Part twenty: The rose

  

The Troll

“My front tooth is missing!” exclaimed Molly. She had slept through the night beside her little brother, in the rowboat. “The tooth fairy was here! She left me a gold coin and a rose.”

“You have two gold coins now!” Moe exclaimed. “May I have one?”  

The evening before, Tauren had tied the rowboat to a tree and camped on the shore, upstream from where the smoke was still billowing from the old schoolhouse chimney.

“Good morning, children,” he said. 

He knew that the floodwater had dropped and the current would not be as swift now.

“We’ll try to reach your parents, today,” he told them, gently. “If the current catches our rowboat, it will drift directly toward the chimney.”

Suddenly, a wizened and ugly looking little man with a huge nose and large ears, appeared on the scene.

The children were both frightened.

“Who are you?” Tauren asked the little man, concerned about their safety.

“I am Jon, the master troll. I lived under the bridge until it was washed away. You are in my campground.” 

“I am so sorry,” replied Tauren, apologetically.  

He suspected Jon was a good troll and had given Molly the rose and gold coin, as trolls, like fairies often have magical powers that can even make roses bloom. They love gold coins, too.

“You can help us?”

Jon looked at Tauren and Tauren looked back at him. They were almost the same height and build.

“Maybe,” replied Jon, gruffly. “I’ll help you, if you help me get my bridge back.”

“We think our parents are stranded out there in the flood water, where the smoke is coming from the chimney,” said Molly, with a sweet, but now toothless grin. “We need to take some food out to them.”

“You can row the boat,” piped up Moe, wanting to be part of the conversation.

“I don’t know,” he replied. 

“Most people don’t like trolls," said Jon.

“If you help us, you can have this,” said Tauren. He saw Jon’s eyes light up, as he offered him a brass lantern. “I found it in the water.”  

“It needs oil,” replied the troll, grumpily.