On hands and knees, Anders saw nothing over the bridge's edge. Splashing and grunting reached his ears. His buddy was fighting. I can't see anything.
Like a shot, he sprinted to truck for a flashlight. He returned to the sharp drop at the edge of the stream bed and, despite not seeing a safe or easy way down, descended quickly. Slipping, stepping, falling, bleeding, somehow he made it to the inky bottom without breaking any bones. On his feet and ankle deep in icy water, he hesitated.
It's quiet. He shone the light under the bridge.
Beneath the bridge a massive bipedal shape flinched at the light, snorting and shielding its face.
"Anders, it's okay!"
A comforting coldness flashed down Anders' body through which his pulse thrummed, louder.
"Shine the light at the water, you're blinding it."
It? He obeyed.
Standing in the deepest part of the stream loomed a troll. He knew it from Nana's weird old picture books. The awkward dumpy creature bared scraggly teeth under a bulbous, bent nose. It held Eirik 4-meters aloft with a powerful grip about his torso like a large action figure.
Eirik smiled, tightly. "This is Benjamin."
Benja – Benjamin?! Tucking the flashlight under an armpit with shaking hands, Anders produced a cloth form an inside coat pocket and unwrapped something shiny. The troll craned its neck, leaning to see without coming closer.
"You remember Nana Ana?" Anders held up a handsome antique pocket watch. "She wanted me to give you this in exchange for a -."
Benjamin dropped Eirik in the stream and stomped toward Anders with the predictable grace of a rockslide. Anders braced himself, possibly against being pummeled, but the beast stopped to stand over him, expelling warm rancid breaths upon his head.
Nana, seriously, what is going on? Staring wide-eyed at the stream bubbling around his feet, Anders didn't look up at its face. "Nana Ana said you could have this if -."
The troll moved to snatch the watch.
Anders closed his hands around timepiece, impulsively. "If you give me a compass."
Drenched, Eirik stumbled to his feet in shallower waters, knee-deep and freezing, but remained where he was, unwilling for his unnecessary movement to upset the creature while it was within striking distance of Anders.
Huffing loudly, the troll reached to the vertical rocky bluff behind Anders and opened a square patch of stone like a door from where a searing light burst. The creature reached inside and drew something out in its fist, a panda cub, which it dropped in Anders' arms. Promptly, the brilliant little doorway darkened as if it was never there. And then the troll, mesmerized by the ticking watch, used a huge forefinger and thumb to gently lift it by the chain from the outstretched hand. It lumbered downstream, vanishing into the night.
Rejoining Anders, Eirik looked down over his friend's shoulder at the black and white animal in his arms. "Maybe 'compass' means 'baby panda' in troll."
Nana, 'compass' better mean 'baby panda' in troll.
The panda looked Anders in the eye. "Right, then," it said, shocking them with a grown man's voice. "So what are we looking for?"
YOU ARE READING
Nana Ana's Secret Hideout
FantasyAnders inherited some unusual things from his late Nana Ana including a secret hideaway in Norway called "the island bungalow." Armed with a few vague clues, Anders and his friend Eirik trek into the Norwegian wilderness to meet a new side of his ko...
