Dragon Removal Service by E.C. Stever

Author:E.C. Stever [Stever, E.C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Looka Books
Published: 2019-03-01T07:00:00+00:00

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The Festival of Rough Peter was here and despite the tight budget and Gulchima's well-crafted plan, no work would be done today.

Festival Days were important to the Outfit, and there were lots of them: Rough Peter, Jacks Knees, Woodman's Lots. This was in addition to Enders Day, the day off at the end of each week, and whatever the local holidays were at the town they were fixing. And occasionally a lesser-known festival day would pop up, like Lover's Moon, which occurred anytime a girl of a certain age declared love for the first time.

It was difficult to get any work done, especially since some young workers were known to date local girls and fall in love with them, just to ensure they could get a Lover's Moon day off, and have extra time for fishing.

But today's festival was important, even to Gulchima. It had been her favorite when she was younger, because it meant the end of the snow, and the brief spell of warm weather.

The Festival of Rough Peter occurred at the start of planting season, and Gulchima wasn't prepared. She, as head of the Outfit, was required to run the event, set the traps, put out the brandy and herring and rum-bread. She would help the children set their snares for the mystical figure, Rough Peter, and make sure that if he was not immediately generous (wink wink), the other adults could put out presents in his honor.

She wondered who or what Rough Peter really was. In the children's stories he was half-god, or half-magic, she knew. But what was his other half? He reminded her of Uncle Roog.

As the legend went, Rough Peter sowed the seeds, stole your gold, and ate your food. He was a god of spring, in a shabby sort of way. But he was simple. He was easily outsmarted.

Rough Peter stole your stuff, but then stored everything in his magic rucksack, a bag which he patched, but never really repaired. On his festival day, you just had to steal it back.

Rough Peter liked a drink or four, and his rucksack was torn. And so what you needed to do, the legend said, was to make sure he was boozled on rum-bread. Then, you had to set up a few obstacles for him to trip over: a chair in the wrong place, a loose log on the floor, maybe a sharp stick to tear his magic rucksack.

If you did it right, a few things he'd stolen from others may appear as presents for you (and they would get new things too, so it wasn't really stealing). The seeds would fall out of the holes in his bag too, and be spread in the field.

And if you were lucky, and you trapped him, you'd find a piece of gold in his place, because "gold opens doors," as even the smallest child knew.

Gulchima wasn't feeling up to the task today, but she had to take the younger children, Novvy included, on the Hunt for Rough Peter.

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