  ‘Do?’ said Mrs Troll. ‘You’re going goat hunting – that’s what you’re going to do!’

  Meanwhile Grumpa found himself lost in Biddlesden shopping arcade. He wasn’t quite sure how he came to be there. After the shock of discovering there were peeples living next door, he had tromped off down the road in a temper, without the faintest idea where he was going. Somehow he had ended up on the high street and stumbled into the arcade.

  Looking about him, he saw bright Christmas lights and crowds of shoppers bustling past. He wasn’t used to peeples and he had never seen so many. They stared at him strangely and the smell of them made him sick and dizzy. He longed to see the handsome face of another troll.

  Plunging on past shops, he didn’t notice the sign saying ‘Santa’s Grotto’, or hear the woman calling to him that he needed a ticket. Unexpectedly he found himself in the middle of a forest. It was made up of tall fir trees, all of them exactly the same and all glistening with snow. Magical music was playing somewhere. Maybe this was the forest his family had spoken about.

  Following a path, he was startled to come on a group of rosy-cheeked, grinning goblins under a tree. They stood still as statues, their arms full of presents. Hoping to frighten them off, Grumpa growled. They didn’t blink an eye. It was plain they were under the spell of a witch or a wizard. Lost and anxious now, he hurried on, convinced he had stumbled into some enchanted forest by mistake. Round the bend he came upon a little log house, lit with fairy lights. Maybe whoever lived there could tell him the way out.

  He passed through a silver bead curtain and came face to face with a fat peeples sitting in a chair. He was wearing a bright red suit and cap. A flowing white beard hung over his round belly.

  ‘Ho ho!’ boomed Father Christmas. ‘And what do you … ?’ He broke off. Instead of the eager children he was expecting, an ugly, wild-eyed troll stood before him. Its lips parted, revealing sharp fangs. Father Christmas raised his hands to show he meant no harm.

  Grumpa stepped back—the fat wizard was about to cast a spell! He backed away, stumbling over a mound of presents. ‘Please! I won’t tell anybodies,’ he mumbled.

  In a second he was back through the bead curtain and running through the forest. If he ever made it back to Mountain View, he vowed he would shut the door and stay in his room. Biddlesden was a far more dangerous place than he could have imagined.

  Night Raiders

  Later that night Ulrik and Mr Troll stole across a field under the cover of darkness. Ulrik had already trodden in a cow-pattie because it was hard to see where you were going in the dark. He felt very nervous and excited. It was long past his bedtime, but here he was on a dangerous hunting trip with his dad. His only worry was that they might meet one of the farm peeples. A single light shone from a top window of Longbottom Farm.

  Ulrik pulled down the goatskin hat his grumpa had given him. Grumpa would be asleep now, back at the house.

  To tell the truth, Ulrik was a bit worried about him. Earlier that evening he had turned up, looking pale and exhausted. He had babbled something about a hairy-faced wizard who had tried to put a spell on him. Ulrik thought he must have been watching TV. Still, a nice goat pie would cheer him up. Ulrik sniffed the air—the goats were not far away.

  They stole along the side of a long, rust-coloured barn. Mr Troll put a finger to his lips and they listened for a moment. From inside the barn came animal sounds of shuffling and grunting.

  ‘Goatses,’ said Mr Troll, baring his fangs in a smile. ‘You wait here, Ulrik.’

  ‘But Dad –’

  ‘Just do as I say …’ Mr Troll was already creep
ing forward to the corner of the barn. A moment later he was swallowed by the dark.

  Ulrik waited, listening. He heard the sound of his dad running, then a deafening crash as he hit something. Then a roar and a loud angry squealing. A moment later his dad appeared again, panting for breath and with mud and straw in his hair.

  ‘Pigses!’ he gasped. ‘Great big snorkers!’

  ‘That’s what I was trying to tell you, Dad,’ said Ulrik. ‘The goats aren’t in this barn, they’re over there!’

  They found the goats in the yard behind the farmhouse, penned in by a stone wall. Ulrik counted fourteen in all, including one skinny brown kid lying next to its mother.

  ‘Don’t be frighted,’ said Mr Troll, as they crouched by the wall.

  ‘I’m not,’ replied Ulrik.

  ‘Good,’ said Mr Troll. ‘Because goats can always smell a frighted troll. That’s when they charge and butt you with their hornses.’

  Ulrik guessed his dad was thinking about the last time he’d tackled a goat – the giant billy goat which had tossed him off the bridge into the dark, swirling river. These goats didn’t look too big, although they did have horns between their ears.

  ‘This is a chance for you to practise roaring, Ulrik,’ said Mr Troll. ‘You slip inside the gate and give them a great, scaresome roar. Send them running to me and I’ll be waiting to catch a fat one in the sack.’

  ‘What if I fright them?’ asked Ulrik.

  ‘You’re meant to fright them!’

  ‘Couldn’t I sing to them instead?’

  Mr Troll rolled his eyes. ‘We’ve been over this, Ulrik.’

  ‘Or I could feed them some biscuits.’

  Mr Troll gave him a look. ‘Are we hunting goatses or making friends with them?’

  ‘Hunting, Dad.’

  ‘Then let’s get on with it.’

  Ulrik crawled on all fours to the end of the wall and slunk over to the gate. It opened with a creak and he slipped inside. The goats took no notice of him. He could see his dad’s shadow at the far end of the pen, waiting with the sack at the ready. All he had to do was make them run from him. Easy-cheesy. He clenched his fists and screwed his eyes tight shut. ‘Grarrgh!’ he roared.