Horns & Wrinkles (14 page)

"Close it!"

The instant I clicked the lid shut, I knew I'd done something terribly wrong. Inside the jewelry box, the star came to life, dinging about so fast that it made the ballerina twirl. The vibrations rattled my teeth. It was a musical jewelry box, so it played a tune too, the same lullaby that Stump had sung. Gradually the ballerina atop the box slowed to a stop, the song faded, the star went back to sleep. I set the box on the sand and stepped away from it, ashamed. By then everyone else had woken up and was wild with excitement.

"I think that's two!" Jim Dandy crowed. "Almost three!"

They went back to sniffing up stars again, faster than ever, for the night was wearing thin and dawn was on its way. Duke and I were told to fill in the first mineshaft while they searched.

"Biz is planning on turning you to stone," I warned my cousin as I shoveled.

"Oh, I'm sure," Duke sniped, in a snit because I'd helped Jim Dandy with the musical box.

"Stump says we shouldn't go anywhere near this Bo the Great Rock Troll."

"As if he'd know."

"And Jim Dandy can't wait to drop you off the wagon wheel bridge."

"I'm shaking in my booties," Duke fake gasped.

So much for troll advice.

"At least we won't have school tomorrow," I said, wanting to say something he couldn't disagree with. Tomorrow was Monday, but it didn't look like we'd be reading any books. "I suppose you'll miss the kids you pick on."

"That bunch of ninnies?"

"I bet you miss 'em," I insisted. "I even think that deep down you miss your parents too."

"No way," Duke growled. "I've never had it so good."

He got quiet after that, so I should have figured that he was scheming.

Stump's toy poodle soon started yipping at the far end of the sandbar, and Duke tore off to see what they'd found. It took me fewer than ten steps to catch up with him and two more to race past him. As I pulled even, Duke stumbled and fell flat. I kept right on going. At the time I didn't even wonder about Duke's clumsiness, but later on I thought about it plenty, for all the good it did me. I'd never known my cousin to lose his balance when trying to be first in line.

"It's faint!" Jim Dandy was shouting when I found them. His nose funnels were pressed to the ground.

They went straight to work. Since this star was closer to the river, the sand they shoveled soon turned wet and heavy. Their mood grew dark as the wire mesh of the second screen door sagged and then gave out. But on went the digging. The mesh of the third screen was sagging badly when Biz finally squeaked, "We got heat!"

Another few bucketfuls and the color came, the sand flashing purple and white and smelling more like burnt cheese than with the first.

"Whiff that," Jim Dandy said, inhaling. "Must be an old- timer."

"Fishbowl!" Stump yelled, still digging.

I started to reach for the fishbowl, but Duke tripped me and got it himself. As you might expect, his nose suffered for that stunt, but he handed the fishbowl down the ladder just in time for Stump to scoop up their third star. It pinged around inside the fishbowl more sluggishly than the first two, and they had no trouble dropping it in the seashell jewelry box. That done, they howled at a rising crescent moon that was thin as a finger-nail clipping, orange as a pumpkin headed for pie. They beat their chests like monkey men and slapped one another on the backs as if there'd never been a cross word between them.

"What'd I tell you?" Jim Dandy cheered. "What did I tell you?"

"Make way," Biz squealed haughtily. "Bow down."

"You see!" Stump shouted into the darkness, as if he'd proven himself to the universe.

Through all the celebrating, Duke stood off to the side, shuffling his feet and looking worried. When Stump unexpectedly tried to dance with him, my cousin yanked his arm free and announced, "I'm afraid I've got some bad news, boys."

His imitation of Jim Dandy's smoothness wasn't all that smooth. The trolls didn't hear him at first, so Duke had to raise his voice to a half shout.

"My cousin let one of your stars go."

The dancing stopped. The hooting died. My breathing, blinking, and thinking came to a halt with everything else.

"Am I hearing you right?" Jim Dandy said, looking kind of sick.

"I'm afraid so," Duke answered. "She would have let the other one go too, if I hadn't stopped her."

So now I knew why Duke had stumbled and fell when we'd been racing to the third star. He'd wanted his friends to be one star short so that they'd have to offer food to Bo. He planned on being the one to carry that food, and best of all—from Duke's view—he'd figured out a way to pin it all on me. All of a sudden the three trolls were making hard raspy sounds in their throats, and the green torches were making their eyes glow.

"She said she felt sorry for them," Duke told them.

"This is all your fault," Biz squeaked grimly at Jim Dandy. "You're the one wanting these two along."

"Hold on, now," Jim Dandy said, scrambling. "You boys knew we'd have some troubles along the way. All the songs said we would."

"You're not wiggling out of this one," Biz squeaked. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"Do? Why, I don't plan on doing anything, except make these two pay for our losses."

"Now, wait a minute," Duke squawked. "She's the one let the star out."

"Wasn't me," I piped up. "It was him."

Not knowing which of us to believe, they tied us both up with vines.

We spent the day at the wet bottom of a twenty-foot mineshaft. Sunlight may not turn a river troll to stone, but it does make them all cross and itchy. To block out the sun, they unrolled the orange shag carpet across the mouth of the shaft, then sprinkled sand over it for camouflage. The last troll down stuck his hand out from beneath the carpet and tossed sand over the remaining corner.

The trolls tied their alligator bags to the ladder maybe halfway down the shaft. Stump left his bag unzipped, allowing a faint green glow to seep out.

"Helps me sleep," Stump mumbled without being asked.

We lay nestled like spoons, Duke at one end of the line, me the other, our hands and feet still tied. If they could have tied my nose, I wouldn't have minded.

"So who's going to talk to Bodacious?" Biz grumble-squeaked in the greenish dark.

"I could," Duke volunteered.

Nobody paid him any mind except to laugh, but at least his offer broke the tension.

"Now, Biz," Jim Dandy reasoned, "if you talk royalty to royalty with old Bo, we should be fine. All you have to do is tell her it's a package deal. Two stars and one meal for three crickets. No, better not call it a meal, better call it a banquet. Now, that's a steal."

"Oh no," Biz protested. "You tell her. I might forget something."

"She'll take it better from an equal," Jim Dandy predicted.

Name-calling followed until Stump played peacemaker, saying, "How about a taste of those willow cats?"

That at least was something they could agree about, so they chowed down without offering us anything to eat, then dropped off to sleep, one by one. Determined to show he was one of the gang, Duke conked out with them.

They snored worse than broken trombones, but even if Jim Dandy, Biz, Stump, and Duke had been quiet sleepers, I still wouldn't have been able to nod off. Not with everything I had swirling around inside my head.

After a while, all my tossing and turning woke Stump, who was right behind me. "If I untie you," he whispered in my ear, "will you stop thrashing?"

"I'll try."

As soon as Stump undid the knots holding my wrists and ankles together, I got busy pretending to snore. In no time at all the troll's paw slipped off my shoulder and he was back to talking in his sleep. "Not me! Duckwad." I crept up the ladder, wanting a peek in the trolls' alligator bags. It seemed a likely place to stash a stone feather and glove.

Inside Stump's bag there wasn't much of anything but his toy poodle (asleep in his cage), a sack of doggie treats, and a snapshot of a chunky troll wearing a stick hat with a water lily on top. His wife, I assumed. There was also a family picture that showed Stump, a motherly troll in a patched apron, and another troll who must have been the missing brother, the one turned into a human. I studied the brother's face a minute, unable to shake the notion that I'd seen him somewhere before. How that could be, I had no idea. He was an ugly brute, with a leech sucking the tip of his snout, flies hovering above his ears, and riverweed stuck between his teeth. Still, there was something about his eyes...

And that's when it hit me: Duckwad's eyes gazed into the camera the same way my eyes looked into the bathroom mirror whenever I was studying myself. Exactly! It seemed as though he was looking for someone he'd lost. In shock, I sort of forgot to breathe for a minute or two, and, growing dizzy, I nearly fell off the ladder. This could explain some things, such as why my best friends weren't my sisters but turtles, toads, and beetles. The thought that I might be Stump's missing brother circled around inside my head without actually landing but making a lot of noise. To scare the thought away, I moved on to the next bag, feeling numb and shaky.

The green glow inside Jim Dandy's bag showed me a bottle of Ruby Gnatbreath's Amazing Mouthwash (reuseable); a tube of Delaware Wingdam's Slick-Back Hair Wax; Tutu Mudnose's Underarm Defoliant; a folding chair that said
DIRECTOR
on its back; a grumpy mole; and several copies of
Hollywood Glamour,
the magazine read by the stars. No stone feather or glove.

On to Biz's bag, which had a funny hum coming from inside. Putting an ear to it, I heard faint singing that stopped as soon as I touched the zipper. When I opened the bag, I found a gnome guarding its contents.

He was barely larger than my hand and held a pitchfork the size of a fork, though sharper. I could tell he was a gnome by his pointed hat and full-length beard. Moonglasses protected him from the green glow filling the bag.

"Hark," the gnome said in a small, fierce voice, "who goes there?"

"A friend of Biz's," I whispered back, saying the first thing that popped into my mouth.

"Did Mr. High-and-Mighty send my wages?" the gnome demanded.

"I'm afraid not," I said with a small yelp. Biz's crown-ring had given my middle finger a little nip. "He sent me after the stone feather."

"Now, isn't that just like him?" the gnome griped.

"How so?"

"He took that feather out of here and never brought it back, that's how so. He's just like every other Mossbottom I've done business with. Too important to keep track of the little things. Leave that to the hired help. I've half a mind to quit on him. Now clear out of here afore I make jelly out of you. You're letting all my stale air out."

And he jabbed at me with his pitchfork. He'd have drawn blood if I hadn't been quick. Zipping the bag shut from the inside, he went back to singing. This time I caught some of the words, which were mad and spiteful:

Yes, your majesty.
No, your majesty.
I'd rather be home in my hole,
Your majesty.

His voice cut off as the zipper closed.

Feeling bluer than mud, I slunk back to the bottom of the mineshaft, wondering if Mom and Dad and Grandpa and even my sisters were really my family. Even if they weren't, I felt a homesick ache just thinking of them. If I hadn't been so bothered by my resemblance to Stump's brother, I probably would have cried myself to sleep. Instead, I just cried myself awake.

A long time later the trolls woke up and started grumbling about how they hadn't gotten any sleep. Actually, they'd stirred as much as fallen timbers the entire day and just sounded scared about their meeting with Bodacious Deepthink, the Great Rock Troll. But eventually they shifted from fretting about Bo to describing what they'd do after getting their lucky crickets, finding their fathers, and coming home heroes.

"Going to visit the Nile," Jim Dandy bragged. "I hear it's quite a river."