Eve 4/8

“I don’t know what sort of money this is, but it’s no use round here I’m afraid.”

“It’s the sort of money we use in Jennifer Jane’s world; surely she uses it when she comes here.”

“She doesn’t have to pay for her drinks in here, when she stopped the dragons attacking us, the village said we’d give her drinks on the house for all time in gratitude. So how are you going to pay? I don’t suppose you’ve got anything interesting to sell by any chance?”

“I’ve got this rather nice gold plated pencil!”

“Not much call for that sort of thing round here! Half of ‘em can’t even read let alone write!”

“There’s this very handy sized vanity mirror, it can come in very useful to check that your hair is nice and tidy before you visit friends.”

The barman looked at her strangely, “Why on earth would you want to see if your hair is tidy. Don’t your friends know what you look like?”

“Well I’m sorry but I can’t think of anything else that might be valuable,” said Eve.

“I notice you have one of those small clocks tied onto your wrist. I think you might get a good price for that if it’s as accurate as the one Jennifer Jane used to have.”

Eve undid the strap and gave the watch to the barman.

“No use to me, but if you hang around until the afternoon tide I daresay one of the boat captains will give you a good price for it. Jennifer Jane once gave one of these to a captain and all the others have been moaning ever since about the unfair advantage he has using it for his navigation.”

Eve thanked her driver, as he finished his drink and left the pub on his way to Lower Dene. Then she promised the barman to come back later to sell her watch and pay her debts and went out into the village for a walk.

She went down to the timber yard and found that a boat was due in about an hour’s time, so she decided to renew her acquaintance with Gordon the troll. He’d been such a funny harmless little man and she wanted to see if he’d been part of the plot to discourage her, or if he really lived under that bridge.

She climbed down the riverbank and looked under the bridge. The fat little man was painting the underside of the bridge black with big silver stars along the top of the arch’s highest point. A huge roll of green canvas was lying on the ground underneath the part that had already been finished.

He looked round as he heard her slide down the last part of the bank. “Oh, hello again miss, aren’t my new decorations lovely! Just think, lots of lovely green grass to look at during the day and all the beautiful stars at night-time, whatever the weather. By the way, that riddle about the bear cross was very popular with the other trolls. I’ve had lots of thank-you letters about that one, most of them thought it was really clever. Have you got any more like that for me?”

“Not at the moment no, I just thought I’d pop in to see if you were still here. I’m going back to the pub now, but I may be along later tomorrow.”

She waved goodbye and went back up the bank with a puzzled look on her face. It didn’t seem to matter what she checked out, but every time it appeared that George had been telling the truth all along. At the very least Jennifer Jane was heavily involved in what ever was going on. Well tomorrow she was going to try and see the giant and the talking dragon, if they were real then she’d have to believe what she been told, surely nobody could fake anything like that.