Interlude, Part I: A Long Time Ago:
Schnottweiper’s Practical Joke
When last we visited Schnottblower, he was facing nearly certain doom in the form of an onrushing pizza delivery van. If any readers out there have been worrying about him, though, they need worry no longer. The author knows the sense of unease brought by living in a world that plays hide and seek with the little bits of truth necessary to one’s sense of well-being. He knows how difficult it is to maintain hope and faith as we try to build a home in that unknowable universe. He knows how frustrating can be the vicissitudes of a storytelling arc. Rather than cynically continuing to use those basics of our existence as a dramatic device, the author will simply let the reader in on the fact that Schnottblower easily survives the run in with the Petey’s Perfect Pizza Pies van. As determined as Ferdy Chicken was to keep Schnottblower in his sights, he didn’t reach the frozen-in-his-tracks troll, but was forced to a stop mere inches from that troll’s outstretched fist.
If any readers might have known Schnottblower through his long life, rather than waiting until the author began telling his story, they wouldn’t have worried about him in the first place. They would know—if not with their minds then in their bellies— that he would be just fine. They wouldn’t know that because Schnottblower is a particularly clever beast, because he’s not. They wouldn’t know that because he was the biggest and strongest of the trolls, because he’s not that either. They wouldn’t know that because they believed trolls to be watched over by some monstrous form of guardian angel, either. So far as anyone could tell, the trolls, when they got themselves into a scrape, were pretty much on their own.
They would, however, know that there was a pattern in Schnottblower’s life: whenever he wasn’t the equal of the situation he found himself in, which was often, Schnottweiper, his older brother, was on call to help him out.
It all started when Schnottweiper saved Schnottblower from the Dark Water Horror. For the Schnott brothers, this was a pivotal experience. And, as sometimes happens with pivotal experiences, especially when they’re full of secrets, they never talked about it. With anyone. Even with each other.
The drama started one late night, long, long ago. In the dinosaur age, in fact. On that late night, all of the trolls were asleep except Schnottweiper and Schnottblower. As the other trolls snored and grunted around them, the brothers snuck through the caves and down to the shores of Dark Water.
It was Schnottweiper’s idea, of course. It was always Schnottweiper who had the ideas. Schnottweiper, back in the day, was quite the idea man. Of course, that meant that it was up to Schnottblower to do the actual work. And, as often as not, to be left holding the bag when it was time to assign blame.
Here’s how it happened: the Rabid Band, earlier that morning, had caught and hauled in not one but two boneheaded dinosaur fish. The first had been eaten in an orgy of consumption by the trolls. Trolls, it must be said, are always on the lookout for an excuse to party, and having a whole extra fish in the larder was reason enough. The trolls ate the large fish, and left the small one down on the beach. “Small,” though, is only useful as a relative term when it came to bone-headed dinosaur fish. The smallest of them would feed a band of trolls for a fortnight or better, at least it would were they not so gluttonous. In any case, the small fish was laid out on the beach next to the cutting board rock. Sometime the next morning, the trolls would return to the carcass and dress it out.
Schnottweiper had been there when the trolls dressed out the first one. He had seen Brumvack hack open the fish’s white belly with the stone hatchet, and had seen all the gushy stuff come out. That was his favorite part of the operation, the gushy stuff. But he had also awaited Brumvack’s habit of opening the fish’s stomach. Before actually yanking the guts out the fish, Brumvack always hacked open its stomach. He just liked to see what it had been eating before its early demise. Over the years, he had done this with many fish. When he cut open their stomachs, their dietary preferences were laid out before him.
Brumvack attributed this habit to what he called his “scientifically-attuned intellect,” which meant nothing to the rest of the trolls except that Brumvack was a pretentious idiot. Schnottweiper, though, having seen Brumvack’s stomach-opening operation perhaps a hundred times, had come to find it interesting as well. He reasoned that he must have a scientifery turned-up intellack himself.
This time, when the stomach of the bone-headed dinosaur fish was cut open, an outward rush of dead crawdads spilled to the floor of the cave. More like lobsters, really, those crawdads of the Pleistocene.
The trolls watched as a couple dozen lobster-sized crawdads fell to a pile on the floor. When the last crawdad had fallen, they raised their voice in a chorus: “Eeew.” It was their standard line.
Brumvack scowled at them. He was about to make a comment about their lack of intellectual curiosity, but he didn’t get a chance to open his mouth before a lump of flesh curled out from the fish’s stomach and landed at Brumvack’s feet. With a jolt of panic, he skipped back a step. Only when his feet were well clear did he take time to examine what had slithered out from the stomach of the fish: a dead eel. It was a sickly white color, with a green tinge upon its scales.
Schmoozeglutton laughed. “Thought that eel might bite, didja?” he asked.
“Shut up!” Brumvack said, but Schmoozeglutton just laughed again. “Maybe it’s a toe-eating eel,” he chided.
“Shut up!” Brumvack repeated. He faked a lunge for Schmoozeglutton, hoping to get him to jump as he had done. But Schmoozeglutton stood firm. Angry and embarrassed, Brumvack picked up the eel by the tail, swung it once around his massive form, and then smacked Schmoozeglutton upside the head with it. The eel caught the larger troll across the jowls, leaving a smear of jellied flesh along his jaw. A stink of slightly digested eel filled the air.
“Anyone else need a little dose?” Brumvack threatened, still holding the eel in front of him. It hung from his fist like a flaccid club. “Anyone need a little reminder of the respect that is due Brumvack the Rancid?”
The trolls, eyes wide, shook their heads. All except Schmoozeglutton, who just glowered at Brumvack. So long as he was silent about it, though, Brumvack allowed his glower. He’d rather not get into a fight with Schmoozeglutton, who was as fat and strong as they come. So long as Schmoozeglutton knew who was boss, he was happy.
Schnottweiper, during all of this commotion, found himself turned inward. He felt strangely distant from the happenings around him. Ordinarily, he loved it when an altercation erupted between cave mates, especially if one of the participants was Brumvack. This time, though, it seemed more like he was in a movie than in his actual life. This time, as he had watched Brumvack cut open the sizeable stomach of the fish, and had seen what came out, especially the surprising eel, he wondered what else one could possibly find inside the stomach of a fish. What if something even more surprising were to emerge? What if, say, a certain troll’s club were to be discovered inside the fish?
In his mind’s eye, he saw the scenario laid out before him: Brumvack slicing open the fish’s white belly, all eyes upon him. Brumvack locating the fish’s stomach, and hacking it open with his hatchet. Brumvack watching with scientific detachment as a pile of crawdads poured out. And then, amazingly, Brumvack’s club would pop out as well! It would fall to the leader’s feet with a wooden clonk. How the Rabid Band would howl in laughter! Schnottweiper knew it would be a hoot.
Brumvack, of course, would immediately recognize his own club, and so would everybody else. It was smaller than the average club, for one thing, and also unique in that Brumvack had assiduously carved a series of three holes into its length. Those holes, everyone knew, made it smart like heck when it connected with their thick hides. Brumvack didn’t pull out his club often, but when he did the trolls were wary. If he was angered, Brumvack wasn’t above smacking someone with that club in a way light enough to do little real damage, but hard enough to leave a red welt and the imprint of those three circles across a troll’s backside. It was humiliating, of course, getting smacked by the leader of the Rabid Band in front of your friends, but it was worse to have to go around for the next day or two with small red circles on your butt. You didn’t want to sit down after getting smacked by Brumvack’s club, but the pain of sitting was often more bearable than the chortling and pointing of one’s peers.
It was just the right club, then, to “magically” appear in the fish’s guts. And he, Schnottweiper, was just the troll to do it. It would be a simple operation, he was sure, to get the club into the fish’s stomach: he would simply push the club down the fish’s throat. Easy! Then, he would sit back and await the fireworks
But what would Brumvack do when he discovered it? Schnottweiper’s imagination filled in those gaps, too. Brumvack’s eyes, he was sure, would widen in surprise, then narrow in suspicion. He would pick up the club, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, and weigh it in his hand. Then, after confirming the club’s solidity, he would turn his gaze to the gallery of trolls surrounding him. One of them would no doubt be complicit in the foul deed.
If Schnottweiper did this thing, he would have to make sure he wasn’t the one that Brumvack focused upon. Once Brumvack retrieved his club from the guts of the fish, he would want to make good use of it. Better that Schnottweiper didn’t find himself at the wrong end of Brumvack’s swinging arm.
Perhaps, he thought, he could steal Brumvack’s club, and then make it look like Schnottblower had done it.
Older brothers, if the reader is wondering, are always hatching such plans; it goes with the territory.
During a lull in the uneventful afternoon, a plan coalesced in Schnottweiper’s mind. The trolls were in the common room of the cave, some sitting, some lying about in uncoordinated heaps on the floor. Everyone was full-bellied and complaining and drowsy. They didn’t much notice when Schnottweiper got up and whispered in a casual way to Schmoozeglutton: “I’ve seen Schnottblower sneaking into Brumvack’s cave twice in the last two days.” Brumvack’s cave, of course, was strictly off limits to the other trolls. Schnottweiper continued: “I wonder what kind of trouble he might be finding.”
Schmoozeglutton, as Schnottweiper knew, was very interested in all plans that might be hatching around Brumvack. Schnottweiper, then, wasn’t surprised when Schmoozeglutton took this piece of intelligence to heart. Schmoozeglutton in fact wasted no time asking the other trolls about what they might know about Schnottblower being in Brumvack’s cave. Before the end of the day, everyone in the Rabid Band had heard the story: Schnottblower was sneaking into Brumvack’s cave for some unknown but no doubt troubling reason. He must be hatching something. There would be trouble when Brumvack found out about that. Brumvack liked to make an example of trolls like Schnottblower. The trolls vaguely looked forward to Schnottblower’s outing as a troublemaker. In a world without television sets, this was the local entertainment.
As he watched Schmoozeglutton unwittingly set the trap for Schnottblower, Schnottweiper grinned to himself in anticipation. His plan was working. It was all he could do to while away the long afternoon until he could snatch Brumvack’s club and begin the operation in earnest.
Late that night, when he was sure that the trolls were asleep, Schnottweiper got out of his bed and went to his brother’s rock pile. He nudged him awake.
“You awake?” he asked.Schnottblower, never a sound sleeper in those days, jerked himself up to a sitting position and glanced around the cave in every direction. He relaxed, but only slightly, when he saw Schnottweiper sitting next to his bed.
“You wanna have some fun?” Schnottweiper asked. “Um. Okay,” answered Schnottblower. “I guess so.” So, Schnottweiper proceeded to lay out the plan, beginning
with Schnottblower sneaking into Brumvack’s cave and lifting his club, and ending with the two placing the club inside the boneheaded dinosaur fish that was laid out on the beach of Dark Water.
Schnottblower was cautious. Even in the face of his brother’s superior will, he thought there were lots of things to consider before he blindly took his part in the act. He filled the air with questions: how could he get his hands on the club without Brumvack waking up and pounding him? How would they get down to the beach without being seen? What about the Dark Water Horror? How would they get the club into the fish anyway? What made him so sure that Brumvack wouldn’t be able to figure out who it was that had taken his club? Brumvack, as everyone knew, was a sly and wily troll.
But Schnottweiper waved away this litany of questions. “C’mon,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”
So Schnottblower had reluctantly left his rocky bed, following Schnottweiper. Together, they snuck through the common room of the cave, and then to the mouth of Brumvack’s cave. There, they could hear Brumvack snoring away. Schnottweiper knew that Brumvack had a belly full of fish and beer, and assumed that he had a head full of self-satisfied thoughts. Brumvack’s dreams, he imagined, were full of conquest and fair trollish maidens, and other kingly delights. It was clear to him that when Brumvack was in such a state, relieving him of his club would be simplicity itself: Schnottblower would tiptoe over to the weapons rack that sat near Brumvack’s rock pile. He would lift the club, and then the two would be on their way.
In actual practice, of course, the job was more difficult. Brumvack’s tummy was indeed full of fish and beer, but his dreams weren’t full of maidens. His dreams were full of fear. Fear, mostly, that his subjects were revolting. And not just revolting in the smelly sense, but revolting in the sense that they were plotting to relieve Brumvack of his position and his power. Fear that he would be revealed for what he was: small, smart, and smooth. In other words, un-troll-like in every way. Unfit to be a leader.
In the course of the long night, Brumvack’s right hand had reached out and grasped the hilt of his club. It was a sort of pacifier, a way to calm his mind through the course of his fevered dreams.
Schnottblower, under Schnottweiper’s watchful eye, had crept into Brumvack’s cave. He had listened to the wheezing and snoring of his leader, and tried to decode the few words that Brumvack mumbled in his sleep. He crouched in the dark, waiting for his eyes to adjust from the brightness of the fire in the common room. When he could see better, he crawled toward Brumvack’s rock pile. He saw his club there in his weapons rack, and was about to snatch it and run, but then he noticed Brumvack’s big beefy hand holding onto its grip. He felt his heart stop, thinking of how close he had come to grabbing onto the club and running with it while Brumvack himself clung to its grip. Schnottblower had screwed up his courage to enter the shadows of Brumvack’s cave. He wanted to appear brave in front of his brother. But no amount of courage was going to help him now. He skulked back out to the common room, where Schnottweiper was waiting in the shadows.
“I can’t get it,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean you can’t get it?” Schnottweiper hissed. “You just walk in there and grab it! It’s simple! There isn’t a selfrespecting troll alive that couldn’t do it! Except…maybe you.”
Schnottblower shrank back. He was torn. Part of him wanted to just go in there and do as Schnottweiper said. He wanted to be brave just once in his life. Brave like Schnottweiper. Just march on in and grab the club and be done with it. Brumvack was asleep, after all. What were the chances that he might wake up? But when he returned in his mind to Brumvack’s slab of a hand clutching the club, he knew he couldn’t do it.
“If it’s so simple, you do it, then.”
Schnottweiper glowered. He saw that he had been pushed into a corner. “All right then, I will! I’ll just go in there and take it! I’ll walk right in there as if I had the smallest bit of trollish bravery, and I’ll take that club! See if I don’t!”
So Schnottweiper slunk into the cave himself. When his eyes adjusted and he was able to discern the layout, his righteous anger boiled away and left him feeling helpless. Brumvack, restless in his sleep, had rolled onto his side. As he did so, he had pulled the club into his rocky bed with him. He still gripped its haft tightly. As Schnottweiper watched, the club twitched a bit in response to whatever foe Brumvack was smiting in his sleep. If he woke up to find Schnottweiper in his inner sanctum, he pondered, it wouldn’t be pretty. The club in his hand would be put to immediate use. When that happened, little red circles would be the least of Schnottweiper’s worries.
Schnottweiper turned and crept back toward the common area, where Schnottblower waited. As he imagined Schnottblower’s look of contempt, however—Schnottweiper as it turned out was no braver than his younger brother—he halted. He gazed up toward the ceiling of the cave. Stuck. He was stuck. He was stuck between Brumvack the mighty ruler, and Schnottblower the wimpy brother. What a position he found himself in! How did this always happen? He set his teeth and scowled. He’d have to get that club, or he’d never hear the end of it. He crept back towards Brumvack’s bed.
Soon, Schnottweiper was on his hands and knees at the corner of Brumvack’s rock pit of a bed. He listened to the leader’s mucous breathing, watched his twitchy fingers on the club, observed the muscles that worked in his forearm. Could he do this? Could he really do it? Cautiously, he extended his hand out toward Brumvack’s club.
Brumvack, though, was restless. He shifted his weight, snuggling his shoulders deeper into the rocks of his bed. Schnottweiper cringed, willing himself to hold still, even though he was mere inches from Brumvack the Rancid. He focused on his breathing, making it as even and as quiet as he could. Brumvack snorted to clear his nose, then sneezed enough of a sneeze to wake the whole cave. Schnottweiper knew they were done for, that the whole of the Rabid Band would be piling in upon them.
But no one woke. Brumvack, after his sneeze, sighed deeply and settled more comfortably to sleep. He even—and here Schnottweiper’s eyes lit up—let go of his club.
This was Schnottweiper’s moment, he knew. It was now or never. With a quick snatch, he put his hand on the club and pulled it toward him.
He wasn’t quite quick enough, however. Brumvack, evidently deciding in some dream world that he still required his club at hand, reached out and grabbed it again. Only he didn’t, quite. What he grabbed instead, thinking it was his club, was Schnottweiper’s forearm. The forearm of the hand that now held Brumvack’s club.
Schnottweiper froze. He had been caught. Caught! Of all the miserable moments in his life, this topped the list. If only Schnottblower hadn’t manipulated him into trying to steal Brumvack’s club. Surely Brumvack had been awake this whole time, and was toying with the two. Toying with the Schnott brothers. And it was he, Schnottweiper, as usual, caught with the goods. His instincts told him to yank his arm back and run, but his instincts were silenced by the fear in his heart. He was frozen to the spot. Only his mouth seemed to be in working order.
“It was Schnottblower’s idea!” he cried. He invented details as he spoke. “He woke me up! He told me to come grab your club! He…um…he said…um…he said that it was an emergency! Yeah, that’s right, an emergency!”
But of course, the troll caves were quiet. Clearly, there was no emergency.
“I mean, there wasn’t really an emergency….” But that didn’t sound good. Now, he was contradicting himself. “I mean, there might be an emergency…in the near future….” He considered for a moment. “I’ll bet, now that I think of it, that Schnottblower was just trying to get me in trouble. That’s it. Schnottblower was trying to get me in trouble. And that’s why…that’s why…that’s why I have your club in my hand. Not my fault, that’s all I’m trying to say. Schnottblower. Schnottblower’s fault.”
But through all of Schnottweiper’s confession, Brumvack slept. When it finally became obvious to Schnottweiper that Brumvack wasn’t hearing his words—but that he might if he didn’t shut up—he quieted. He even allowed himself a small sigh of relief. He hadn’t been caught. Hadn’t been caught yet, he amended. However much relief he might be feeling, Brumvack still grasped his forearm.
“He thinks,” Schnottweiper finally considered, “that my arm is his club.” The edges of the panic wore away. In its place, his anger reasserted itself. If Schnottblower had merely done what he had been told to do, he, Schnottweiper, wouldn’t be in this situation now. Stuck in Brumvack’s room. He was just a few yards away from the safety of the main cave. He could see it clearly through Brumvack’s arch of a doorway. But that place of safety might as well be miles away. Here he was, stuck in a cave with Brumvack holding onto his wrist, and it was all Schnottblower’s fault! He curled his lip against his anger.
But, he decided, anger would have to wait. If he wanted to see the new day, he’d better get his arm away from Brumvack, and get out of the room of the Rancid.
Once the operation was underway, it seemed simple enough. With his left hand, Schnottweiper removed Brumvack’s club from his right hand. This, he set on the sandy floor of the cave. Then, slowly, he pried Brumvack’s fingers loose from his forearm. As delicately as any transplant surgeon, he replaced those grasping fingers onto Brumvack’s own forearm.
“There’s your club, Brumvack,” he whispered. “Don’t hit anything too hard with it. It might hurt.” Then, with a grunt of panicky humor, he rose to a crouch, grabbed hold of the club, and crept out of the cave.
When he saw Schnottblower standing in the shadows, he was tempted to smack him with the newly acquired weapon. But Schnottweiper was smarter than that. If he was going to pull off his plan, he’d have to keep his anger in check. There would be time to seek vengeance later. Schnottblower, he remembered, was going to catch the blame for this whole fiasco.
He smiled and shook his head and took a deep breath. He held the club out in front of him. “I got it,” he said. “Piece of cake.”
Schnottblower, however, was beside himself. He was dancing from foot to foot like a toddler troll who has to go to the bathroom. “Did he wake up? I heard voices!”
Schnottweiper wondered just how much Schnottblower might have heard. His confession to Brumvack, after all, had named names for this foul deed, and Schnottblower’s name was at the top of the list.
With as much gruff confidence as he could muster, he lied again: “Naw, the pretty boy was just talking in his sleep.” He held up the club and repeated his assertion: “Piece of cake.” He took the arm of his brother, and led him down to Dark Water.
It was one of those portentous moments that physical beings, locked within the boundaries of time, think about only in hindsight. What if Schnottweiper hadn’t been present that morning at the gutting of the fish? What if he had not managed to extract Brumvack’s club from his sleeping form? What if, what if, what if he hadn’t led his brother to face his near-demise at the hands of the Dark Water Horror?