Chapter 30

Lily poked Sean and shouted, "Wake up!"

"No," Sean mumbled thinking it wasn't possible that it was morning already. He was pretty sure that he had just gotten to sleep.

"Time to get out of bed lazy head," Lily said.

"Don't wanna," Sean grumbled. He pulled his pillow over head.

"Whose panties are those?" Lily asked while lifting the pillow from his head.

Sean jumped up and frantically pressed his pillow on the bed while looking around wildly. With the words coming out of his mouth so fast that it was hard to understand what he was saying, he said, "What panties? There aren't any panties here. You must be mistaken. There's nothing here that even closely resembles panties. You must be imagining things. No panties here."

Smiling at him, Lily said, "Mom said that would wake you up."

"She's a sadist," Sean said slapping his forehead remembering that the panties were still in the drawer by his bed. His heart was beating a thousand miles an hour.

Lily skipped out of the room laughing. Sean was about to fall back into the bed when there was a huge crash from the backyard. The crash was followed by the sounds of hammering, shouting, and screams. Looking around, he asked, "What is going on?"

The volume of noise increased dramatically. Sean sat on the edge of his bed and ran his fingers through his hair. After a particularly loud crash, he said, "There's no way to sleep through that."

Sean got up and started dressing. He stumbled out of the bedroom and headed towards the bathroom. Of course the door was closed. With his back to the wall, he slid down to sit across from the door. He moaned while staring at the closed door. He muttered, "Why doesn't she go to the bathroom before waking me up?"

He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds coming out of the backyard. Lily tapped him on the head and said, "Wake up."

"I'm awake," Sean groaned.

"Your eyes were closed," Lily said.

"Why don't you use the bathroom before waking me?" Sean asked. There was a particularly loud series of crashes the whole time he was asking his question.

"What did you say?" Lily asked knowing full well what he had said. It was the same thing he said every morning.

"Never mind," Sean said getting up from the floor. He stumbled into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot. There was a loud boom that rattled the house. Ignoring it, he went over to the toilet and relieved his bladder.

After washing his hands, he went down to the kitchen. The noise down there was even louder than it had been in his room. In order to be heard over the noise, his mother shouted, "Your breakfast is ready."

Sean shouted back, "I'm going out..."

The noise level dropped to nothing. His mother said, "That's better. It was so loud I couldn't hear myself think."

Sean was about to say something when Chom entered the house. The dwarf nonchalantly walked through the kitchen. Sean and his mother watched him walk past them and enter the hallway.

Worried, Sean asked, "Was that Chom?"

"It looked like him," his mother said looking in the direction of the hall.

"I wonder what he's doing," Sean said.

Chom returned to the kitchen and walked past the pair. He stopped beside the kitchen table and picked up the salt shaker. He slipped the salt shaker into his pocket. Without saying a word, Chom went over the kitchen door and opened it. The door closed behind him.

"That was odd," Sean said. As far as he knew, none of the Dwarves had ever been in the house.

"I wonder what he wanted with the salt shaker," his mother said staring at the kitchen door.

"I don't know," Sean said. There was a muffled boom from the backyard.

"You might want to go outside and see what is happening out there," his mother said.

"I'm not sure that I want to do that," Sean said looking over at the back door.

"Why?" his mother asked.

Sean said, "I figure they probably took your car apart."

"They wouldn't dare," his mother said with a sick feeling in her stomach.

"You're probably right," Sean said staring at the door like he expected it to open again.

"Go see what is happening," his mother said.

There was another muffled boom from the backyard. He said, "There are booming noises coming from out there."

"Go out and see what is happening," his mother said.

"I don't want to go out there. I'm liable to get blown up or something," Sean said.

"Go!"

Sean slowly approached the door and opened it. He stuck his head out and looked around. After a few seconds, he said, "Oh."

"Well," his mother asked.

Without answering, Sean stepped outside and closed the door behind him. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He took a couple of steps forward and stopped to stare at the truck.

"As agreed, we finished the truck Saturday morning in better than new condition," Chom said pointing to the truck.

Pip asked, "What do you think?"

"It is gold," Sean said staring at his truck. It was polished to such a high sheen that it was almost hard to look at.

"That's right. We covered it with gold so that it wouldn't rust. That's much better than the paint that was on there," Clea said.

Unable to take his eyes from the truck, Sean said, "I hate to ask this, but..."

"Then don't ask," Chom interrupted.

"Definitely don't ask the question if you hate asking it," Pip said.

"Good advice," Thur said nodding to the other two Dwarves.

"I thought so," Chom said.

"Do you think he'll follow your advice?" Thur asked.

Chom shook his head and said, "They never do."

"It's true. They never do," Pip said.

"Where did you get the gold?" Sean asked.

"See, I told you," Chom said. He slapped the side of his leg and gestured at Sean with a look of disgust.

"You did," Pip said nodding his head.

"Pity. Such good advice and he wasted it," Thur said.

"Aren't you going to answer my question?" Sean asked.

Turning to Pip, Chom said, "For someone who hates asking questions, he sure does ask a lot of them."

"You're so right," Pip said.

"He's going to run out of questions soon," Grum said.

"He's bound to run out sometime or another," Pip said.

"Will someone answer my question?" Sean asked.

"Which one?" Chom asked not sure which question Sean wanted answered.

"Which one what?" Sean asked confused by Chom's question.

"Huh?" Chom asked.

"What?" Sean asked.

Scratching his head, Pip said, "I've never heard of questions being contagious, but Sean's got Chom asking them now."

"Are we in danger?" Thur asked.

"Danger?" Pip asked looking around to see if there was something bad in the area.

"Are we going to catch it?" Thur asked.

"Catch what?" Chom asked looking around for something to catch.

"Why are you asking each other so many questions?" Clea asked.

Pip pointed at Sean and answered, "He started it and now we caught it."

"Caught what?" Clea asked.

Sean shouted, "Quiet!"

All of the Dwarves turned to look at Sean. Once he was sure that he had their attention, he asked, "Where did you get the gold from?"

"Oh, is that what you wanted to know?" Chom asked.

"Yes," Sean answered.

"From your desk drawer," Chom answered. Shaking his head, he said, "It was a pitiful amount of gold. Hardly worth mentioning, it was. We had to use all of it to cover that truck."

"You used all of my gold?" Sean asked with a frown.

"Was that all of your gold?" Pip asked.

"Yes," Sean said.

"You're going to have to get some more before next summer," Chom said.

"Definitely. You'll need a bunch to get the next gift of magic," Liam said.

"I know," Sean said shaking his head.

Clea said, "So what do you think of the truck?"

"I like it," Sean said. He had to admit that it looked better than new. He said, "I'd like to see how well it runs."

Looking around nervously, Thur said, "We had a few problems with that."

"Problems?" Sean asked in a worried tone of voice.

"Well, it had a whole bunch of parts that it didn't need," Clea said.

"It was missing a few that it did need," Thur said.

"Getting it to run off of water was a real problem. We had to cheat a little," Clea said.

"Cheat?" Sean asked wondering what that meant in terms of getting the truck to run off of water.

Chom shrugged his shoulders and said, "You've got to add a little salt to it."

"It doesn't require too much salt; just a shake or two," Thur said looking a little embarrassed.

Pip said, "It is real quiet. It is running right now and you can't hear it from here."

"It runs on water," Sean said looking at his truck.

"With a shake or two of salt added," Thur said.

Chom said, "You'll need to fill the tank every month or so."

"I would just keep it running if I were you. It is a real beast to get started," Thur said.

Clea said, "The transmission was really very poorly constructed. You'll find that it is a whole lot better now."

Looking a little embarrassed, Pip said, "It has a small problem with staying on the ground when it gets to full speed. That's not really a good shape for a fast moving chariot."