Ah, bliss.
With a mighty yawn, I stretched and shifted. Beneath me, the old battered couch groaned ominously.
There, under the bridge, the air was cool and refreshing, in damp defiance of the afternoon's blazing summer sun. To my left, the river gurgled quietly as it made its wandering way out of the forest.
On the opposite bank, crouched next to the massive stone foundation of the bridge, BLuR and MCQ were waging a furious game of double-deck canasta.
There's nothing quite like a couple of trolls playing cards. Judging from the level of hostilities, the game had about five minutes to go before somebody got thrown into the river -- the inexorable conclusion of all trollish card games.
I only hoped that "somebody" wasn't going to be me. These things have a way of escalating, y'see.
From the cave behind me came a muffled crash followed by a string of curses, and more crashing. Brad was still digging through the closet, trying to find the toenail clippers which I had thoughtfully hidden the night before. Served him right.
Content, I closed my eyes and settled deeper into the long-suffering sofa for yet another nap.
Suddenly, my well deserved repose was rudely shattered by a panicky shout from the bridge.
"TROLL! TROLL!"
Jolted out of Dreamland, I groggily lurched off the couch, slipped in the mud, and landed flat on my butt.
From the other bank came the sound of giggling. "Smooth," said BLuR. "A fine example of grace AND beauty."
"Blow it out your ass." I muttered, picking myself up with wounded dignity.
Once again, the kid's panicky yell cut through the air, "TROLL! TROLL!"
"WHAT THE HELL IS IT?" I inquired.
"S-SOMEONE'S COMING!" he hollered back.
"Well who is it, BONEHEAD?"
"I ... I think it might be a ... B-BILLYGOAT!"
MCQ and BLuR dropped the ragged remains of their cards and looked over at me with wide, toothy grins splitting their gnarled faces. I stopped brushing mud from my pants, and grinned back at them. With another loud crash, Brad appeared at the entrance of the cave, with a wicked snarl of his own.
"WHADDOIDO?!? WHADDOIDO!?!" The kid bellowed.
"Relax!" I shouted back. "You've got a few minutes before he gets here!"
I leaped to the nearest of the bridge's support-columns and started climbing. On the other bank, MCQ and BLuR were engaged in an animated discussion about who would be the first to reach the top of the bridge on their side of the river. From the cave came renewed crashing and clanging, as Brad hauled out the big, iron cookpot and hastily prepared it for the feast.
Finally, I reached the level of the bridge railings, and surveyed the situation. There, standing at his post, in the middle of the bridge, was Willie, our new apprentice troll. He was nine feet tall, six hundred pounds, hugely muscled, and shaking like a leaf.
"All right, where is he?" I growled.
Instead of answering, he slowly raised a violently shaking hand and pointed, more or less, to the place where the road came out of the forest to make its way to our bridge. I strained my senses in that direction, searching for signs of an approaching goat.
There was definitely something white and woolly moving through the trees towards us. My nostrils picked up the scent of goat-hair.
MCQ, from his closer vantage point near the other end of the bridge, gave a low whistle and said, "Man, he looks pretty gruff."
"GRUFF!?!" Yelped Willie. "WHATTAYA MEAN, GRUFF!?!"
BLuR's head popped into view behind the railings on the other side of the bridge. "Hey, Kid!" he hissed. "Can I have your stereo?" Willie stared at him, in blank incomprehension. "You know, after the goat gets through with you?"
Willie's eyes suddenly became as wide as dinner plates. "A-AFTER ... ? ... !"
I could see that he was on the edge of bolting for the horizon, so I tried to step in and calm him down a bit, "Now, hang on. We don't know that..."
MCQ butted in, "Yeah, dude. The goat might have a heart attack before it gets here." Both he and BLuR began snickering.
I tried again. "Take it easy, kid. If you keep ..." This time, it was the kid that cut me off.
"Forget it. No chance. Get somebody else. I'm not gonna do it." He started backing away from me as I hauled myself up over the railing. As I climbed onto the bridge, I saw something large, and dark loom up behind him.
Still backing away, he continued his denials. "Not me, buddy. I'm not gonna throw my life awa*URK!*" Brad's huge, hairy hand closed around Willie's neck, cutting off the rest of his protests.
Deliberately, I walked up and put my face directly in front of Willie's. "Just who the hell is the bridgemeister around here, anyway?"
When he failed to answer right away, I glanced up at Brad. Brad apparently decided to shake an answer out of him. Willie became a blur of wildly flailing limbs.
Finally, Brad relaxed his grip enough to allow the kid to speak. "Y-You are!" he managed to blurt.
"And who decides which troll has bridge duty?" I demanded.
He could see where this was leading. "...You do."
"And who has the duty today?"
"...me."
"So who gets to get ki ... fight the billygoat?"
Crestfallen, he didn't answer. Brad gave him the paintcan-shaker number again. "ME!" he yelped.
"All right then," I said. Brad released him, and he collapsed to his knees, with a loud *Thud*.
I stood over him, and said "Look, you're not gonna get killed. Sooner or later, every young troll has got to face his first billygoat. We all did it, and we're still here. Now, GET UP, and DEAL with it." I smacked him on the head a few times, to get the point across.
Shamefaced, he got to his feet. Behind me, MCQ hissed, "Here he comes!" Brad and I dove over the railings, clinging to the columns in order to observe the event.
Proudly, the haughty young billygoat emerged from the last trees of the forest, and approached the foot of the bridge. It's cocksure arrogance showed clearly in every step.
For a while, Willie's resolve held. But then, his knees started wobbling. Soon they were banging loudly together, in a fine counterpoint to the chattering of his teeth.
The billygoat set foot on the bridge, and stopped. "Stand aside, big, green, and ugly!" he sneered. "Before I teach you the folly of defying the wrath of Todd, the Gruff!"
The goat paused, expectantly.
After a few moments, BLuR hissed, "SAY something!"
Uncertainly, Willie said, "Uh ... oh, yeah?"
The billygoat leaped on Willie's response. "SO! You dare to challenge my power! Prepare to receive my overwhelming onslaught, fool of a troll!"
Belligerently, the goat started pawing at the ground, and lowering its head.
As if in response, all the sweat pores on Willie's body went into overdrive. He began edging nervously back, away from the aggressive goat.
With a loud bleat, the billygoat charged onto the bridge.
Willie lost it. He turned to run away, but his feet got tangled together. He fell, bawling, to the ground, as the goat bore down on him.
With terrified energy, Willie began kicking and flailing around him, as he lay in the path of his onrushing enemy. "GET AWAY! GET AWAY!" he screamed. "KILL SOMEBODY ELSE!"
As the goat reached him, one of Willie's huge feet lightly grazed its head. The goat immediately collapsed to the ground, with a crushed skull.
In his terror, Willie failed to notice. He continued to flail and kick desperately, as he tried to back himself away from the "fearsome" billygoat.
Eventually, Willie stopped and looked around him. His eyes fell on the dead billygoat. "Wh-What the hell?" he sobbed.
That was too much. From our vantage points around the bridge, the rest of us burst into gales of laughter. I thought my ribs were going to break, I was laughing so hard.
I heard a loud "WHOOP! *SPLASH*" as BLuR lost his grip on the railing, and plunged into the river, still laughing. A moment later, Brad joined him.
In order to avoid the same fate, I struggled mightily to get up onto the bridge. After a while I was laying over the railing, laughing so hard I could barely breathe.
I could see that MCQ was dangling by his left arm, which he had had the foresight to wedge in between the columns of the railing. His face was blue, and he wasn't making any sound. His body was being periodically wracked with huge spasms.
At last, I could breathe again. I flipped my legs up over the railing, and sat down with my back to it, and tried to wipe the tears from my eyes. Every once in a while, I was overcome with renewed fits of laughter.
Finally, I could see again. I noticed that Willie was looming over me, his face brightly flushed, and his anvil-like fists cocked and ready to pay my head a visit. "Oh, hi!" I said.
The fists had just begun to descend, when the rest of Willie's body began to rise. In a graceful arc, Willie flew up over the railing, and down into the river. Now it was MCQ, standing in front of me. "They never learn, do they?" he giggled.
From my position on the ground, I began kicking and yelping, in outrageous pantomime. MCQ collapsed, and we both started laughing all over again.
When this latest episode had blown over, I clambered to my feet and had a look over the railing. Brad and BLuR had washed up about a hundred yards downriver. Brad was in the process of walking back upstream, while BLuR was draped over a fallen tree, still laughing hysterically. Willie was sitting on a rock in the middle of the river, looking tremendously hurt.
I leaned over the railing and called down, "Well, what did you expect? You only outweigh the damn billygoat by about twenty to one."
He looked up and said, "What about all those stories everybody tells about the three billygoats gruff, and all that?"
"Yeah, well, don't believe everything you hear."
"So it's not true? The billygoat didn't really beat you up?"
I reached back, grabbed the carcass, and dangled it off the bridge. "What do you think?"
Later, eating billygoat stew around the fire, the kid was upset. "But if it didn't happen, why do you let everybody say it did?"
I looked at him. "Kid, you have obviously never tried chasing down one of those damn things. As long as they think Trolls are pushovers, they come to us, instead of the other way around."
He didn't get the point. "But, what about ..."
"Look at it this way; which would you rather? Let every billygoat in the world think you're some kind of wimp, as they deliver themselves to you for dinner? Or starve to death while chasing a woolly bolt of lightning from here to the moon?"
"What the hell do you care what a damn goat thinks about you, anyway?" Brad interjected.
Willie protested, "But it's not just the billygoats!. Everybody thinks that! The ogres laugh at us all the time!"
"Ogres!" MCQ exclaimed. "They WISH they had a sweet scam like this! Look, kid, the next time you run into one of those asshole ogres, you just ask him what he had for lunch that day."
"If anything." said BLuR.
Willie lapsed into sullen silence. Accordingly, the rest of us ignored him, devoting our full attention to eating.
After a while, Willie muttered, "Well I'm not gonna let anybody say some stupid old billygoat beat ME up."
I looked up, quickly. "Oh, yes you are. Someday, you're even going to get up there and let some billygoat push you around, so it goes home and spreads the story even further."
"Oh, get out of here!"
The rest of us surged to our feet and loomed over him, with unmistakable menace. After a few moments, he caved in.
"But I don't even like Billygoat meat." he whined.
"No sweat." I replied. "The goat thing worked so well, we're working on a new one, called 'The Cowardly Troll, and the Brave Little Succulent Roasting Pig'."
All five of us smacked our lips, in anticipation.