It had rained all the rest of the day. Baartock had a great time up at his bridge. The water was racing under the bridge, making a wonderful gurgling sound. It made hiding under the arch like being in one of the stories his father told. The only thing missing was someone walking over the bridge. He would come out from under the bridge screaming his loudest and run up the side of the stream bed. He could just see them running away.

Right then it really didn't matter that there wasn't anyone crossing his bridge. Baartock now knew so many humans and so much about them, that was easy to pretend who was walking up to cross the bridge. There was Mr. Fennis, of course. He had run away so wonderfully. Then there was Ms. Laurence. Baartock could scare her easily. He didn't pretend to scare Mrs. Jackson or Mrs. s...o...b..chner.

Somehow they didn't seem like people to scare. But that girl in his cla.s.s, Janice, Baartock scared her again and again. And some of the other children in the cla.s.s. They were all so easy to scare. He was having a great time.

He even pretended that Jason was helping him scare people. Not that Jason was anything like a troll, but Baartock liked him and he thought Jason would have fun scaring people.

After a while, when it started to get dark, Baartock went back home in the rain. He was glad that his father had known it was going to rain.

They had gathered in extra firewood. Even though it wasn't cold, the fire warmed the cave and helped him to dry off.

Though it had been raining all day, his mother had fixed an extra good meal. Baartock really liked the cricket and green bean salad. Later they all sat around the fire and his mother patched his pants and sewed on the new winter coat she was making, and his father told stories. He stayed up late, and it was still raining hard when he finally went to bed.

The next morning it was still raining, and his mother told him to go wait for the bus, but if it didn't come when it should, to come back home. And his father surprised him by saying he would be staying home if it kept on raining. The room he was working on in the cavern would probably be flooded, and he wouldn't be able to work.

So, while it was still raining quite hard, Baartock went down to stand by the side of the road and wait for the school bus. Actually, he wasn't waiting right beside the road in the rain, but back a little way, under some trees that still had lots of leaves. He thought he could see the bus in time to come out and catch it. He waited and waited, but he didn't see a bus or a car or anything coming down the road. He went over to look at the culvert. Rain water was coming roaring down the stream bed right at the culvert, but there was so much that it couldn't all get through. There were branches and rocks that had come down with the water that were blocking the opening. It was beginning to make a pool on that side of the road. On the other side, it was shooting out of the culvert, but it was beginning to make a pool there too.

When Baartock felt he had waited long enough, he went back home. His father was carving out some extra shelves in the kitchen. He went to watch his father work, and started handing him tools. They worked most of the morning. His mother came back home and saw the mess they were making, and started making some sandwiches. They all finished about the same time, and his mother chased them both out of the cave so she could clean up. There were rock chips all over the kitchen.

Then Baartock and his father went up and sat under his bridge and ate their sandwiches. For a while, his father told stories, about when he had been a young troll, before he'd earned his name. Then they looked at some places that Baartock had had trouble with building his bridge.

They stood in the stream and the pouring rain, and his father showed him some better ways to do the stone-work. They even took a few of the stones out, and his father worked on them, then they put them back.

Baartock was much happier about the way the bridge looked now. Then his father showed him places where the water might weaken the bridge if they weren't fixed, not today, but later when the rain stopped and the water went down.

While they were working the rain eased up as if it were going to stop, then it started coming down again as hard as before. They had quite a busy afternoon, and his father said that it was time to go home, even if there was still a mess in the kitchen for them to clean up.

It rained all the next day, too. Not as hard as before, just a steady rain that went on and on. Baartock went down in the morning to see if the bus would come, but it didn't. He waited a long time, playing beside the stream, but nothing came along the road.

The culvert that he had hidden in was completely blocked now, with branches and rocks. The water had made a big pool, and it was flowing over the road. He went up the hill a little way and sat there, dropping small branches into the stream, and watching them float down, across the pool and across the road.

After a while, he went back home. It was such fun to splash his way up the stream. He got thoroughly soaked. When he got home and dry, he helped his father make one of the closets larger. His father chipped and dug at the rock wall, and Baartock swept and picked-up, and carried all of the trash outside in a bucket. They worked most of the afternoon. Dinner was a simple meal. It had been too wet to go get anything, so it was mostly left-overs.

The rain stopped just after dinnertime, and Baartock went out to look around. It was getting dark, but he walked up to his bridge. He was worried about the spots his father had pointed out. When he got there, his bridge was all right. An opossum was hiding under the arch, trying to stay dry, and it growled at him. It wanted to be left alone and Baartock was able to see what he wanted to, without chasing it off.

Going home in the dark, he slipped and fell into the stream a couple of times. He was glad to sit by the fire and get dry, now that he knew that his bridge was safe.

The nest morning it wasn't raining, though there were still a lot of clouds overhead. But they were blowing away, and it might be sunny later. Baartock walked down to wait for the bus. He went down the path beside the stream. Even though the rain had stopped the night before, the stream was just as full as it had been when it was raining.

It was still rushing and splashing its way down the hill.

Baartock couldn't get all the way to the road. The water had risen even higher. It wasn't a pool, it was a lake. The road was completely under water. It was almost as deep as he was tall. During the night, two of the trees beside the stream had fallen over, and were lying across the road. The holes, where the roots had been were filled with water. And there was still more water coming down the stream. He walked along the edge of water for a long way. Finally, near the driveway to the 'old Howard house', there was no more water covering the road.

Baartock played by the side of this new lake for a while, skipping stones. When he grew tired of that, he went up the driveway, and home.

He left his lunch bag, and went up to check on his bridge again. The opossum was gone, but there was still too much water for him to work on his bridge, and he went back home.

His father had decided that he couldn't go to work again, so he was sleeping late. His mother was busy in the kitchen, so Baartock got out his pencil box and some worksheets he had brought home from school and sat near the mouth of the cave and did them again.

Chapter 16

The sun started to come through the clouds, and Baartock moved his stool outside the cave. He was just about to get back to work, when he heard someone coming up the hill. He put his pencil box and worksheets on the stool and went inside to tell his mother. They were just coming out of the cave when Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. s...o...b..chner came into the clearing.

"h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Slinurp. h.e.l.lo, Baartock," called Mrs. Jackson. To Baartock's mother, she said, "This is Baartock's teacher, Mrs.

s...o...b..chner."

"I'm pleased to meet you," said Mrs. s...o...b..chner. "I told Baartock that I wanted to meet you this week."

No-one asked if Baartock had remembered to tell his mother, but the way she looked at him said that he had forgotten.

"I hope we're not coming at a bad time," Mrs. Jackson said.

"No," said his mother. "You want to talk?"

"Baartock, I see you've been doing some school work. I think that's a very good," said Mrs. s...o...b..chner, looking at the worksheets. Then she followed his mother and Mrs. Jackson into the cave.

Baartock thought about checking his bridge again, but it was nearly lunch time, and after lunch maybe his father could help him work on it.

So he sat back down in the sun, and kept working on the papers. He could hear the adults' voices, but he couldn't hear what they were saying.

After a while he decided he was hungry and went to look for his lunch bag. He remembered putting it in the kitchen, so he went to get it.

The adults were still talking, and he didn't think they had even noticed him, until Mrs. Jackson said, "Baartock, something happened to the bridge we looked at."

Suddenly, there was a booming voice, coming from the back of the cave.

"What happen bridge?" Baartock's father was awake, and coming out of the bedroom. The word 'bridge' would wake most trolls from a sound sleep.

Meeting just one adult troll for the first time had been a surprise for Mrs. s...o...b..chner, and even Mrs. Jackson hadn't met his father. And Baartock's father was bigger and angrier looking than most trolls, even though he wasn't any meaner than Baartock's mother.

But they didn't know whether to stay or run. Before they could decide, Baartock's father was in the living room saying, "What happen bridge?" again.

His mother saw just how scared the humans were, and said, "Wait. She tell."

"There was just too much water," began Mrs. Jackson, not sure what he wanted to know. "It collapsed. It fell down. There's no more bridge in town."

Baartock had told his father about the bridge, of course. And what he had thought of a human-built bridge. He wasn't really surprised that it had fallen down.

"Where bridge?" asked his father.

Baartock was just about to tell him, when Mrs. Jackson asked, "You want to see the bridge?"

"You show me bridge," replied his father. "You show me bridge now?"

Just as suddenly as his father had appeared, they were going out of the cave. Baartock grabbed his lunch bag and followed them out. They went down the hill toward the 'old Howard house'.

"We'll have to go the long way around," said Mrs. Jackson. "Your road is flooded too."

That didn't matter to his father and they kept walking down the hill.

When they got to the car, there was a problem trying to figure out where they were all to sit. Mrs. Jackson had to slide the front seat up, so the three trolls could sit in the back. If they hadn't been trolls, they wouldn't have been able to squeeze in. But trolls can bend to fit into tight places. Soon they were all inside and Mrs.

Jackson was driving.

Baartock opened his lunch bag to get something to eat. His father had some too, but his mother said she wasn't hungry. Neither Mrs. Jackson or Mrs. s...o...b..chner wanted any either.