Brum and the Thanksgiving Feast Under the Bridge

Whisperwood’s leaves had nearly all fallen, and the stream was cold enough to make toes complain.

Under the stone bridge lived Brum, the gentle troll.

For years and years, nobody had said hello to Brum.

Now everybody did.

Every single day.

So Brum had decided something big.

“I am going to have a Thanksgiving feast,” he told a rock. “A thank-you feast. For my friends.”

The rock didn’t say anything. Brum took that as a good sign.

There was just one problem.

Brum had never had a guest before. Not one. Not even a beetle on purpose.

His table was a log.

His bowls were troll bowls, big enough to bathe in.

And his food was mushrooms.

Mushroom soup. Mushroom stew. Mushroom pie, with one extra mushroom on top for decoration.

“That is a lot of mushrooms,” Brum said, and frowned.

Then he practiced his manners.

Fancy hosts bow, he’d heard. So he bowed.

BONK.

That was the bridge.

“Please the soup, if you pass,” he told the rock.

No.

“Pass the please, if you soup.”

Worse.

Mila the pony arrived first, with a basket of red apples and a bow in her long mane.

“Welcome to my mushroom,” said Brum, and bowed.

BONK.

Mila giggled. “Hello, Brum.”

Next came Luka the dinosaur with an armful of corn. One cob was already nibbled.

“Quality check,” said Luka.

Owl swooped down with a basket of walnut cakes and a bit of advice.

“A good host,” he said, “doesn’t need a speech.”

Brum had practiced a speech. It was eleven minutes long. He decided to keep that to himself.

Last came Bear, slow and round, carrying a pot of honey.

It was half empty.

“It was a long walk,” said Bear. Then he yawned so wide that Owl could count his teeth.

Mila could barely see over her bowl. Bear tried to drink from the rim and got soup in his ear.

Brum’s ears drooped.

“It’s all wrong,” he whispered. “And everything is mushrooms.”

“I like mushrooms,” said Luka, with his mouth full of corn.

Then three tiny lights came bobbing along the stream.

Three little gnomes stood at the edge of the glow, looking at their shoes.

They had once made Brum a giant pillow while he slept, so he had never really met them.

“We weren’t invited,” said the first gnome.

“We just smelled the soup,” said the second.

The third gnome didn’t say anything. His tummy rumbled so loud that Luka looked up for thunder.

Brum looked at his giant bowls.

Then he dusted off the biggest one and set it at the end of the log.

“There’s room,” he said.

The three gnomes climbed in and sat side by side, like peas in a soup.

It turns out troll bowls are exactly the right size for gnomes.

They had brought one cranberry each. Very proudly.

Bear yawned again.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Winter’s coming. My eyes know it before I do.”

Mila leaned against him. “Will you sleep till spring?”

“Mmm. Till the first warm day. Wake me if there’s honey.”

Even Luka stopped chewing.

Brum stood up, carefully, so he wouldn’t bonk the bridge.

“I had a speech,” he said.

Owl lifted the feathers over one eye.

“But I forgot it.” Brum twisted his big fingers. “For a long time, nobody came under my bridge. Now you all did. Thank you for saying hello.”

“Thank you for the mushrooms,” said Luka.

“Thank you for the bowl,” said all three gnomes at once, from inside it.

Bear opened his mouth to say thank you too, and yawned it instead.

Everybody understood.

They ate nearly everything. Somebody ate the decoration mushroom off the pie. Nobody would say who. (It was Luka.)

Later, Brum said, “Pass the cakes, please,” exactly right, without even trying.

By the time the moon was up, Bear was asleep against the bridge with honey on his nose.

The gnomes were asleep in their bowl.

Luka was asleep with one arm still in the corn.

Mila pulled a blanket of leaves over Bear. “Goodnight until spring,” she whispered.

Owl stayed awake, of course. That’s an owl’s job.

“Brum,” he said. “All your guests have fallen asleep.”

“Is that bad?” asked Brum.

“For a host?” Owl fluffed his feathers. “That’s the best compliment there is.”

Brum kicked off his enormous slippers and lay down beside his friends.

“SNNNORR… honk.”

Bear snored back.

Owl tucked his head under his wing.

He had heard worse lullabies.