G is for Goblin

I dashed around the corner of the shed, jumped over a pile of wood chips and tripped on a rake, narrowly avoiding taking the handle to the face. Swearing, I leaped up and took off again.  The guy was fast, but he was short.  I easily closed the distance between us.  He paused to wave his stubby middle finger at me, a smug expression on his craggy face, and I noticed the big hole in the ground behind him.  He had opened a portal underground and was about to disappear.  I was glad he stopped to taunt me.  Otherwise he would have been long gone.  The expression on his face changed from na-na na-na nah-na to oh shit as he realized that I wasn't slowing down.  He turned to the hole and I leaped, slamming into him mid air, wrapping my arms around his sturdy body.  My smug feeling of satisfaction at finally having caught the little fiend was overpowered by vertigo as we fell into what seemed like endless darkness.

We hit the ground with a thump.  Somehow the goblin landed on top, knocking the wind out of me with a sickening sensation. "Ugh," I moaned, momentarily paralyzed.  He scrambled off me, and would have run off down the earthen tunnel where we had landed- if it weren't for my death grip on his shirt.

"Leave off!" his voice was a deep grumble, supremely annoyed.  I sat up, still gripping his clothes and he glared down at me.  "Why can't you just leave me be for the Goddess' sake! "

I glared right back, mutinous. "Why can't you just talk to me?!" He'd been skulking around my house for weeks now, but he always disappeared when I tried to talk to him.  Now I knew how he'd been pulling that little trick.

"Well are you happy now," he groused.  "Now you're in a place you should not be. And who do you think is going to get his ass chewed for talking to a human?"

I hadn't stopped to think there might be a reason why he couldn't talk to me.  "I'm sorry," I said defensively.  "I just wanted to know about you..."

He heaved a sigh and pried my fingers off his shirt. "Look you, don't be getting all teary-eyed on me."  He looked supremely embarrassed.  "I'll be getting you home and then you can yap at me all you want.  But you can't be here."

 I looked at him, surprised.  "Really?"

He mumbled something and shuffled his feet, and I wrapped my arms around him impulsively.  He wiggled away.  "Now stop that!"

Just then the hole in the ceiling of the tunnel closed and we were pitched into darkness.  I clutched him tighter, cowering.  Big, luminous yellow eyes met mine in the darkness.  "Its just a tunnel," he said dryly.  "Do you plan on clinging to me the whole way?"

  I nodded emphatically.  "I can't see in the dark..."

He grumbled some more about that, but he didn't seem all that upset.  "Fine, fine. Come on then,"  and his rough little hand found mine in the darkness.

 (artwork by Bobby Chui for WOW)

                       

Not midnight yet... this still counts as Saturday ;)