Horns & Wrinkles (16 page)

"A contract?" Biz squeaked, intrigued.

One look at Jim Dandy's dreamy smile told me he was being swayed too. Bodacious Deepthink's voice was as warm and comfy as an electric blanket on a chill night. But I still needed a stone feather.

"What exactly would they be doing?" I asked, aiming to sound as innocent and sincere as possible. "Down below, I mean."

It's amazing how one little question can blow up everything. Biz shuddered as if surfacing from a confusing dream. Jim Dandy turned off his smile. Stump re-covered his eyes.

"They'd be doing important work," Bo huffed, insulted. "Exciting work."

"Have you got the crickets or not?" Duke demanded.

Bodacious Deepthink blinked at Duke three times before slamming her staff down hard enough to crack a sizable rock in two. Over her shoulder she shouted toward the cave, "Double-knot Eel-tongue! Drag your worthless bones out here and have a talk with your good-for-nothing son."

A tiny piffle of air could have bowled me over. As for Jim Dandy, he looked as though someone had busted a canoe paddle over his head.

"Am I going to get to meet your dad?" Duke gushed, hardly able to believe his luck.

Jim Dandy shut him up by giving his horn a hard twist.

From inside the cave came the rattle of rickety wheels on stone. Out of the shadows trudged a bent-over river troll who dragged one foot and hummed off-key. Dented and dinged as he was, a rockslide or two must have caught him. His willow hair had mostly been stripped clean of leaves, and his scales had lost their mossy green shine and turned a dirty brown. Freckles? They'd all popped into warts.

Jim Dandy's father was pulling a kid's red wagon, which carried a bamboo birdcage. Inside the cage, three lucky crickets were clinging to the leaves of a potted plant, an ivy of some kind. They were cave crickets, the same kind as the old lady had seen in my eyes when I'd first met her.

"Park that wagon," Bodacious Deepthink fumed, "and come talk to these boys."

He parked, he came. Full daylight had a good chance of reaching us first, bad as Double-knot Eel-tongue's crooked foot dragged.

"Tell 'em how good you've got it," Bodacious Deepthink ordered, nudging him forward with her staff. "Go on. Tell 'em how they'll never get another chance so golden as this one."

From up close you could see that one of Double-knot's eyes was swollen shut and one of his ears bitten half off. He wore a tattered blue scarf around his throat. His ragged jeans were held up by a piece of yellow rope that looked as though it was cut off a motorboat's anchor line.

"Speak up," Bodacious Deepthink said, poking him again with her staff.

"Mining's the best thing ever happened to me," Double-knot Eel-tongue recited in a flat, lifeless voice. "I never knew there were such opportunities to be had underground. A real chance to contribute to the greatest undertaking known to modern trolls."

"Tell them about the moon," Bodacious Deepthink coached in a whisper.

"The moon's waiting for us," Double-knot said. "We're making great progress every day. We've the best miners in the world. They've the finest picks and shovels. Dynamite is available. You can't imagine how good it feels to blow a rock bed to smithereens, or to find new caverns never seen before, or to scratch your back on a stalactite that's older than your grandmother."

"And every morning?" Bodacious Deepthink prompted. "When you're done working?"

"Every morning you go to bed knowing you've made a real contribution. Your work is especially valued too, because you're river trolls, you see."

"Why's that?" Stump asked, sounding impressed.

Bodacious Deepthink stepped in with an answer for him.

"On account of that cheap little curse your mothers threw on me," she chided. "We rock trolls won't find our way to the moon till those three miners find their way home. That's the way they said it. Rockfudge! Can I help it if a river troll can get lost in his own bed? Can I help it if they don't know how to handle a lucky cricket? Can I help it if..."

She ticked off a half-dozen other things she couldn't help, and every one of those things made her so touchy and grouchy that her bat earrings were fluttering most of the time now. But finally she managed to get a grip on herself and slow her tongue enough to talk more civilly.

"Let's just say you river trolls have got me over a barrel. Thanks to that curse, all us rock trolls are able to do is dig around and around in circles without getting anywhere. That's why we need your help. The curse can't touch you river trolls. So if you put your mind to it, you can tell us where to tunnel. It's the only way we'll ever make it to the moon. Old Double-knot here, he's been mapping our diggings for years and years, but he's lost his oomph, can't quite get us there. Don't get me wrong, he's done wonders, gotten us so close that some nights we can hear the moon humming. If we put our ears to rock, we surely can. All we need is some fresh blood, a younger river troll whose eyes and ears are sharper. Whoever takes over would be my chief engineer. Paid accordingly. A golden opportunity, especially to show your mothers who's boss. Wouldn't you agree, Double-knot?"

"Oh, yes," Double-knot croaked, his eyes glued to her staff, in case he had to dodge it.

"So what do you boys say?" Bodacious Deepthink cajoled. "It'd only take one of you. The other two can try their luck with crickets, if that's what curls their tails."

No volunteers stepped forward, so at least Jim Dandy, Biz, and Stump weren't as dumb as they currently looked.

"Tell them about the grub," Bodacious Deepthink said to Jim Dandy's father.

"Best going," Double-knot promised, though his belly didn't have any jiggle to it.

"And the accommodations?" Bodacious Deepthink added.

"Four-star."

"Your fellow workers?"

"Princes, every last one."

It was clear that Double-knot had been schooled with a hard stick.

"What about sweets?" Duke asked.

"Any time you crave them," Bodacious Deepthink said.

"Chances to bully?"

"Every day," she promised. "Helps keep up morale. Anything else?"

There wasn't, except from Duke, and Bodacious Deepthink put a stop to that by jabbing her staff hard into his gut. While my cousin was doubled over, the Great Rock Troll went on, friendly as ever, "So there you have it, boys. What do you say? I'm offering you the chance of a lifetime. Fame and glory wait for the river troll who can get us to the moon. Surely at least one of you can see that?"

When Jim Dandy, Biz, and Stump all held their ground, refusing to bite, Bodacious Deepthink's patience sprang a leak.

"The dumbest-looking one must be your son," she said to Double-knot. "Have a word with him."

Jim Dandy and his father stood there gazing into each other's eyes as if on opposite banks of the river, and a wide spot in the river at that. Double-knot made the first move by stepping forward and putting an old broken paw on Jim Dandy's shoulder.

"I swear that everything you've heard here..." he began.

Jim Dandy knocked the paw off his shoulder and turned his head away. Bodacious Deepthink slammed her staff down and roared, "This is your father, boy."

That's when Jim Dandy went up about a hundred notches in my estimation. Looking directly into Bodacious Deepthink's flashing eyes, he said, "No, he's not. My father came up here, got a cricket from you, went looking for those miners, and hasn't been seen since."

It was a bold-faced lie, of course. Everyone could see that. Even busted up and covered with rock dust, Double-knot looked like Jim Dandy, all the way down to the neck scarves they both wore. But the point was, Jim Dandy refused to think badly of his father.

"Tell that young fool that he's making a big mistake!" Bodacious Deepthink thundered.

That turned out to be the wrong thing to say. No, calling Jim Dandy a fool for refusing to believe the worst of his father, that set the stage for something none of us was expecting. Reaching out for Jim Dandy's shoulders, Double-knot said, "This may be my only chance to be your father, boy, so you better listen. I've some advice to share."

Everybody leaned forward to catch what Jim Dandy's father had to say. Straightening his bent shoulders as much as he could, Double-knot took a breath and advised, "Don't make the same mistake I did, son. Go out and make your own."

With that, he let go of Jim Dandy's shoulders and slouched back toward the cave. If there was a throat thereabouts that didn't hide a sizable lump, it wasn't mine, not after all the times I'd refused advice from my own mom and dad. Of course, Bodacious Deepthink was all cinders and gas.

Finally Jim Dandy broke the silence, saying to Bodacious Deepthink, "If you're done with the sales pitch, we came to trade for some crickets."

Hearing that, Jim Dandy's father held his head higher and picked up his pace. Bodacious Deepthink responded by whamming her staff down and shaking the entire valley.

"What have you got to trade?" she snarled.

"Two shooting stars and one meal," Biz squeaked after Jim Dandy elbowed him.

"One banquet," Jim Dandy corrected.

"That?" Bodacious Deepthink groused with a snort of disbelief.

She was pointing at Duke, who was holding up the burlap sack he'd been carrying.

"Guaranteed delicious," Duke promised.

To prove his point, he untied the neck of the sack and dumped out the food inside. Stones fell to the ground, barely missing his toes.

"Doesn't look like much." Bodacious Deepthink wrinkled her nostrils.

"He just got the horn," Jim Dandy said. "The rest is coming."

When the Great Rock Troll took two steps forward and turned Duke to the side for a better view, my cousin didn't even squawk. He was still gazing down at the stones as if expecting them to turn into goat cheese and pigs' feet and ox tails.

"Done!" Bodacious Deepthink said, liking Duke's profile. Over her shoulder, she shouted, "Bring me those crickets!"

Double-knot surprised everyone by shouting from the mouth of the cave, "Get them yourself!"

Bodacious Deepthink grumbled over to the wagon, which she shoved forward with her staff.

"These are the ones you want," Bodacious Deepthink scoffed. "Your fathers did too, except for Double-knot, of course."

The three white crickets inside the cage looked old and rickety enough to have met a lot of fathers. One had a bent antenna. Another stood lopsided. The last was drooling.

"We'll take 'em," Jim Dandy said, reaching.

"Stars first." Bo batted Jim Dandy's hands away with her staff.

When Jim Dandy handed over the jewelry boxes, Bodacious Deepthink sniffed them without opening the lids.

"They'll do." She wasn't impressed.

"Say," Duke bawled, finally coming to his senses, "what happened to the mutton and goat cheese and stuff?"

Duke looked from Jim Dandy to Biz to Stump, all of whom were too busy admiring crickets to answer.

"You're with me," Bodacious Deepthink said to my cousin. "Come on."

"Run!" I shouted.

But he didn't. All he managed to do was stare—in disbelief—as Bodacious Deepthink lifted a rope from the wagon and lassoed him so expertly that you knew she'd done it before. Reeling Duke in, the Great Rock Troll tucked him over her shoulder and turned toward the cave.

"What's going on?" Duke cried out.

"Take your crickets," Bodacious Deepthink bellowed above Duke's wails. "Leave the cage."

With that, the Great Rock Troll plodded toward the cave as if she couldn't even feel Duke thrashing about.

Spotting me on the ground, Duke pointed and screamed, "Take her! Take Claire! She'll do whatever..."

He never got around to finishing his offer. Right then he let out such an ear-splitting yowl that Jim Dandy, Biz, and Stump all stopped admiring crickets and straightened up as if something house-size had exploded. Duke's horn shot out another six inches. His arms thickened, legs too. The seams on his black zipper coat ripped everywhere as his skin puckered with wrinkles. Unfurling like leaves opening in spring, his ears shot upward with fur tufts on top. He turned black-gray, everywhere, and his fingers melded together into hooves.