Chapter 8

On his way to the building, Sean passed two police officers guarding five tall stacks of sodas. He could tell that they were guarding it by the way they were marching around it and looking very self-important. He stopped to examine the stacks of sodas. It was the cheapest brand of soda on the market, but Sean knew that the Dwarves wouldn't care.

"You're guarding five hundred bottles of soda?" Sean asked.

"Six hundred bottles," one of the officers answered.

"Why six hundred? I thought they were fixing the cars for five hundred," Sean said.

"We wanted special features," one of the officers said.

"That's right," one of the officers answered.

The other officer said, "I can't wait to drive it. We clocked the last one at three hundred miles an hour before it went off the road and sank in the pond."

"You've got to admit the splash it made was pretty good."

"Good? It was a great."

"Thank goodness the Chief knew how to swim."

"So what special features did you want?" Sean asked.

"We wanted one that floated."

"I can't swim."

"I can see why you'd want it to float," Sean said nodding his head sagely.

"We also got a parachute," one of the officers said.

Both officers put a hand over their hearts and looked down at the ground. In unison, they said, "Poor Scotty."

"What happened to Scotty?" Sean asked.

"He went off the side of a cliff," one of the officers said.

"Did he die?" Sean asked horrified.

"No. It was a spectacular crash, but he walked away from it," one of the officers said.

"So why the poor Scotty bit?" Sean asked puzzled.

"He said that his whole life flashed before his eyes when he went off the cliff."

Curious, Sean asked, "What did he see?"

"The only thing he remembered was losing his virginity."

"That's a good one to remember," Sean said.

"Actually, all he remembered of it was drinking before and waking up after."

"That's sad," Sean said.

"That's not much for a whole life."

Sean said, "That's true."

"He wants to live long enough to get at least one more thing to flash before his eyes the next time he almost dies. At least something more than his experience of flying off the cliff."

"I can't blame him," Sean said.

"He's gotten real careful since then."

"He won't drive over twenty-five miles per hour now."

There was an explosion from inside the building that shook the ground. The two officers pulled their pistols and turned to see what had happened. They couldn't take any chances. After all, they were guarding six hundred bottles of soda.

"It sounds like they got it started," Sean said.

"What?"

Sean said, "It sounds like they got the car started."

"That was the explosion?"

"Yes," Sean said.

There was a rattling sound while the garage door opened. A few seconds later a car flew out of the building, swerved out onto the street, and took off like a rocket sled with tires spinning and smoking. It was a long low sleek looking car.

"Someone stole our car!"

Seans said, "No. The Dwarves are just taking it out for a test drive."

"I didn't think of that," one of the officers said.

The other one said, "I knew that."

"At least it doesn't look like a rocket," Sean said.

"A rocket car? That would be so neat," the policeman said.

"It sounds neat, but Chief Fastman back home had one and couldn't catch a speeder to save his life. It kept flying into billboards," Sean said.

"Really?"

"He said that it was kind of embarrassing having the speeders drive past laughing at him," Sean said.

"That would be embarrassing."

"Definitely."

"Still ... a rocket car," one of the police officers said with longing in his voice.

"That one looks pretty fast," Sean said.

"I like fast."

The car pulled up and the Dwarves piled out of it. The went over to the two police officers.

"Is that the soda?" Chom asked.

"Yes."

Pointing at the car, Pip said, "That's your car."

"It looks fast," one of the police officers said.

"It's fast, but it's got no bounce," Chom said.

"That's good, isn't it?" Sean said.

"We like a lot of bounce," Pip said.

"Bounce is good," Clea said.

They immediately swarmed over the stacks of soda, and began dragging them into the building. Sean went to help, but thought better of it. He wasn't sure how the Dwarves would react to someone getting between them and their sodas.

The two cops drove off in the car with tires squealing and smoking. Their right turn at the end of the street ended up being more like a pretzel than a right angle. It did look like they were having a little difficulty controlling the car.

Sean followed the Dwarves into the building. Along one wall was a pile of flattened police cars. Along another wall were stacks and stacks of soda. There was far more soda than he figured repairing the police cars would bring.

"Wow! You've got a lot of soda here," Sean said.

Chom belched after draining a large bottle of soda. He grabbed another one and opened it. Pip grabbed another one and took a long drink from it.

"We got two thousand bottles of soda when we negotiated the move out of our workshop. You should have seen Clea negotiate. For a moment there, I thought she was really dying," Chom said.

Sean, having experienced how Dwarves and leprechauns negotiate, knew exactly what Chom meant. A dwarvish negotiator made an amateur actor look like a professional.

"That's a pretty good deal. So how did you end up with building?" Sean asked looking around at the structure.

"It was part of the deal," Thur said while grabbing his third big bottle of soda.

"I guess you were in a pretty good bargaining position since schools are pretty vain about their football fields," Sean said.

"You can say that again," Pip said.

Everyone waited for Sean. Sean looked back at them. They stared at him waiting for him to repeat himself.

"I guess you were in a <mumble> <mumble> since schools are pretty blah blah blah," Sean said not quite able to remember exactly what he had said.

"That's no good," Pip said with a look of disgust on his face.

"It was close enough," Sean said defensively.

"No it wasn't," Pip said.

"Yes, it was," Sean said.

"What was that mumble mumble bit? Or the blah blah?" Chom asked.

"That was a little lame," Thur said in agreement with Chom.

"More than lame, it was quadriplegic," Clea said.

Wanting to divert the conversation, Sean said, "You got a pretty good deal from the school."

"You can say that again," Pip said.

"You got a pretty good deal from the school," Sean said rolling his eyes.

"That's better," Pip said.

Chom said, "He could have put some energy into it."

Sean looked around and spotted a box filled with a variety of small bags of chips. He walked over to the box and looked in it. He knew better than to assume that they had purchased the chips. There was some nervous clearing of throats behind him.

"Where'd you get the chips?" Sean asked.

Pip said, "A ... uh ... a..."

"A private commission," Chom said.

"Yeah, a private commission," Pip said nodding his head in agreement.

"Oh? From whom?" Sean asked.

"Ahhh ... You wouldn't know them," Chom said nervously.

"Them?" Sean asked suspicious of who might have commissioned something from the Dwarves.

The Dwarves all looked a little uneasy. Chom started rocking back and forth on his heels while whistling. Pip went over to the stacks of soda and started counting them. Thur went over to the flattened police cars and pulled one off of the pile.

Clea said,"It's getting late and we have work to do."

"Tell me about this private commission," Sean said.

The Dwarves stood around looking at each other. There was some hemming and hawing. After exchanging numerous guilty looks, the Dwarves shrugged their shoulders.

Finally, Chom said, "If you'll step outside, we can talk about it."

"Outside?" Sean asked suspiciously.

"Definitely, outside," Pip said nodding his head.

Sean stepped through the open garage door. The Dwarves closed the door behind him. Unfortunately, the closed door made it difficult for them to hold a conversion since the Dwarves were on the other side of the door from him.

"They tricked me," Sean said kicking the garage door.

Sean could hear Chom say, "That was a close one."

"He's going to be angry," Thur said.

Sean banged on the metal door and shouted, "Let me in."

"We're busy," Chom shouted.

"We're very busy," Pip said.

Sean walked back to his dorm wondering about the private commission the Dwarves had taken. He noticed Henri flying above. He waved at Henri. All of a sudden the duck dove towards the ground and then pulled back up in flight. A large wet white spot appeared on the head of a student.

The student shouted, "I'm going to kill that duck!"

Another duck flew over head. The student spotted it and started running towards a building. After a few steps there was another splat and white mess in the student's hair. He shook his fist at the sky and shouted, "Wait until duck hunting season!"

A whole flock of ducks flew over. The student ran like crazy towards the building.

Watching the action, Sean said, "It looks like Henri has found a playmate."

He went to Suzie's room and knocked on the door.

Ashley opened the door. Seeing that it was Sean, she unbuttoned another button on her shirt. Come hell or high water, she was going to get him under her thumb. Without even noticing Ashley's actions, Sean looked around her and waved to Suzie. The young woman smiled at seeing the infuriated expression on Ashley's face.