by Royston Wood
Chapter Two
A Trolley of Trolls
Ruff’s eyes snapped open. Where am I?
He was lying under the bush where he had gone to sleep. That’s a relief. He had just had the strangest feeling that he had been somewhere else completely. Must have been a dream.
He got up and stretched. Then he cocked his leg and wee’d on the bush.
Relieved, he trotted across the garden, through the Doggy Doorway and into the kitchen.
Tumble was asleep in her Day Bed.
“Hey Tumble!” Ruff exclaimed as he jumped into his own Day Bed. “I just had a fantastic dream.”
Tumble opened one eye slowly to gaze at Ruff. “I was having quite a good one myself. I was dreaming that I was asleep and nobody woke me up!”
“Really?” asked Ruff. “That’s a funny sort of dream. In my dream I was in a strange place. It was a big town or city. And all the people in it were dogs! There weren’t any humans there. Or I didn’t see any. And I was going to go on a Quest, you know, like a mission.”
“A quest?” snorted Tumble.
“No. A Quest.”
“OK. So what sort of Quest could a smelly Scottie dog do?” sneered Tumble in a very mocking tone.
“I was going to find the Crown Jewels. Well actually I was going to find the Princess first. But then I was going to find the Crown Jewels,” blurted out Ruff.
“Crown Jewels?” asked Tumble, suddenly interested. “And what’s this about rescuing a Princess? I’m a Princess.”
Ruff frowned but didn’t want to start another argument whilst he was telling Tumble about his cool dream.
“Well, I was going to rescue the Princess to get some practice in before trying to find the Crown Jewels. It’s a dangerous Quest normally only for Knights or Heroes. But because all the Knights were at the borders it was open to Warriors – like me.”
“You! A Warrior? Don’t make me laugh!
Worrier more like,” smirked Tumble. Then she frowned. Ruff had said something about Knights being at the border earlier, hadn’t he?
“Hey, hang on! What was that bit about all the Knights being at the border? The border of where?”
“The Fantasy Realm,” said Ruff trying to remember the dream, which was beginning to fade from his memory now. “There was an army of goblins there.”
“Well that’s just like your book isn’t it? You’re dreaming about your book.”
“Maybe,” said Ruff. “It was a really good dream though. Really - real.”
Both dogs were quiet for a while, each lost in their own thoughts.
“Do you think there is an army of goblins on the border?” asked Ruff.
“It’s just a story Ruff.”
“Yes. But there could be goblins.”
“There aren’t any goblins,” said Tumble.
“There are goblins in the Fantasy Realm,” insisted Ruff.
“Yes. In the ‘Fantasy’, as in, imaginary or made up, Realm.”
“So if they’re in the Fantasy Realm they could be here, right!?” exclaimed Ruff.
“What?”
“They could be in the garden right now, waiting to come and slice us up with their big pointy swords!”
“Do you think so?” Tumble looked a little alarmed.
“I’m sure! I’m going to check.” He jumped out of bed and started to skitter across the kitchen floor towards the Doggy Doorway.
“Stop!” shouted Tumble.
Ruff hit the brakes and slid to a halt. He skidded around as he stopped and ended up facing Tumble with his bottom stuck halfway out of the Doggy Doorway.
“Have you forgotten who the Princess is here! I am in charge,” snapped Tumble.
“Oh! Sorry, Your Highness. Perhaps you would like to look for the blood hungry, slimy Goblins hiding in the garden?”
Tumble wrinkled her nose. “Er...no. No! What I meant was...was...er. Ah! Yes! What I meant was, it is up to me when a search should be made. And by who.”
“Whom.”
“What?”
“It’s by whom. Not by who.”
“What are you on about? You sound like an owl! Now get out there and check the borders for those goblins!” ordered Tumble, who by now had completely forgotten that it was all just a dream and there were no goblins.
A huge grin spread across Ruff’s face as he backed awkwardly through the Doggy Doorway. His bottom was still completely wedged in so he couldn’t go forwards.
Within a minute Ruff clattered back in through the Doggy Doorway.
“Alarm alarm!! Goblin on the front path!” Ruff shouted, spinning and skipping around on the kitchen floor. His eyes were very round and their gaze kept darting to the Doggy Doorway.
“What?! That’s terrible!” said Tumble.
Then she frowned, suddenly remembering that there were no goblins. “Hang on. How do you know there’s a goblin on the front path? There’s a wall and a gate in the way. You can’t see the front path from the garden so how can you tell there’s a goblin on it?”
“I heard it crunching through the gravel!”
“You might have heard something crunching through the gravel but how do you know it’s a goblin?”
Ruff scratched behind his ear trying to get his Brain Cells working. Ruff had three Brain Cells. He used two of them to do all the usual stuff, like standing up, walking, eating and breathing. The third Brain Cell was kept in reserve in case he needed to do difficult things, like thinking.
“Well, it sounded big. Very big. Actually, now I think about it, it couldn’t have been a goblin, it sounded too big.”
Tumble relaxed back into her Day Bed. “There we are then. No goblins at all.”
“Ai! Ai! A Troll! There’s a Troll on the front path! We are under attack! We are under attack!!”
Tumble jumped to her paws. A troll! Oh no! A troll’s much worse than a goblin.
Then she scowled, which is a step up from frowning, and sat down again. No! I’m not going to be fooled into believing there’s a troll on the front path. Or a goblin. Or any other made up creature.
“It’s just somebody who’s come to see the Pack Leader. We are not under attack,” she insisted.
“It was really ferocious,” offered Ruff.
Tumble stood up again and looked nervously over her shoulder. “How could you tell it was ferocious?” she asked in a hushed tone. “You only heard it crunching through the gravel?”
“It was ferocious crunching. With…with a thudding of huge hob nail boots and…and the scraping of knotted knuckles through the gravel!” He skipped across the floor for dramatic effect.
Tumble was worried now. A troll was far worse than a goblin. She looked at Ruff, who looked at her. They stood in tense silence, ears straining for sounds of the troll.
BANG BANG BANG!!
Both dogs leapt in the air. Ruff’s fur stood on end, making him look like a cheer leader’s pom-pom, except he was black, not the normal cheery colours like red and gold.
They stood, rigidly to attention, hoping that the troll would go away. After a long time had passed and there was no more banging they began to relax. Their fur flattened back down.
BANG BANG BANG!!
Both pom poms were back on their tip-claws in an instant.
All this tensing and relaxing and tensing again was too much for Ruff, who released a Parp of Fear. Tumble frowned at him.
Again they waited.
“Why doesn’t it just go away?” whispered Tumble. “I mean it doesn’t know there’s anyone here.”
“No. We haven’t made any noise or anything.”
“Well, I haven’t. You made quite a loud noise,” growled Tumble, wrinkling her nose.
“Yes, but the troll will just think it’s the wind or something.”
After a long time they heard the troll moving down the side path.
“It’s going to try and break down the garden gate!” Tumble h
issed.
Ruff gave the tiniest of whimpers. Dreaming about being a Warrior was a bit different to actually having to be one.
Tumble gave him a stern Look. “We are Pack Protectors and we must protect the Pack Lands. If the troll comes through the gate we’ll have to chase it off.”
Ruff didn’t look very happy but he squared his shoulders, he knew his duty.
“We should be okay,” Tumble continued, “there’s only one troll and there are two of us, so it should be easy.” Ruff would have found this far more believable if Tumble’s knees hadn’t been shaking.
“But what if there’s more than one? There may be two. Or three. Or even..,” Ruff scratched behind his ear trying to get the third Brain Cell working again, “…even lots.”
Like all dogs, Ruff wasn’t very good with numbers above three. Dogs tend to count like this, ‘One, two, three, lots, lots and lots, lots and lots and lots’. Lots is a bit more than three, lots and lots is lots more than three and lots and lots and lots is lots and lots more than three.
“Mmmm. I wonder what the name for a group of trolls is,” wondered Tumble. “What about ‘lots of’?”
Ruff sat down to think. “Lots of trolls. That’s OK but it could be ‘lots of’ anything. What about a herd?”
“A herd of trolls? Sounds a bit tame for flesh eating trolls,” said Tumble. “Troupe?”
“Bit lame”, said Ruff. “Sounds like they’d all be wearing leotards and leg warmers. Ooooo, what about a trolley full of trolls?”
“Yes! But maybe just a Trolley of Trolls? Yes, I like that,” declared Tumble. “A Trolley of Trolls it is.”
With that sorted, Ruff and Tumble crept through the Doggy Doorway and peered around the corner at the garden gate. They could hear crunching steps heading towards it so they drew their heads back to decide what to do.
“We must use our element of surprise,” said Tumble. “When the troll..”
“Trolley of Trolls,” interrupted Ruff.
“Right! When the Trolley of Trolls opens the gate we’ll charge in and fall upon it – or them.” Tumble looked at Ruff who seemed a little confused. “Any questions?”
“We’re going to charge in right?”
“Yes.”
“Running along the ground right?”
“That’s the normal way, yes.”
“And we’re quite short?”
“Yes.”
“And a troll (or trolls) is (or are) quite tall?”
“Yes!”
“So, how are we going to fall on them?”
But there was no time for that. Something was scrabbling at the gate!
Poking their heads back around the corner they saw a hideous, talloned hand reaching over the top of the gate and groping for the latch. The hand found the latch and slid the bolt back. The gate began to creak open.
Ruff pulled a mighty battleaxe from his Back Pocket. Tumble whipped out a slender sword. Whirling their blades above their heads they charged at their enemy, screaming blood chilling battle cries as they went.
“WOOF WOOF WOOF!”
“BARK BARK BARK!”
The gate swung fully open and the awesome sight of their enemy made them skid to a stop. There, peering over the top of a large box, was
a deliveryman!
Ruff and Tumble quickly slipped their weapons into their Back Pockets before the deliveryman could notice. Humans had certain ideas about dogs and it was best not to spoil things. If the humans knew all the things dogs could really do they’d never let them just lounge around all the time.
So they trotted up to him, tails wagging. “Look at the lovely doggies (who you definitely didn’t just see whirling weapons above their heads). Pat their heads and tickle their ears,” they Beamed.
Just for a moment the deliveryman thought he had seen two dogs charging at him waving weapons above their heads.
But that would be ridiculous.
He shook his head, put down his box and patted the two lovely doggies’ heads and tickled their ears. They responded by barking and skipping about and generally behaving very dog-like.
The deliveryman put the box in the shed and patted their heads one final time in farewell, leaving the dogs to skulk back to the kitchen.
Tumble slumped into her Day Bed feeling very foolish. She had allowed herself to be tricked by Ruff into believing in his stupid dream about goblins.
Ruff skittered about on the floor, his mind alive with excitement. He decided to go out and check in the garden for goblins again.
Despite a thorough search he couldn’t find anything even remotely goblin-like anywhere. Giving a humph of disappointment he slumped down under a bush. His eyes drooped and he slipped off into a quick Forty Winks.