He even pretended that Jason was helping him scare people. Not that Jason was anything like a troll, but Baartock liked him and he thought Jason would have fun scaring people.
After a while, when it started to get dark, Baartock went back home in the rain. He was glad that his father had known it was going to rain. They had gathered in extra firewood. Even though it wasn't cold, the fire warmed the cave and helped him to dry off.
Though it had been raining all day, his mother had fixed an extra good meal. Baartock really liked the cricket and green bean salad. Later they all sat around the fire and his mother patched his pants and sewed on the new winter coat she was making, and his father told stories. He stayed up late, and it was still raining hard when he finally went to bed.
The next morning it was still raining, and his mother told him to go wait for the bus, but if it didn't come when it should, to come back home. And his father surprised him by saying he would be staying home if it kept on raining. The room he was working on in the cavern would probably be flooded, and he wouldn't be able to work.
So, while it was still raining quite hard, Baartock went down to stand by the side of the road and wait for the school bus. Actually, he wasn't waiting right beside the road in the rain, but back a little way, under some trees that still had lots of leaves. He thought he could see the bus in time to come out and catch it. He waited and waited, but he didn't see a bus or a car or anything coming down the road. He went over to look at the culvert. Rain water was coming roaring down the stream bed right at the culvert, but there was so much that it couldn't all get through. There were branches and rocks that had come down with the water that were blocking the opening. It was beginning to make a pool on that side of the road. On the other side, it was shooting out of the culvert, but it was beginning to make a pool there too.
When Baartock felt he had waited long enough, he went back home. His father was carving out some extra shelves in the kitchen. He went to watch his father work, and started handing him tools. They worked most of the morning. His mother came back home and saw the mess they were making, and started making some sandwiches. They all finished about the same time, and his mother chased them both out of the cave so she could clean up. There were rock chips all over the kitchen.
Then Baartock and his father went up and sat under his bridge and ate their sandwiches. For a while, his father told stories, about when he had been a young troll, before he'd earned his name. Then they looked at some places that Baartock had had trouble with building his bridge. They stood in the stream and the pouring rain, and his father showed him some better ways to do the stone-work. They even took a few of the stones out, and his father worked on them, then they put them back. Baartock was much happier about the way the bridge looked now. Then his father showed him places where the water might weaken the bridge if they weren't fixed, not today, but later when the rain stopped and the water went down.
While they were working the rain eased up as if it were going to stop, then it started coming down again as hard as before. They had quite a busy afternoon, and his father said that it was time to go home, even if there was still a mess in the kitchen for them to clean up.
It rained all the next day, too. Not as hard as before, just a steady rain that went on and on. Baartock went down in the morning to see if the bus would come, but it didn't. He waited a long time, playing beside the stream, but nothing came along the road.
The culvert that he had hidden in was completely blocked now, with branches and rocks. The water had made a big pool, and it was flowing over the road. He went up the hill a little way and sat there, dropping small branches into the stream, and watching them float down, across the pool and across the road.