Still admiring the door, the sheriff added, "If you folks don't mind staying put, I think I'll take a spin around the backyard and see what I can see. I don't imagine there's anything out there to worry about, but best to be on the safe side, don't you think?"
As the sheriff went down the back steps, we packed ourselves around the door, not wanting to miss anything.
First off, the sheriff squatted on his haunches to point his flashlight at Aunt Phyllis's vegetable patch, which was freshly tilled for spring planting. He must have been looking for footprints in the loose dirt, as it was too early for any vegetables to be sprouting. After that he worked his way over to the white picket fence, where it ran along the alley, and walked its length, stopping here and there to sweep his light around. Once he stood still for nearly a minute, as if he'd found something. We all leaned forward. That's when he pulled a leafy willow branch free from two pickets, except that it couldn't have been a leafy willow branch. There wasn't a tree around that had leafed out yet.
"Troll tracks," the sheriff explained, once back in the kitchen. "Three sets of them, which is the usual number they travel in." He held up the willow branch. "River trolls, not rock."
"You can tell that from a willow branch?" Dad said.
"Forget the willow branch," the sheriff corrected. "This here is a hair off a genuine river troll, or so I'm told. Never seen one myself. They're tricky brutes."
At first we all edged back, but then we changed our minds and inched closer. The branch in the sheriff's hand was thinner and more leathery than anything off a tree. It smelled different too, more fishy than foresty.
"So what are we supposed to do?" Mom asked, pinching my arm hard enough to leave welts. Her other hand was doing the same to Tessa, and if she'd had two more hands, they would have been clamped onto Lillie and Fran.
"This particular spell's solid as can be," the sheriff said. "Waiting's not really an option, unless you've got a century or two to spare. I'm told there's only one thing to be done with stone like this, and that's hunt up the trolls responsible. They're the ones who can reverse what's happened here."
"And how are we supposed to find them?" Dad wanted to know.
"That's a problem, all right," the sheriff agreed. "I'd put out an all points bulletin, but that might get picked up by a reporter, which I'm afraid would only cause more problems than it'd solve. Publicity drives the slightest little rivery thing underground. Our best success has come from working closely with the family. Believe it or not, you're the ones who know the most about what happened here today. Doesn't have to be anything big or exciting that started all this. It doesn't take much to set off a troll, and there must have been some funny business going on here. If my eyes don't deceive me, that's Dr. E. O. Moneybaker turned to stone over there. And I know for a fact that he doesn't make house calls for your run-of-the-mill aches and pains."
I checked in with Dad, who nodded for me to go ahead and tell everything.
"Well, our cousin Duke," I volunteered, "he's got a rhino horn where his nose used to be."
"There you go," the sheriff said, encouraged. "That's a start. I can tell you from experience that nothing draws trolls like a rhino horn, though from what I hear it's usually rock trolls that come calling."
From there I spilled the rest of what had happened to Duke.
"That wagon wheel bridge," the sheriff muttered, shaking his head when I'd finished. "It's a real hangout, all right. Well, here's what I suggest we do. First, we form a search party. If we haven't any luck by morning, we enlist as many kids as we can to help us. They've got the best eyes for spotting anything rivery. Either way, once we find these trolls, we offer each of them a dollar."
"We may not be rich," Mom interrupted, "but we can certainly afford more than a dollar."
"No need to," the sheriff assured her. "A dollar's a fortune to a troll, though it's got be silver, not paper. That old coin shop downtown keeps some silver ones on hand for emergencies like this."
"All right." Dad nodded. "Is there anything else we have to know?"
"Well, there is one other thing." The sheriff surveyed us all. "Common sense, really, but I mention it in case some of you haven't heard. If you do meet up with some river trolls, whatever you do, don't mention their fathers."
Nods all around to that. Everyone knew that bringing up a troll's father was about the worst possible thing you could do.
"Has anyone ever turned a spell back?" Mom asked, real quiet-like.
"I won't lie to you," the sheriff told her. "Reversals are a rare thing. But I've heard on good authority that it has been done a time or two. Now I suggest we seal off this house and get rolling while the trail's still warm."
Twelve
A Late-Night Visitor
We couldn't shut the back door with nails, cinder blocks, or duct tape. The nails popped, the blocks tumbled, the tape split—and the door flew open. In the end we hung one of Uncle Norm's Beware of Dog signs on the door handle to keep gawkers away.
"Have to do," the sheriff said. "I want to get you over to the wagon wheel bridge before midnight."
The "you" the sheriff was referring to was me. I was to show him right where everything happened. On the way there, the sheriff swung by the coin shop he had mentioned, which had a light on despite the hour. The shop had a green door with frosty glass on the upper half and painted gold letters that read:
COINS, GEMS, RUNESTONES,
RIDDLES & OTHER IMPONDERABLES
WING REPAIR ON OCCASION
The sheriff was in and out in barely a minute, handing over three silver dollars to my dad, who'd come along for the ride.
"Hang on to these," the sheriff ordered. "There's one for each troll, but don't go handing them over until they've done what you're paying them for."
Dad nodded that he understood. From there, it was on to the wagon wheel bridge.
According to the dash clock, we got to the bridge by eleven. There weren't any old ladies in rowboats to be seen, though we did spot a Day-Glo orange sneaker go floating by. I snagged it with a branch. Without bothering to ask what I was up to, the sheriff handed me a pocket-size notebook along with a pen, then shined his flashlight over my shoulder so that I could see what I was writing. I printed out a note that politely asked for help in finding Duke. Tearing out the sheet, I stuffed it into the shoe and tossed it back into the river. Nothing happened, though. The old lady never showed up.
We did hear some strange echoes—popping bubbles, squishy footsteps—from under the bridge. A Duke-ish kind of snicker found us, but when I said his name, no answer.
"Louder," the sheriff whispered.
"Duke," I sang out, "your mom and dad have been turned to stone. Grandpa B too."
A splash.
"And that doctor who tried to help you?" I called out. "He got it too."
Ripples.
"And one of my deputies," the sheriff added. "Which brings in the law."
A glugging, laughing sound, which drew the sheriff's flashlight beam, but we didn't see a thing. He turned the light off, waited a few seconds, and snapped it back on, hoping to surprise someone, but he didn't. We kept it up for close to a half hour without any luck.
"Tomorrow's going to be a long one," the sheriff said as he drove us home. "Better get some rest."
Mom said the same thing as she tucked me into bed. Of course, everyone was too wound up to fall asleep right away, and I could hear my sisters tossing and turning past midnight. Dad had Saturday night off from the bakery, but he didn't plan on getting any rest at all before beginning the search. He changed out of his PJs, grabbed a flashlight, and dashed back to the river just as a storm started edging toward town. Distant thunder rattled the windows, and you could smell rain coming, lots of it.
A sleepless hour passed before I heard the sound at my window. At first I thought the scritch-scritch-scritch was the wind making a branch scratch the glass, or at least that's what I was hoping. But the pitiful me-eow that followed wouldn't have
fooled a toy cat. When I pulled up my window shade, there he was, sitting in the catalpa tree right next the house—Duke.
Thirteen
Duke's Favor
My cousin's horn was two or three times bigger than before, and more rhinocerosy than ever. The rest of him looked the same, though, if you skipped over a black eye and mud-caked clothes.
"Where have you been?" I whispered through the screen.
"Hanging around with some cool guys."
"They got names?"
"Yup. One apiece."
"So what do you want?" I took a deep breath. Duke can drive you crazy when he thinks he knows something you don't.
"A favor," Duke said. "This whole business is your fault, you know."
"In your mind." I laughed. "Besides, what could you possibly need help with?"
"Mining."
"That's not exactly my specialty," I pointed out, but he had me hooked.
He knew it too. The only mining around here isn't done by people, and it isn't open to the public. Sometimes late at night you can sort of hear, maybe feel, a thud from deep in the earth. Rock trolls, everyone says. Up to their tricks, although nobody knows what those tricks might be. Here and there you might meet someone who claimed to have caught a glimpse of a river troll. But rock trolls? Nobody. What exactly Duke was up to, I had no idea, but I could see teeth beneath his horn, which probably meant he was grinning.
"You'll get on-the-job training," he pledged.
"That one of your famous promises?"
"You bet."
All right, so maybe I should have been calling out to Mom instead of trading smart talk, but the thing is, even though Duke looks pillowy, he can be fast as a weasel when he needs to be. If I'd sounded the alarm, he'd have dropped off the branch and vanished in a snap. So I played along, hoping to buy some time and maybe find a way to help Grandpa B, Aunt Phyllis, Uncle Norm, and the others—including Duke. If you asked why it mattered if Duke ever came home at all, I guess I'd have to say because every kid deserves a home—even him.
"What do you want me to do?" I asked.
"Help us buy some mining supplies." I was about to tell him I was broke, but he boasted, "We've got the money."
"So why do you need me?"
"None of us can come into town. At least not when any stores are open."
"I can see why you can't," I stated. "What about your friends?"
"They don't go into towns."
I couldn't squeeze anything more out of him, and the drop or two I'd gotten sounded like more lie than truth. But it was enough. One of my biggest faults is that I can't resist an adventure, and Duke knew it. After throwing on some clothes, I popped the screen on my window and crawled into the catalpa tree.
Fourteen
Duke's Pals
We quickstepped through town, cutting across backyards and down alleys. If there was a streetlight, we shied away from it. We were barked at plenty but for once Duke held off on barking back. The late hour and growing storm kept everybody inside, and we reached the river without setting off any alarms.
We stopped at a clump of river birch, where a dugout canoe was tied up. The boat looked more log than ship, with a roughly chopped-out inside and a couple of stick paddles laid across it.
"It's perfectly safe," Duke said, his tone daring me to squawk.
"You first," I countered.
The storm was breathing down our necks by then, and to my surprise Duke did an un-Duke-like thing. He climbed aboard without arguing or calling me a wimp or threatening to dunk me. Wherever we were headed, he wanted to get there before the storm broke.
He was lying about the boat, of course. A block of ice wouldn't have been any tippier, or as fast. It skimmed across the water like a flat stone sent skipping. Cracked clamshells covered its floor, and the stink of dead fish rose from beneath the shells. A sticky goo had been smeared on the seats.
We pushed off, pointing toward the sloughs north of town, on the Minnesota side of the river. Thunder rumbled up and down the valley now, sounding like a stampede headed our way. I still couldn't see any lightning bolts, though at times they lit up sections of the sky a pink that was pretty as taffy but worrisome too. Once the storm hit we'd have to get off the water or take a chance on being barbecued.
Somehow the night found a way to get darker. Early on I saw a flashlight working along the riverbank and almost called out, "Dad," but Duke cut away from it before I had a chance. After that, the zigzags he took veered far from roads and cars and houses and anything with lights. We snaked through a maze of waterways where the trees hung low and lilies choked the path.
Finally, a bonfire appeared, all green and sparky, and it occurred to me that maybe Duke actually knew where he was headed.
There was singing. Squeaky brakes had it all over that singing. Shapes were dancing, or maybe stumbling.
We were almost to the bonfire when the first thunderbolt nailed the valley. My ears rang like gongs, and for a second everything looked bright as two high noons smushed together. During that blinding flash, the dancers' shadows dwarfed everything. Even the fire snapped and jumped as if trying to scramble away from them. It couldn't, though. And the shadows weren't anywhere near as dreadful as the dancers themselves.
"Trolls?" I gasped.
Even though I'd been expecting something of the sort, the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention anyway.
"River trolls," Duke corrected, terribly proud of himself.
Whatever they were, they looked awfully glad to see us.
Fifteen
Chug-Ga-La-Ka
We squeezed introductions in before the storm hit. They were called Stump, Biz, and Jim Dandy. Duke beamed as if they were the grandest names in the world.
They dressed like bicyclists, wearing yellow and blue nylon trunks and shirts, with a shiny smoothness that clashed with their rough scales. The way they strutted, you could tell they thought fashion couldn't get any higher than tight-fitting nylon. No helmets, no shoes, no gloves. Hard heads, webbed feet, long claws. Two of them had several inches on Duke. The one named Stump may have stopped a full head shorter than Duke but spread much broader.
Jim Dandy and Biz were frog green, and Stump leaned toward mud gray, though probably because he'd been rolling in something. Leafy willow-branch hair fell to their shoulders. Teeth, oh yes. Their stubby tails must have made sitting down a challenge. Their speckled scales had yet to sprout warts, the way old trolls supposedly do, though they weren't kids either. From everything I'd heard, trolls lived for hundreds of years, and didn't this bunch look it. And smell it. The log canoe I'd just climbed out of was perfume in comparison.
It seemed strange, but after a minute or two of gawking, I sort of got used to their snouts and knobs. In fact, it almost seemed as if maybe I'd spied them somewhere before, in a dream or video game or passing car. They weren't quite as scary after that thought. The red silk scarf around Jim Dandy's neck seemed almost silly, until he started to talk.
"So this is the cousin you promised?" Jim Dandy stood with an arm around Duke's shoulder, friendly as Duke was whenever he had his eye on something of mine.
"As promised," Duke bragged. "As promised."
All three of the trolls, plus Duke, gave me a close inspection then. Hard as Duke was checking, you'd have thought he'd never seen me before now. As for the troll eyes looking me over—they flashed orange as goldfish.
"She's kind of runty," Jim Dandy observed.
"Depends who's measuring," I said right back.
Jim Dandy had a good hoot over that, but the storm cut him short, blowing in with a crash and a blaze. Then the rain galloped in, and I felt as though I were caught in a car wash without a car.
The campfire climbed even higher in the downpour, which meant these trolls knew a little more about magic than keeping back doors open and turning people to stone. Too bad they didn't know a spell to keep their guests dry. The deluge started them dancing again, possibly in celebration, as around and ar
ound the campfire they whirled, bumping into each other and tossing puff balls on the blaze, which made the fire greener and higher.
Duke whirled too. In between lightning strikes, when you couldn't see as much, his horn let him fit right in with the crowd.
They howled a song as they danced. It's not the kind of song I hope to hear again anytime soon.
Chug-ga-la-ka, chug-ga-la-ka, spoon spoon
We dance in the dark
Not under the moon.
Chug-ga-la-ka, chug-ga-la-ka, hey hey
Lions and tigers
Get out of our way.
After a few verses I began to get the idea that they were trying to talk themselves into doing something brave, and that maybe, on the inside, they weren't so big and tough and scary after all.
Then, fast as the storm had arrived, it blew over. A carpet of clear, starry sky unrolled behind it, and the trolls turned sentimental. One of them, the one named Stump, pulled a ukulele out of an alligator-hide bag and started strumming a mournful tune. You'd have thought somebody's hamster had died. The troll called Jim Dandy started singing. It sounded as though he was having a tooth pulled, but Duke, standing respectfully off to the side, looked as though it was the prettiest tune he'd ever heard.
Goodbye, dear sisters,
We're leaving this river.
Goodbye, dear sisters,
We'll dig up our dads.
Our mothers don't want us—
We've turned truly rotten.
They drove us away
With the stone and the pan.
But someday they'll know
How poorly they judged us
When we come back
With pure gold in our hands.
Goodbye, dear sisters,
We're leaving this river.
Horns & Wrinkles Page 4