Chapter 86

Onions and Rafts

BarnacleEyes

I jumped up and down with glee. The project I’d been working on for a week was finally finished. I stood back to admire Thrush’s likeness. I had cut and bruised my fingers putting the costume together with roots, leaves, straw, hide, mud, and bird nests.

A tightly woven basket of cracked reeds smothered in mud formed the head. Hide hung from a crude frame which formed the body that I could easily slip into. The eyes were made of stretched moss stuffed into bird’s nests.

Not bad! Not bad at all!

I slipped under the frame of the body, and hoisted the headpiece over my head. The sun was going to set in an hour and I had to get moving. Running was clumsy and I fell a few times, but I made it to my destination by dusk.

I crept up on a camp of goblins right on the sand by the sea. They had a small fire that was so close to the water, it risked being flooded. There were several freshly cut logs piled beside them. Rusted tools leaned against the logs.

I had no plan. I simply built up the nerve to walk into their midst.

“Who goes there on my land,” I said, straining my voice as deep as it would go. “I am the Thrush monster!”

There were twelve goblins, and they all shrieked and scrambled back. One of them scrambled over the fire and howled as he burned.

“I’m going to eat you!” I shouted and shook my costume. “Who wants to be my first snack!”

I lunged forward and the goblins shrieked hysterically. They scrambled down the beach to the sea and swam for their lives. I chased them to the water and hopped from foot to foot, laughing with all I was worth.

The goblins had a ways to go before reaching their ships, but I didn’t stay too long to watch. I scooped up any tools they’d left behind and brought them home to my little cabin.

Then I was off again to find the other camps. There were 6 in total and I gave myself a little quest to scare them all off. Until I got a Fable Stone, imaginary quests was all I had.

After scaring off the final camp of goblins, I found the path from the sea and took it back home. I spotted a goblin on the way and I chased him around for a bit. He was slower than the others and unusually alone, but I terrorized him nonetheless.

Because of his lack of speed, I caught up to him too fast and rammed right into him. We fell, me on top of him, both of us screaming. When we tumbled to a halt, I straddled him, waved my hands, and screamed some more until I realized who the goblin was.

I lifted the headpiece off of me and said, “SlimeTooth?”

Slimetooth stopped screaming and looked me straight in the eyes for a moment.

“Thr-thr-thr-BarnacleEyes?” He said at last.

“What are you doing coming up here all by yourself?”

“Get off me!”

I got to my feet and helped the old goblin up.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m trying to scare off other goblins. Didn’t GloomGlower tell everyone not to come ashore?”

“He did, but goblins are goblins.”

“Goblins are goblins,” I agreed. “But what about you? Are you just being a goblin or are you looking for something?”

“I wanted to see you. See how you’re doing.”

“Aww, why didn’t you say so!”

“Well,” SlimeTooth said, gesturing to the costume. “I thought my time was up. Good costume by the way.”

“Come with me, I wanna show you my new cabin. Wanna see it? It’s right next to Hawkins.”

SlimeTooth and I caught up on the way back home. GloomGlower had started organizing tournaments between goblins after the influence of the orcs. The orcs were being bossy, but so far, everyone was getting along fairly well. There’d only been a handful of brawls.

“There’s still a lot of demand for Hawkin’s beer,” SlimeTooth said as I opened the door to my cabin and led him in.

“We’re brewing as fast as we can,” I said. “Guess what. I’m helping. I’ve been brewing batches all by myself.”

“Have you? Hawkin’s been teaching you?”

“Yup. He says they turn out horrible, but as long as the goblins don’t seem to mind, he’s glad for my help.”

“Wow,” SlimeTooth said. “I’m proud of you. You’ve made quite a life for yourself here. Goodness, look at all these tools!”

“Got them today,” I said. “After scaring goblins off.”

“Wow. In just a couple of months, you’ve already got a hoard going. I’m so proud of you!”

“Yea. I’m kinda valuable around here. Pshhh! No big deal. Thrush left me in charge of all the money. Pretty sure I’m not supposed to talk about this stuff with anyone, but I can trust you, can’t I?”

“Pick my nose, and bite my tongue,” SlimeTooth said. “You can trust me completely.”

“Speaking of picking noses,” I said. “Are you hungry? Do you want an onion? Hawkin gave me a bunch of onions.”

“Sure I’ll have an onion.”

We spent much of the night talking and munching on onions until our eyes horribly stung and watered. Then we had some cloves of raw garlic to cleanse the palate. It was an absolute delight to talk with SlimeTooth, and I hadn’t realized until then how much I missed him.

When we got around to talking about promotions and ships, he asked me what was wrong.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Not nothing,” SlimeTooth said. “You got quiet, and now you seem a little sad.”

“Not sad, just… …annoyed.”

“With me?”

“No, no, no. With my rafts. I’ve been trying to build some rafts but they keep sinking for whatever reason. I miss being out on the sea and I wish I had a great-big-giant ship.”

“I see. Well what if I took a look at your raft for you? Maybe I could give you some pointers and help you out.”

“Wow—would you?”

“Sure thing.”

We agreed to meet down by a particular tree in the morning by the coast. We learned a little too late that particular trees weren’t so particular, and we wasted an hour looking for each other. By late morning we were laughing back and forth as I led the way to my cove. It was a bit slow going since I had to accommodate Slimetooth’s old-goblin pace.

When we arrived, I showed him the materials I’d been working with and explained all the different ways I tried to build my raft, which either fell apart on the sea or got waterlogged and sank.

“Have you tried building by the rules?” SlimeTooth said.

“The rules?”

“Yea. Every goblin shipbuilder follows two rules. Make it as fast as you can, and keep adding things until it floats. Maybe you’re not adding enough.”

“How much should I add?”

SlimeTooth shrugged. “Enough until it floats.”

“Alright… …well… …do you wanna help me gather some more sticks and stuff?”

“As long as you don’t rush me, I’d be happy to help. Let’s put two goblin brains together and see what we can accomplish!”