Horns & Wrinkles (13 page)

"Where'd you get that?" he demanded.

"Jim Dandy sent me for it," I answered, keeping my word to Two-cents Eel-tongue.

"Hand it over," he growled.

Snatching the screen, he sailed off toward the back side of the island, holding the screen above his head by balancing its middle bar on the tip of his horn.

I grabbed the torch that Duke had left behind and gave chase.

Finding the others wasn't a problem, not with the way they were squabbling about who'd found the shooting star first. Duke quieted them by galloping to the rescue with the screen.

"Here's the third screen." Duke gasped, all out of breath.

"Where'd you get that?" Biz squeaked, suspicious-like.

"What's that matter?" Duke griped. "It's a screen, isn't it?"

"Sure looks like a screen," Stump said, grinning kind of simply at Duke.

"There's more to you than meets the eye." Jim Dandy swatted Duke on the back. "And I've always said it. Now if you'll just give me that old lady's key..."

"You stole her key?" Biz shudder-squeaked.

"Borrowed," Jim Dandy corrected. "We'll take it back when we're done."

Here, Jim Dandy held a paw out for Duke to drop the key in, but of course the key was still in my pocket. Jim Dandy kept his hand out there, though, grinning as if he knew a secret. An embarrassed silence fell over us until finally I couldn't take it any longer and slapped the key in Jim Dandy's palm.

By then Duke looked ready to bawl, but Jim Dandy wiped away the tears by dropping an arm over my cousin's shoulder and applauding his efforts, "Stealing a little credit, are we? Couldn't have handled it any better myself. Duke, old boy, you're going to be one of us yet." Turning to Stump and Biz, he rubbed in his victory by saying, "I told you not to worry."

After that, Jim Dandy strutted around as if walking on stilts. The way he carried on about how nobody had trusted him to contribute his fair share—well, it went miles beyond shameless, and of course it didn't leave him any time to chase Duke away by threatening to drop him off the wagon wheel bridge. What finally shut him up was Biz, who interrupted to squeak, "What about this star?"

"You two," Jim Dandy ordered, pointing at Duke and me, "help Biz and Stump haul the mining stuff over here."

"Hold on, now," Biz squeaked. "That'd leave you here all alone."

"Somebody's got to mark the spot," Jim Dandy said.

"Somebody," Biz agreed, "but not you."

"Nice try," Stump added.

There followed a whole new argument that sounded like all their earlier arguments. Duke volunteered to mark the spot but got voted down because he was Jim Dandy's little bird. In the end, I got nominated as the only one they all sort of trusted. Translation: I looked too scared to try anything sneaky. Letting me mark the spot satisfied everyone but Duke, who warned me not to mess up.

"Or else."

So I found myself alone on a dark sandbar, not even a torch at my side. Light might attract company, they said. When a passing barge blew its horn, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Barges had always sounded kind of sad and regal when I was comfy at home in my own bed, but out on the night river, they sounded wild and dragonish.

Time's hard to gauge when you're all alone in the dark, with the river rolling along beside you, but it felt as though Duke and the trolls were gone nearly as long as the dinosaurs have been. Eventually they returned, arguing their way over the last dune, their backs stooped beneath piles of mining equipment. Duke trudged along behind, carting more than his share. With the trolls so busy bickering about who would do the shoveling and who would do the sifting, Duke took it upon himself to play Mr. Hotshot when I made the mistake of asking a question.

"What do they need the ukulele for?" I asked.

"You've got to sing to a star," Duke informed me, "or it burns itself out."

I pointed out six oven mitts on top of the pile of mining equipment they'd dumped on the ground.

"What do you think?" Duke sneered. "Stars are hot."

There were shovels, normal store-bought ones. No need to explain those, except that an anchor was tied to each shovel handle by a thick vine.

"Anchors?"

"In case of cave-ins," Duke said.

There were catcher's masks, along with catcher's chest guards and shin guards. Also, a fishbowl.

"You'll see," Duke told me.

I saw scarfs, possibly knitted by mothers, and plastic buckets tied to vines. Stick ladders lay atop a large stack of driftwood. I was asking about a large roll of orange shag carpet when Jim Dandy drowned me out by shouting at Biz and Stump.

"All right, if you're so afraid of getting burnt, I'll do the sifting."

"Ain't afraid of nothing," Biz squeaked.

"Me either," Stump said.

But they seemed relieved just the same. Without another word, they drew a large circle in the sand and started digging inside it. Outside the circle, they dropped the anchors tied to their shovels. Sand flew. Grit filled the air as the mineshaft bored straight down. The trolls wrapped the hand-knit scarfs around their faces to keep sand out. There weren't any scarfs left over, so Duke had to keep his mouth shut—a small blessing.

My cousin and I stood next the mineshaft, holding a screen door flat like a table between us. Jim Dandy poured bucket after bucket of sand on the screen, which worked like a sieve. Fine sand was sifted through, while larger pebbles and rocks were caught on top. Jim Dandy checked the pebbles and rocks by poking each one with his claw tip. If a stone wasn't hot, he picked it up, sniffed it once or twice, and chucked it over his shoulder.

Midnight came. Midnight went. The trolls dug on, slapping up driftwood retaining walls to stop loose sand from backfilling the hole. Working as fast as ten men, they soon needed the ladders. There were cave-ins, but the anchor ropes tied to their shovels allowed them to pull themselves out and keep right on digging.

"I can smell a sweet one," Jim Dandy finally called out.

Then I caught a whiff of something too, a scent not so much of burnt cheese as burnt caramel. Still, it was close enough to burnt cheese to make me believe that Duke actually had smelled something earlier.

Then, without warning, Jim Dandy jerked away from the screen.

"Ow!" he cried, waving his hand around. "Hot! Get the fishbowl!"

Duke panicked, dropped his end of the screen, and dove for the fishbowl. Pebbles flew everywhere.

"No-o-o-o!" Jim Dandy wailed.

Lunging for the hot stone, Jim Dandy got tangled up with the screen door, his foot punching right through it. All the commotion brought Biz and Stump racing up the ladder.

"It's here somewhere," Jim Dandy shouted. By then he'd shaken loose of the screen and was crawling on the sand, digging with his paws.

Biz and Stump scrambled around beside him. Duke pitched in too, desperate to make up for having dropped the screen door.

"It's here," Jim Dandy cried. "It burned me good."

But they found nothing.

Or at least they found nothing until I spied a yellow-red glow in the sand about twenty feet away.

"What's that?" I asked.

The spot I'd noticed was shining under the sand like an underwater light in a nighttime fountain.

"It's diving!" Biz squeaked.

All three trolls leaped after it, whipping sand between their legs like dogs would. When they caught up to the star, Jim Dandy grabbed the fishbowl and scooped it up. Biz stacked a bucket atop the bowl, trapping it.

Without a word, they jumped into their catcher's masks and chest protectors and shin guards.

Duke and I had our noses pressed as close to the fishbowl as possible, without touching it. Inside the bowl, a bumblebee-size pebble pinged off the glass, glowing like an exploding diamond. The longer it ricocheted around, the fiercer its color, turning from yellow-red to a hot, pure white. Its buzz turned shriller, like a distant fire alarm. The smell of burnt caramel grew stronger.

Once dressed in their catcher's outfits, the trolls pulled on their oven mitts and went into a crouch. From somewhere in the distance came a faint buzz that matched the louder one inside the fishbowl.

"Twelve o'clock!" Stump cried, pointing directly above them.

A swarm of stars came slamming out of the sky faster than hummingbirds, brighter than mirrors at noon, louder than a hive of sprayed bees.

Duke covered his head.

I nearly did, but it was too amazing to miss. It was like being caught inside a thundercloud full of lightning. It was like riding a fireworks rocket that had just exploded. It was like having a storm of beautiful sparks trapped behind your eyelids as you slept. They swooped down on us, aiming for the fishbowl.

The trolls waited, crouched behind their oven mitts. Two or three stars got past them, bouncing off the fishbowl. Fast and blinding as they were, they still couldn't do any damage to the glass.

"Got one!" Biz shrieked, dancing about with his oven mitts clasped together.

Stump made a desperate leap at another but missed. Jim Dandy impersonated a wooden post, maybe hoping a star would land in his mitt, maybe hoping one wouldn't.

As soon as Biz made his catch, the swarm of shooting stars lifted away as if scared. They hovered briefly overhead before flashing back into the night sky.

"Cowards!" Jim Dandy shouted, coming to life just in time to shake a fist at them.

But the stars kept right on going until they vanished in the distance, leaving the night sky as calm and peaceful as an untouched pond.

"What are they?" I asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Duke said, hoping to sound as if he did.

With his oven mitts clasped together, Biz danced around, squealing, "A box! Get a box! This thing's hot!"

There was a clumsy scramble, with Stump digging through the driftwood and Jim Dandy checking inside buckets.

"The carpet!" Biz squeak-shouted. "We put them inside the carpet."

Stump unrolled the carpet and found three jewelry boxes wrapped inside it, one made of mirrors, one of seashells, one of dark wood with a ballerina figurine on top. Grabbing the mirror box, Stump popped its lid and held it up with his eyes closed. Biz threw his catch inside, clicked the lid shut, then grabbed the box, yelling, "The ukulele! Quick!"

The jewelry box was rattling so fiercely that Biz was shaking from head to toe.

Jim Dandy ran for the ukulele and handed it off to Stump, who took a deep breath to calm himself before he started softly strumming. At first, with Biz thumping around on the sand, you could barely hear Stump, but he kept at it in a low, surprisingly gentle voice, singing a lullaby.

The water's rippling sweetly.
The river's snoring deeply.
The fish are deftly strumming.
The willows softly humming.

And then he sang in a deep, deep voice:

Now that little trolls are in bed.

He went on:

The candle's burning real low.
The west wind is your pillow.
The snakes are all done scheming.
The lilies are all dreaming.

Now that little trolls are in bed.

The tadpoles quiet way down.
The catfish swim to Sleep Town.
The night is gently drumming.
The sand-snail soon is coming.

Now that little trolls are in bed.

The lullaby may have been for baby trolls, but it soothed shooting stars too, settling down the jewelry box in Biz's hands. The shooting star in the fishbowl quit beating around and lay at the bottom of the bowl, a pulse of light faint as a Day-Glo Band-Aid. I began to nod off myself.

The only one not slowed by the lullaby was Jim Dandy. Lifting the bucket off the fishbowl, he slid a hand over its top and whispered to Duke, "Get a jewelry box."

But Duke's eyes had been lowering with everyone else's. When Jim Dandy repeated himself, I fought off the nods and picked up a second jewelry box, the one with the ballerina on top. As soon as I flipped the lid open, Jim Dandy turned the fishbowl upside down and shook the star into it.