Baartock

Here is a short message from the author of Baartock:
This book is directed at children, up to about third grade, though it should be read to them by an adult.
Baartock, by Lewis Roth (C)1989
by Lewis Roth

Baartock was sitting by the side of the old two lane country road, crying. Seven years old and all alone for hours, but that wasn't why he was sobbing, tears running down his cheeks. He had grown up in the forest, he was used to being alone, except for his parents. He wasn't lost and he hadn't run away from home, though he felt so ashamed he didn't want to go home. It had been a bad day, a terrible day. Baartock had been waiting all day to scare someone, but there hadn't been anyone to scare. It was such a bad thing to happen to a troll on his first day.
Today was such an important day. Today was the very first day that Baartock was to go out scaring all by himself. He had stayed up late the night before and had gotten up early, so he would be all tired and cranky. He had gone out of the cave where he lived and rolled in the smelliest, nastiest mud he could find, so he would look his scariest. And he had practiced his screams and shrieks, until both his parents yelled at him to shut-up and to go scare somebody. He had set out, going down the old dry stream-bed, just like his father had told him. On the way, he fell down and cut his knee, which made him really angry. He threw a rock at a bird that was singing in the trees, trying to make fun of him. He missed and that made him even angrier. When he got to the road and looked both ways, he crossed it and hid in the culvert. Then he waited and listened.
The culvert wasn't much of a bridge. It was just a big, old concrete pipe that went under the road for rain-water to go through. He wished that it was a bridge, any kind of bridge at all. Even a wooden bridge, but a real bridge that he could hide under and come rushing out to scare people. He crouched down to wait and listen.
He knew what he was listening for. The sound of someone walking down the road. Baartock had practiced at home, just the way his father had shown him. He would stand waiting, just out of sight. Then, when he heard something, he would run up the hill, roaring and screaming. The practice had all gone so well. When he did it at home, he never had to wait long to hear something. He had scared lots of squirrels, a deer, two opossum, and a skunk. Baartock didn't like to remember the skunk. They had scared each other.