Katharine and the Troll

Katharine’s father used to send her out to weed the little garden behind their house. Katharine disliked this job very much. On one particular morning, she became so angry with it that she just stopped doing it and sat down.

The more Katharine sat, the angrier she grew. Finally she became so angry that she thought that if this was the way things were, she’d just go off somewhere else and do something else. So she walked off. She walked far, and farther than far, until she came to the sea. There she sat down on the side of a hill to rest.

She had not been sitting there long, when she noticed something strange happening on the hillside. A large stone was rocking back and forth in its place, looking as if it were about to bound down the hillside. At first Katharine thought her eyes had gone funny, but as she kept looking she saw that that stone was really rocking. And over to the stone she walked to see what the matter might be.

Little creatures were rocking it! There were thirteen of them, and they all looked like hot dogs, no more than seven inches high, rocking the stone for all they were worth. And Katharine knew she had come upon a nest of weenies.

Now, Katharine knew that weenies are fun to watch, and can even be marvelous live toys to play with when they are in a good mood, but that they are unpredictable, and can even be dangerous, so that one must be very cautious with them.

And so she spoke to them gingerly and carefully. “Good morning, little weenies! How are you today?”

“Bad, bad,” replied each of the weenies, so that it sounded like “Bad bad bad bad bad” . . . twenty-six times because there were thirteen weenies. “We’re getting nowhere with this stone, don’t you see see see? . . . A big dumb troll blocked up our hole with this stone while we were off working, and we can’t get back down inside to have our lunch, complained one of the weenies.” “He wants to catch us for his own lunch,” said another weenie, and a third chimed in, “And he’ll be along any minute.”

“Well, then, let me help you,” said Katharine promptly. She thought that if she could help the weenies move the stone away, she could have a jolly game with them, even though she knew that eventually they run away. So she squatted down close to the stone, and gave a shove with all her might.

“Wait!” cried the weenies, and it sounded like “Wait wait wait”. . . thirteen times. But it was too late. The stone was on its way. And down the hill it bounded into the sea.

“Uh-oh!” said the weenies, and it sounded like ‘uh-oh-uh-oh-uh-oh” thirteen times. “Now you’re in for it. That was the troll’s sitting stone!” And the weenies slipped down into their little hole as fast as they could slip—which was only fairly fast, since they had to slip in one at a time and each was just a bit fatter around the tummy than the hole was big, so that each slipped in with a little blip. “Blip blip blip” they went, thirteen times. Then they were gone.

Well, Katharine had no wish to meet the troll, now that he would be looking both for the weenies and for his sitting stone, and would be very angry with anyone who had deprived him of either. So she stood up and turned around and headed quickly up the hillside for home, walking rapidly with her hands in her pockets and whistling as if nothing had happened.

But she didn’t get very far, for just as she came over the top of the hill there came the troll face to face with her. He had been climbing the hill from the other side. Both were startled to meet anyone, and both stepped aside to keep on walking. But both stepped in the same direction, so that they were still face to face. So both stepped the other way. Then the other, then the other. And so on and so on, until it looked as if they were doing a dance together, up there on the hilltop. Try as they might to go past each other they could not, for whenever one moved one way to pass, the other moved the same way, and so they were both still face to face, and both were growing more and more embarrassed.

For what seemed like hours, Katharine and the troll danced together on the hilltop by the sea. But as Katharine grew more and more embarrassed she was getting the giggles, while as the troll grew more and more embarrassed he was getting angry, until finally both fell down with exhaustion, at the same time. And there they lay panting on the ground, still face to face, Katharine still giggling and the troll still angry.

Then suddenly they both sprang to their feet, both hoping to go past (or step over) the other quickly. But there they both stood again, face to face once more. But they were so weary, that they both just dropped their hands, drooped their eyelids, and sank to the earth asleep.

They slept so soundly that they did not hear “Blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip.”

When they awoke they were tied to the ground! The thirteen weenies had finished lunch and were on their way back to work when they came upon Katharine and the troll sleeping on the hilltop. Quickly they had fashioned strong cords of grass, and tied the two giants fast, all four hands and all four feet.

“Now what shall we do do do do with them? Shall we kill kill kill them them them?” came from the weenies. “Tickle them!” cried one. “Tickle them to death!” cried another.

“Tickle tickle tickle tickle them them both both both both to death death death death!” came from all the weenies together. “Jolly jolly jolly jolly jolly! . ..” And the thirteen weenies began tickling Katharine and the troll all over, and they did not stop.

“Ha ha ha ha ha!” Katharine laughed. She could hardly stand it. “Har har har har de har!” laughed the troll, and he laughed so hard he thought he would die.

“Tickle tickle tickle tickle . . . !” cried the thirteen weenies as they tickled Katharine and the troll all over the ground. “And your sitting stone is gone, troll! Rolled into the sea!”

“My . . . har de har . . . sitting stone is gone?” laughed the troll. “Har de haw haw haw haw. Rolled into the sea? Ho ho ho ho har har har. And who . . . har de ho . ./ . might have been the cause of that?”

“Ha ha ha ha ha!” Katharine was laughing as hard as the troll was. “Hah hah! Me! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

“Ha! You? Har har de har ho ho!” answered the troll. And “Rrrrr!” he growled, and scowled at Katharine like a terrible monster, which indeed he was. “Just—har har—wait! Wait till I get free! I’ll har de har ho ho—grab you and break you in two and gobble you down! Ha ha har de har!”

And the troll laughed so hard he broke his grass bonds and sprang to his feet. “Now!” he roared, no longer laughing, and lunged at Katharine to break her in two and gobble her down.

But just then the troll saw the little weenies beginning to scatter in thirteen directions at once, and, sleepy though he was, he clapped his gnarled old hands over as many of them as he could, thwap thwap thwap thwap thwap thwap, popped them into his mouth blip blip blip blip blip blip, and swallowed them glunk glunk glunk glunk glunk glunk whole. So he ate six, and seven got away.

Then the troll’s fat belly became so heavy that he just sat down to go to sleep again and forgot all about breaking Katharine in two and gobbling her down.

Meanwhile Katharine was still laughing from being tickled, and she laughed so long and hard that finally she, too, broke her bonds and stood up. Then she took the strands of grass that were lying all around and tied the sleepy troll’s hands. Then she tapped him on the head with a stick to wake him up. Then she took him by the scruff of the neck and marched him down the hill straight to her own back yard.

And when Katharine’s father looked out of the window to see how she was doing with the weeding, imagine how surprised he was to see her lying on the grass under a tree, while a troll pulled the weeds!