Goodbye, dear sisters,
We'll dig up our dads.
We'll sniff up some stars
And trade them for crickets,
Whose lies will lead us
Through sand and through fog.
And when we find out
The place our dads went to,
We'll smash all their kettles
And drink up their grog.
Goodbye, dear sisters,
We're leaving this river.
Goodbye, dear sisters,
We'll dig up our dads.
Every word of it was heartfelt and left me wishing there were some way I could help ease their sorrows. When the one called Stump wiped a tear from his eye and waved for me to join in, I gave Jim Dandy some help with the chorus.
There's sure to be plenty
Of cold porridge and glory.
There's sure to be
Treacherous times that are bad.
But we don't fear nothing
Unless it's the story
Of Bo the Great Rock Troll
Who tricked all our dads.
Goodbye, dear sisters,
We're leaving this river.
Goodbye, dear sisters,
We'll dig up our dads.
We sang long enough for the moon to come up, yellow as a cat's eye and thin as someone who can't quit dieting. As soon as the moon arrived, Jim Dandy stopped singing and whipped out sunglasses, though in this case I suppose they should be called moonglasses.
Biz started to say something to Jim Dandy, then caught Duke listening and thought better of it. Grabbing a lock of Jim Dandy's willow hair, he yanked him off to the side for privacy. Jim Dandy went along without a squawk, which said tons about who really ran the show.
Duke leaned their way, eavesdropping for all he was worth. He couldn't have been hearing much, though, not the way his face was screwed up around his horn. Whatever he was missing left him plenty worried.
Sixteen
Silver Dollars
While Biz was roughing up Jim Dandy, the one named Stump eased up beside me to whisper, "Don't worry yourself any. I won't let them do anything real bad to you."
Of the three trolls, Stump was probably the ugliest, with whiskers that were bent and broken, and a bobbing Adam's apple. The tip of his snout, right around the nostrils, had a green duckweed foam bubbling out with every breath. But when he spoke, he sounded polite, protective, maybe a little simple, and, believe it or not, almost sweet.
"You mean like being turned to stone?" I said.
"Stone's not bad." The suggestion that it was surprised him. "Stone's nice and soothing. No, I'm talking about something like turning you into a church bell. Think how terrible that would be."
"Can you do that?" I asked. "Turn people into church bells, I mean."
"Not that I know of," Stump said with a startled laugh. "I was just saying it. You know, one of those for-example things."
I was about to ask how they turned people into stone, but Stump suddenly stiffened and shuffled away. Looking up, I saw Biz shoving Jim Dandy back toward the fire.
"Let's get down to business here," Jim Dandy barked, having received his marching orders. "We need to get these screens by tomorrow night."
"Relax, boys," Duke advised, all chummy. "My cousin can get you screens, no problem. Maybe a bucket of willow cats too."
"Lip smackers?" Stump perked up.
Willow cats are a baby catfish that bait shops around here sell. They're not my idea of a tasty snack, but with thoughts of stone statues and church bells filling my head, I played along, hoping that Duke knew what he was doing.
"Screens first," Jim Dandy insisted, after a sharp poke from Biz.
"You've got to have a few nibblies on the way," Duke said, always on the lookout for his stomach, "or the trip's not worth making."
"But what if there's not enough money for both?" Jim Dandy pointed out.
The nervous way he mentioned it made both Biz and Stump's snouts jerk up, as if they'd just caught a whiff of something foul.
"Well," Duke griped, backing off a bit, "I suppose you're right about that, but I don't see what a treat or two can hurt."
"No," Stump moaned, disappointed, "got to be screens first."
Biz continued his silent ways. Instead of talking, he crossed over to an alligator bag and dug out a silver dollar that glinted in the firelight. Stump got a dollar from another bag. Jim Dandy didn't budge, his grin growing suspiciously bigger.
"Where's yours?" Stump poked Jim Dandy's arm.
"Well, boys," Jim Dandy gushed, "I've been meaning to talk to you about that."
"You told us you stole one from your mother," Stump said.
"Now, you boys know how my mother is." Jim Dandy stepped away. "She's not the sort to leave her purse unguarded."
"But there's screens to buy." Stump was dumbfounded.
Biz took a threatening step forward.
"Now, boys," Jim Dandy cooed, holding his hands up for Biz to stop where he stood, "ain't I the one who spotted old Duke here and brought him on board? Oughtn't that be worth something powerfully good before this business is through?"
Duke nodded yes as fast as he could to that. It slowed Stump a bit too, though not Biz, who was busy reaching for a fresh handful of Jim Dandy's hair.
"And I'm willing to bet," Jim Dandy sped on, leaning away from Biz's grasping hand, "that Duke's little cousin here can get us three screens for two dollars."
"But screens have always been a dollar apiece," Stump protested, shocked at the notion that they could be had for less.
Biz glared without bothering to agree.
"Yes, they have," Jim Dandy said, doubling up on agreeable, "but you've heard how sweet this little cousin of his can sing. And if she can't get us three screens tomorrow, plus some willow cats, then I'll swim back home and pinch a silver dollar from my mother's purse, no matter what."
"You said that before." Stump frowned.
"And this time I mean it," Jim Dandy promised.
During the face-off that followed, I decided it was now or never and told Jim Dandy, "I could get you a silver dollar."
"She's got a heart of gold," Jim Dandy cried out with a laugh that didn't sway anyone, not even Duke, who was reaching for my ears.
"Matter of fact"—I grunted, twisting away from Duke—"I can get you three silver dollars. One for each of you if you'll just promise to take me and Duke home, and do something about Duke's parents and some others, like our grandpa, who made the mistake of touching them." They all looked at me with such blank faces that I felt obliged to add, "They're all stone."
"Don't promise her anything." Duke pointed an awfully thick finger at me. "I'm not going home, and I like my parents the way you left them. And don't worry about silver dollars—I'll make her fork 'em over."
"What'd I tell you?" Jim Dandy patted Duke on the back like a proud father.
Biz drew a finger across his throat, shutting Jim Dandy up fast.
"Save your dollars," Stump muttered to me, downcast. "They wouldn't do us any good. These screens got to be bought with silver stolen from our mother's purses. Otherwise we'll never find our fathers."
"We don't know that for sure," Jim Dandy cautioned.
"Rules got to be followed," Stump said stubbornly. "Why do you think they're rules?"
Jim Dandy didn't come up with a slick answer for that, not with Biz trying to throttle him. It left me in a pretty tight pickle too, seeing as how I didn't have a backup plan to the silver dollars.
"Sit down," Duke growled in my ear. "Shut up."
He grabbed my arm too, but the instant he touched me his horn shot out another inch and he let go of me with a yelp. After that he left me alone, as we listened to the trolls carry on about how Jim Dandy was afraid of his own mother. They kept it up all the way to dawn, when they wrapped everything up in a hurry. Snatching their alligator bags, Stump and Biz each slapped a silver dollar in my hand.
"Talk sweet." Jim Dandy offered
advice instead of a dollar.
"Don't worry," Stump said, doing enough of it for all of us.
As for Biz, he gave me a look so cold that it made me wish I were on my way, but I wasn't. Planting my feet, I announced that I wasn't going anywhere until they promised to change Duke's parents, our grandpa, and a couple of others back from stone.
Duke pretty near fainted from embarrassment, his cheeks boiled so red, but Jim Dandy only threw back his head and brayed loudly. It was Biz who gave me an answer.
"Done."
It was the first word I'd heard him say, and it answered why he was so willing to let Jim Dandy gab away. His voice was as high and squeaky as a baby bird's. Being a tough guy with a voice like that had to be all uphill. The way he held a paw out to shake on our deal wasn't exactly reassuring, not as grim as he looked, but I shook his scaly mitt anyway. Without a lawyer handy to draw up a contract, what could it hurt?
A couple of minutes before sunrise, they slid into the river. Biz led the way, followed by Jim Dandy, followed by Stump. Single file, they disappeared under the current. A few bubbles, then nothing, unless you counted a big bass jumping out of the water as if chased.
About then the sun popped up huge and red over the eastern bluffs like something was chasing it too. The campfire snuffed out, leaving a sickly green curl of smoke.
"Aren't they great?" Duke asked me.
Seventeen
The Trip to Big Rock
Duke hustled me back to the dugout canoe and slapped a paddle in my hands. When I asked how he knew where to go, he said, "They sent me over there yesterday, to arrange things."
My ears perked up at that, for Duke never explained anything unless trying to cover up something else.
"How'd they arrange to turn your folks to stone?" I pried, dipping my paddle into the river.
By daylight, I saw that the paddle was a crooked old stick with a flattened coffee can knotted to one end, but one stroke sent us skimming over the water. Duke's mood brightened with my question, so I knew that wasn't what he was hiding.
"Touched them with a feather," he bragged.
"What kind of feather?"
"There wasn't exactly time to ask. The back door blew open and there they were. It was really something."
Hoping to cut short his smirk, I tossed out, "So what'd you arrange at this store?"
"Never mind about that," he said, souring fast. "Just say you're there for screens."
When I pushed him on it, he got prickly, but I stuck with it until he admitted that the store owner had refused to sell screens to anyone with a horn. Afterward, Biz had wanted to ditch him. When Jim Dandy stood up for him, he pretty much made himself a friend for life, no questions asked. It must have been about then that my services got volunteered for free.
"What makes you think I'll have any luck getting screens?" I asked.
"Not now," Duke grumbled under his breath. "They might be listening."
"Who?"
"Jim Dandy and the boys."
"Where?" I twisted about without glimpsing one troll snout in the water.
Duke glared and dipped his chin toward the bottom of the canoe. I couldn't spot any trolls swimming beneath us either, but that didn't mean anything, not muddy as the river was.
We paddled upstream toward Big Rock, a small village on the Wisconsin side, and steered clear of the boat and barge traffic on the main channel. It was a five-star spring day, blue and clear, and more blue, and warm. Tree branches remained bare but you could smell spring cooking inside them. It was too grand a day to waste chasing around in a dugout canoe that was attracting the first flies of the year.
"Say I help you with these screens," I said, keeping my voice low, "then what?"
"We do some mining."
"With screens?"
"We'll need them for sifting sand."
"For what?"
"Stars."
He spit that out as if every doorknob in the world knew that much.
"I'm sure you'll find tons of them." I didn't even bother to roll my eyes. "What about your parents and Grandpa B?"
"Who cares?" Duke jeered.
Figuring he was trying to impress his new friends, I ignored that crack. "So we get these stars, then what?"
"We trade them to Bo the Great Rock Troll."
"The one who tricked their dads?" I remembered the trolls' song. "Are they going to make you an honorary troll for helping?"
"Maybe," Duke said, doing his best not to sound hopeful. A moment latter he gruffly added, "Hold on."
We shot across the main channel a quarter-mile before Big Rock and tied up below some railroad tracks. There was a nice dock right in town, but Duke refused to go anywhere near it. Turning sullen, he muttered that yesterday a bunch of kids on the dock had made fun of his nose. If he saw them again, he might tear them into little pieces, and we didn't have time for that. We were after screens.
"Get 'em and come back," he ordered, meaning no dilly-dallying.
"What if I need some help carrying them?"
"Figure it out."
"I might drop them."
"Don't."
He was about to add one of his famous or elses, but two large bubbles surfaced, popping near the boat. I caught a whiff of trolls.
"If you need help," Duke said, changing his tune fast, "stand on the end of the dock and wave."
"You're a peach." I scrambled out of the dugout before he could sock my shoulder, the way he usually did whenever I brought up peaches.
Eighteen
Trolls & Things
The village of Big Rock was wedged between the river and the base of the limestone bluff it was named after. The few houses were packed close together like sticks of gum. I was supposed to hunt up a store called Trolls & Things, which on a Sunday morning would probably be the only store open. The three other stores in town—Shop 'n' Go, Big Al's Everything, and New Antiques—took the day off.
An old silver bell jingled when I opened the heavy front door to Trolls & Things. After the bell, shadows and quiet greeted me. The store smelled like fresh rain, though it was perfectly dry, outside and in.
"Hello," I called out.
No one helloed back. A quick tour took me past wooden barrels that held yardsticks, square-toed boots, glass eyes, old trumpets, underwater wristwatches, and unmatched orange tennis shoes. Each barrel had an ALL SALES FINAL sign. And that was only a sampling of what I saw. To get anywhere, you had to walk sideways down aisles so narrow you brushed against nylon bicycle outfits, Christmas tinsel, Halloween masks, moonglasses, and potted ivy. Even the ceiling, high above, was crowded. Ukuleles hung from every rafter.
At the back of the shop I found three bathtubs filled with running water and minnows, suckers, shiners, and—especially—willow cats. A sign above the tubs said ALL SALES COMPLETELY FINAL!!!
"Hello-o," I called out again.
This time I got an answer, sort of.
A raccoon's masked face peeked out a door off to the side, hanging upside down from the door frame for an instant before ducking away. A minute later I heard footsteps.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," a familiar voice called out.
A moment later the old lady who had saved me at the wagon wheel bridge stepped through the door where the raccoon had been. She was wearing a different dress, a yellow flowery one this time, but the same straw hat and checkered apron and orange high-top tennis shoes. One of her tennies squished river water with each step. The raccoon played peekaboo from behind her skirt.
"Oh, it's you," the old lady said, friendly as ever. "Your cousin found you, then. I got your note and told him you were looking for him when he was in here nosing around yesterday." She chuckled when she mentioned Duke's nose but got serious again in a hurry. "There isn't much chance of him doing any good deeds while hanging out with Jim Dandy and his bunch." Clearing a stack of pointy black hats off a stool, she motioned for me to have a seat. "I suppose they sent you in here for screens."
"How'd you know tha
t?" I frowned.
"Because Jim Dandy and his pals are about to become fathers. There should be a troll hatch any night now. The first new moon of spring is the time."
"What's that have to do with screens?"
"If you're doing errands for them," she supposed, eyeing me carefully, "I guess you've a right to know. They're under a curse, a pretty good one, actually. Nice and simple, the way a curse should be. If a river troll doesn't bring Bodacious Deepthink a shooting star before his firstborn is hatched, he gets turned into a human."
"That's a curse?" I was more than a little outraged to hear it.
"If you're a river troll, it is."
"Bodacious who?" I asked.
"Deepthink. Otherwise known as Bo the Great Rock Troll. It's her curse."
"What kind of human?" I spoke slowly, trying to think if I knew anyone who might qualify.
"Why, the same kind as you."
"So how come I've never seen one?"
"Oh, you wouldn't notice them." My suspicions amused her. "They're born in a hospital, same as any other baby. They don't even know where they come from themselves, except maybe deep down, where they don't quite feel as though they ever fit in. Even their mothers don't know." The raccoon tugged on her skirt, and the old lady leaned over to hear a whispered secret. "Princess Trudy thinks I might be scaring you."
"Maybe a little," I admitted.
"Well, I wouldn't worry about it too much," the old lady comforted. "A troll going human's a rare thing. Your average river troll can't stand the thought of washing with soap and eating vegetables all his life. Scares them silly. So they bring Bodacious Deepthink stars and clear out to look for their fathers as fast as they can."
"I see." Really, I felt blind. "Do you know anything about people who've been turned to stone?"
"Oh, dear," she fretted. "Who?"
"My grandpa, among others."
"Dear, dear. Your grandpa's much too lively a fellow to like being stone."
"You know Grandpa B?"
"Only since he was a boy."
Nineteen
Talking Silver
Horns & Wrinkles Page 5
