We're almost there."

In just a few blocks, Mrs. Jackson turned the car into a driveway and parked in a s.p.a.ce in front of a brick building. She showed them how to unbuckle the seat belts. Baartock practiced putting his on and taking it off, while she walked around to open the doors. There was a sign on the front of the building, 'Public Health Services', but that didn't mean much to Baartock. As they walked to the house, he asked about it.

"I'll tell you about it in just a minute," Mrs. Jackson said.

Baartock didn't know what a minute was, but he decided to wait and see what this house was. And if there were any children here. He had been thinking about Jason, and wanted to race him again. He was sure that he could run faster, even though Jason was a little bigger.

Inside there was a woman at a desk, who looked up as they came in. She seemed surprised when she looked up at Baartock's mother, but she didn't look scared. "Nurse Dodge is expecting you, Mrs. Jackson," she said. "You can go right in."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Jackson, and she led them down a hallway. There were several doors, and she knocked on one and was opening it when a voice said, "Come in."

There were chairs and a desk in this room, as well as a woman dressed all in white clothes, who stood up and came around her desk as they went in. "Norma, thank you for seeing us so early," said Mrs. Jackson.

"Mrs. Slinurp, this is Nurse Norma Dodge. And this is Baartock."

"I'm glad to meet you," said Nurse Dodge in a cheerful voice. "Please come in and sit down." After she shut the door and went back behind her desk, she said, "I understand Baartock is to start going to our school."

Baartock didn't know anything about that, but his mother said, "Yes."

"Let me tell you about what I do here," said Nurse Dodge.

"I explained about medical records and shots," said Mrs. Jackson.

"I'm sure that you did, but I would like telling about it anyway," said Nurse Dodge. To Baartock's mother she said, "I see most of the school children here and many of the adults too, and I try to keep them healthy. I give the shots that will keep them from getting sick. But I understand that Baartock has never been sick." "Yes," said his mother proudly. "Baartock never sick. Little trolls never get sick. Big trolls not get sick, too."

That wasn't really quite true. Many young trolls get sore throats when they first start to practice their screaming. That was because they would shriek instead of yelling or screaming. Their mothers would make them gargle with warm salty water and that would usually make them better right away. But other than that, young trolls never got colds or fevers or were ever sick.

"But if you never get sick," asked the nurse, "how do you know about being sick?"

"I see humans sick before," answered his mother. "Not same for trolls.

Maybe break arm, break leg same as humans. There are troll ways to fix trolls. Trolls never get human sick."

Baartock didn't like to remember about breaking things. During the summer, when he was building his bridge, an arch stone had fallen on his hand and it broke two of his fingers. It had really hurt. His mother had put some salve on his fingers so they wouldn't hurt and would heal faster, then she had straightened them and wrapped them.

When she unwrapped them two days later, they weren't broken any more, and he went back and finished his bridge. But he remembered how much it hurt, and he was more careful after that.

He stopped listening to what the adults were saying. He was getting tired of just sitting. There wasn't anything in the room to interest him, but there was an open door to another room, so he got up to look at it.

There wasn't much in that room either. Just a little bed and a lot of little doors under a counter. They were too small for an adult to go through, but he thought that he might fit through some of them. He was just about to go look behind those doors when his mother said, "Baartock sit!"

Baartock went back and sat down and waited some more. He waited for what he thought was quite a long time. The adults just kept talking.

Talking about him. He knew that they would keep on talking and then either he would have to do something now, or else he couldn't do something until he was bigger. And he was right. After all the talking, they agreed that he had to have a shot. Nurse Dodge went in the other room and came back with a tiny bottle and something she called a 'needle'. Baartock's mother did a lot of sewing, but this wasn't like any needle that Baartock had ever seen before. She put something from the bottle into the needle, then came over to Baartock.

He was watching her carefully.

"This may hurt a little, Baartock," she said. "You might want to look over at your mother." Then she wiped his arm with something that smelled awful and made his arm wet, and she stuck the needle in his arm. It did hurt, a little like getting stuck by a thorn on a bush in the woods. Then she pulled the needle out and said, "That wasn't too bad, was it?"

"Not hurt," said Baartock, though it did hurt some.

Nurse Dodge put the needle in a metal trash can and put the little bottle back in the other room. Then she went back behind her desk and wrote something on a piece of paper. "The school needs this to show that Baartock has had his required shots," she said, "and I'll keep a copy here."

"Well, Baartock," said Mrs. Jackson, "shall we go to school now?"

"Go see Mississtog-Buchnerskla.s.s? Go see Jason?" asked Baartock.

"Yes. We should hurry, so we'll be there before lunch."

They left the house and got back in the car. Mrs. Jackson let Baartock put on his seat belt himself, but she checked to make sure it was fastened.

Chapter 7

They got out of the car after the short drive to the school.

"Go home now," Baartock's mother announced, and started walking down the sidewalk, leaving Baartock and Mrs. Jackson standing by the car.

"But," Mrs. Jackson called hurriedly, "I'll drive you home."

"No," was Whinnurf Slinurp's answer. She didn't look back or even slow down, but walked off quickly toward home. She had had enough of humans and their strange ways for one day.

"How strange," Mrs. Jackson thought also. "I certainly hope it wasn't something that I said. I wonder if that's just the way trolls are?"

They watched as Baartock's mother walking quickly down the sidewalk and around the corner of the school building and out of sight.

She said, "All right, Baartock, let's get into school. Before you go to your cla.s.s, we have to stop by the office." The went in the front door and down the hall to the office. Baartock knew this room now. It was near the front door and it was the only door with a big gla.s.s window in it. All the doors either had no window at all or only a little one, up high, that he wasn't tall enough to look through.

"Mrs. Jackson, I'm glad you're here," Ms. Laurence said all in a rush.

"There were some wasps in Mrs. Breckenridge's cla.s.s and they couldn't get them out. Some of the children got frightened. She took her cla.s.s out to the playground and Mr. Blevis is trying to get rid of the wasps."

"Good. For a moment I thought that I was supposed to catch the wasps,"

Mrs. Jackson said laughing. "I'm sure that Mr. Blevis can take care of it. Would you get a new student kit for Baartock? There should still be some left in the supply room."

Ms. Laurence came out from behind her desk and went out the door. Mrs.

Jackson said, "She's getting some things you'll need for school; tablets of paper, scissors, crayons, and pencils. When they're used up you can buy more from the school store. Mrs. s...o...b..chner can tell you about it."

Baartock was about to ask what Mrs. Jackson was talking about, because there were so many words she used that he didn't know.

She had talked about stores when he was in her car.

Mississtog-Buchnerskla.s.s had let him have some crayons to use, those little sticks that made wonderful, colorful marks on the paper. He wanted to know if some of the other things were just as great as crayons, when Ms. Laurence came back in the office and gave him a box and some pads of paper.

"These are for you, Baartock," she said.

"You give me?" he asked. He hadn't expected someone to give him anything. He was embarra.s.sed, because he didn't have anything to give her.

"Yes, I'm giving them to you. These are yours."

"We usually say "thank you" when someone gives us something," said Mrs.

Jackson.

"Thank you," said Baartock. He thought about it and then decided that it was just the human way of giving things.