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Authors: David Sinden,Matthew Morgan,Guy Macdonald,Jonny Duddle

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BOOK: Bang Goes a Troll
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She looked more closely at the trolls, taking care not to shine her flashlight in their eyes. Some of them had blackened skin. An adult female was scraping its sooty stomach. A wrinkled old troll with broken tusks
was chewing a sooty bone. A male was grooming a female, trying to clean black soot from her back.

“Why are they sooty?” Ulf whispered.

Dr. Fielding started walking very slowly toward the trolls. “I don't know. It's odd.”

Orson held his lantern up to protect her. Ulf and Tiana followed.

As the trolls edged away from the light, Ulf noticed a big male lying on its side on the ground. A female was bent over the troll, licking its skin.

“That big one doesn't look well,” Tiana said, hovering close to Ulf.

Ulf took a step toward it.

The female troll turned and growled.

“Be careful,” Orson said. He swung his lantern from side to side and the female troll slowly backed away. “That's it, girl. Give us a little space.”

Dr. Fielding stepped to the big male troll lying on the ground. “Stand guard please, Orson. I need to inspect it.”

While the giant stood over the troll with his lantern raised, Dr. Fielding knelt down beside it. The troll wasn't moving.

Ulf watched. “Is it alive?” he asked.

Tiana perched on the troll's shoulder. “It's still warm.”

“Help me roll it over, Ulf,” Dr. Fielding said.

Ulf and Dr. Fielding gripped the troll's tusks and heaved, rolling it on to its back.

Dr. Fielding pressed her ear to the troll's mouth and listened. “It's barely breathing,” she said. She lifted the troll's wrinkled eyelids. Its eyes were cloudy. “It's barely conscious.”

The troll coughed, and sticky black phlegm splattered its hairy chin.

Dr. Fielding took off her backpack and pulled out a packet of cotton balls. She wiped the black phlegm from its lips. With both hands she pried open the troll's mouth, then shone her light inside.

“Urgh,” Tiana said, smelling the troll's breath.
Ulf sniffed. It stank.

He stared at the troll's teeth. They were crooked and chipped, with bits of meat and fur stuck between them. Its tongue was thick and pitted. Its whole mouth was black with soot.

“It looks as if it has inhaled smoke,” Dr. Fielding said.

“Smoke?” Ulf asked.

“See how swollen its throat is.”

Ulf looked to the back of the troll's mouth. The opening to its windpipe was constricted and its breathing sounded strained.

The troll snorted and more black phlegm leaked from its nose.

Dr. Fielding handed the cotton ball to Ulf. “Clean that up while I check its lungs,” she said.

Ulf started wiping the troll's nose. He put his finger up its nostrils, trying to clear its airways. The hairs inside the troll's nose felt bristly as he scooped out lumps of black gunk.

Dr. Fielding held her stethoscope to the troll's chest and listened. “Its lungs sound blocked,” she said.

The troll coughed. Then, as it tried to breathe in, it choked.

“What's happening?” Ulf asked.

The troll wheezed, then stopped breathing altogether.

“It's in respiratory arrest!” Dr. Fielding said.

The troll lay still, as if it were dead.

Dr. Fielding felt its wrist, checking for a pulse. “Its heart's stopped. Stand back, Ulf.”

Ulf stepped back and watched as Dr. Fielding placed both hands on the center of the troll's broad green chest. She interlocked her fingers and, with her arms straight, started pressing down hard, again and again.

“What are you doing?” Ulf asked.

“Cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” Dr. Fielding explained. “CPR. We've got to get its heart and
lungs working.”

She quickly placed her hand under the troll's hairy chin and tilted its head back to open its windpipe. Then she covered the troll's nose with both hands and took a deep breath.

Ulf watched as Dr. Fielding opened her mouth and leaned forward, pressing her mouth over the troll's rubbery lips.

“Eyugh!” Tiana said, looking away. “She's kissing the troll!”

Dr. Fielding steadily breathed out into the troll's mouth.

“She's trying to help it breathe,” Ulf said.

Dr. Fielding sat up and pushed the troll's chest again. It still wasn't moving. She took another breath and placed her mouth over the troll's, breathing air into it.

“Come on, troll. You can do it,” Ulf said.

Dr. Fielding blew once more into the troll's
mouth.

Suddenly, the troll coughed and its body convulsed.

Dr. Fielding pulled her head away, wiping her lips.

The troll coughed again, splattering thick black phlegm over its tusks. It shook its head. It was breathing!

Dr. Fielding took a bottle and a syringe from her backpack. She quickly gave the troll an injection of adrenaline.

The troll grunted and licked its tusks, then rolled on to all fours.

“Move back, everyone,” Dr. Fielding said.

Huddled under Orson's lantern, they all stepped away from the injured troll. As they did so, the female troll lumbered back over.

The two beasts touched tusks and snorted.

“What do you think happened to it?” Ulf asked.

Dr. Fielding looked around. “There's been a fire down here,” she said.

“A fire? Underground?”

Orson leaned down, frowning in the lamplight. “Fires don't just start by themselves.”

As the snow fell on Honeycomb Mountain, a cattle truck and an oil tanker wound their way up the icy track. They stopped near the top where the track finished.

The door of the oil tanker opened and Bone climbed down into the snow. From the side of the oil tanker he began unreeling a long hose.

Blud jumped out of the cattle truck with his rifle slung over his back. He glanced toward the RSPCB helicopter parked on the mountain. “Deal with that, Bone,” he said.

The big man trudged to the helicopter and bent its blades with a metal hook.

Blud clambered to the oily hole at the top of the
mountain. “The RSPCB are doomed,” he sniggered, wiping his runny nose with a snotty red rag.

Bone dragged the hose from the oil tanker and headed after him. “I always have to do the heavy work,” the big man grumbled.

Blud took the rifle from his shoulder. “You're the oil man, I'm the shooter. If you've got a problem with that, talk to the Baron.”

Bone shoved the hose down the hole. He turned the nozzle on. There was a gurgling sound as thick black oil gushed from its end, pumping into the mountain.

Blud took a box of matches from his pocket. “Time to warm them up.”

Chapter 10

DR. F
IELDING SHONE HER FLASHLIGHT AROUND
the trolls. “No other serious injuries,” she said.

Ulf was beside her. He felt a drip on his head and looked up. Another drip fell, then another. All around, drips began splashing on to the floor of the Troll Chamber. It was as if it was beginning to rain deep inside the mountain. He wiped his hair. Black liquid clung to his fingers. “What's happening?” he asked.

Dr. Fielding shone her flashlight on the roof of the chamber. “It looks like oil,” she said.

Ulf could hear it trickling down the walls.

“Where's it coming from?” Orson asked.

Trolls started beating their chests. “Oof! Oof! Oof! Oof!”

Some banged the walls with their fists.

As more oil poured down from the roof of the chamber, Tiana darted into Ulf's pocket to protect herself.

Suddenly, there was a roaring sound as the oil caught fire. Flames swirled around the ceiling and spread down the walls.

“Take cover!” Orson yelled. He threw his arms around Dr. Fielding and Ulf, shielding them as flaming oil splashed to the ground.

The trolls charged for the exits.

The chamber was filling with smoke – thick, black smoke that made Ulf's eyes sting and bit into the back of his throat. He pulled his T-shirt up over his mouth.

“Get out!” Orson shouted. “I'll get the trolls.”

Ulf tried to run, but in the thick smoke he could
hardly see. He was coughing and choking. Flames were roaring around him. Trolls were crashing past him, barging him to the side as they raced to escape.

“Ulf! Over here,” he heard.

Ulf caught a glimpse of Dr. Fielding's flashlight and staggered toward it. But at that moment, a sheet of flames fell in front of him. He shielded his face from the fire. “It's no use!” he called. He was being pushed back by the heat.

A troll thumped into him and Ulf was knocked to the ground.

“Get up, Ulf,” Tiana called from his pocket.

He scrambled to his feet and staggered to the back of the burning chamber, following a group of stampeding trolls into a narrow exit. He'd lost Orson and Dr. Fielding.

“We've got to get outside,” Tiana called. “Run!”

Ulf ran as fast as he could up a back tunnel, slipping and sliding over the rocks. He heard a blast and glanced back as the chamber erupted in a
fireball behind him.

The fireball hurled him through the air, and he landed with a thump, his head crashing against the tunnel wall. The lamp on his head was smashed.

“Ulf, are you okay?” he heard from his pocket.

But everything was a blur. The bang to Ulf's head had injured him. He felt dizzy.

Then he felt his ankle being gripped by a bony hand. He was being dragged along the floor of the tunnel, and pulled into a cool dark cave. He heard a boulder being rolled across the entrance, cutting off the smoke.

Ulf felt himself losing consciousness. Tiana flew from his pocket, and in her glow he could just make out the face of a beast with white eyes, pointy ears, and a fat snout.

A goblin was leaning over him.

“Gumball!” Ulf managed to say. Then everything went black.

Chapter 11

U
LF OPENED HIS EYES.
H
E WAS LYING ON HIS BACK
,
staring up at the roof of a cave. He sniffed. The cave smelt musty. He felt his head. There was a big bump on his scalp.

BOOK: Bang Goes a Troll
13.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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