Once Upon A Time ~ Book 1

Chapter 78 - A Dwarf's Life

Crowds gathered by the Town Hall. A huge blue banner hung reading Miners Day Is Here!.
A nun weeing her dark blue robe and hazel brown hair and eyes stood up on a ladder, painting the white writing with glitter on the banner.
Leroy walked quickly through the markets and stalls seeing up outside the Town Hall. He walked past the ladder, the nun stood on, now trying to fix the lights. Then she knocked some of the glitter from the ladder. The glitter fell of Leroy.
"Oh, I'm so sorry! It just slipped out of my hand! I........" she apologised.
Leroy glared up at her, but then his face changed as he stared at her. "No problem at all." he smiled.
She stepped down from the wooden ladder. "Oh. I really an so sorry."
Leroy took his hat off and shook the glitter to the ground and the nun brushed it off his shoulders with her gloved hands. "I was so busy trying to get the lights to work that I didn't realise I was about to knock it off the ladder." she now brushed it from his beard.
"Let me take a look at those lights for you." said Leroy, kindly. He put his hat back on and stepped onto the ladder.
"Oh." she chuckled.
"Here's your problem." he said enspecting the lights that were wrapped around the pole hanfing the banner. "You're overloading the transformer." he turned and looked at her. "You kept messing around with these lights, the whole thing could have blown up on you."
"Oh........ Then I guess that makes you my hero."
"I'm nobody's hero, sister." he said as he worked on the lights.
"You can just call me Astrid."
"I call everybody sister." he looked down at her again. "I'm Leroy." he clicked the switches and all the lights around the area turned on.
She gasped happily. "Oh...... How did you do that?" she said excitedly. "Are you an electrician?"
He scoffed. "I'm in the custodial services game." he said as stepped off the ladder.
"That's..........wonderfully."
"No, it's not."
She looked at him sheepishly.
"What I really wanted to do was sail. I even bought a boat. It's a real clunker, I was gonna fix it up. Sail around the world, sat goodbye to this hellhole......." his expression changed as he remembered who he was talking to. ".......I'm sorry, Sister."
"It's okay." she said forgivingly. "You know, someone once told me, you can do anything as long as you can dream it."
"You really think so?"
"Sure. Look how easily you fixed those lights. I bet you could do anything........ Oh......" she chuckled as she brushed some more glitter from his beard. "I should get back to the volunteer centre." she said smiling as she stepped backwards. "Nice to meet you, Leroy." she beamed and walked nervously away, through the crowds.
Leroy smiled ad he gazed at her walking away.

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Emma stood by Kathryn's crashed car, taking photographs of the scene by the Leaving Storybrooke sign and the car. She searched the draw in the passenger seat. She wore white, plastic gloves for the enspection.
Sidney then parked his car next to the Sherif's car and walked towards Emma, his camera in his hand.
"You mind if I take a look, too?" asked Sidney.
Emma looked up at him. "What for?"
"Well, just because I got fired from the Mirror, doesn't mean I can't do a little freelance reporting." he took a picture of the abandoned car. "So, what do we got here?"
"Gym teacher found this thing on the side of the road, abandoned. Engine running, no one around. Registered to Kathryn Nolan. She's MIA."
"Kathryn Nolan? Whose husband very publicly left her?........"
Emma opened the door to the back of the car and searched in there.
".........I mean, the story writes itself. If I get a scoop like that, the Daily Mirror would have no choice but to take me back." he took another photograph.
"Calm down, tiger. You don't work for Regina anymore. Kathryn got accepted to law school in Boston. Maybe after David dumped her, she decided to leave town. Her car broke down, she hitched the rest of the way. It's what I would do if I was running away from my problems." she walked towards the boot of the car and opened it with the key. Herself and Sidney pushed it open. Inside was Kathryn's suitcases and moving boxes.
"And would you leave your clothes in the car?"
Emma looked up at Sidney. "Time to pull Kathryn's phone records and find out who she spoke to last." she walked towards the sherif's car.
Sidney went after her. "You know, if you go through the sherif's Department, it'll take you days to get those. I've got a contact over at the phone company, used to help me out when I was at the newspaper. I can get those in a couple of hours."
"Great. Call me the minute you get your hands on those phone records."
David drove his car down the road and stopped next to the other cars.
Emma and Sidney looked in his direction.
"There he is." said Sidney.
"Time to break the news."
David stepped out of his jeep and looked at the scene, worry in his face when he saw Kathryn's crashed car.
"You really think he doesn't know?"
"I'm about to find out." she walked towards him.

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The new born dwarfs stood around the mines in their white nightgowns, looking around and chatting.
The early hatched warm however sat on a chair, the old dwarf next to him. "Arms up!" he camanded.
He raised his arms, confused.
The dwarf began to trim his black beard.
"What am I?" he asked.
"You're a dwarf."
"What am I doing?"
"Being cleaned."
"Who is the woman I saw?"
"What woman?" he stood straight, concerned.
"The one I saw right before I hatched. She was beautiful. I want to see her again."
He laughed. "You must be dreaming. There are no female dwarfs. Dwarfs don't fall in love. Dwarfs don't get married. And dwarfs don't have children. Why do think you were hatched from an egg?"
"Then what do we do?" he looked around at the other dwarfs beginning measured and cleaned and dressed.
"We work. And we like it? We love it. We even whistle while we do it. We mine the diamonds that get crushed into dust, that give light to the world. You and you're seven brethren will bring joy to yourselves and to everyone........ Come on." he said when he was finally dressed and ready to work.
He brought him to his brothers. "This is your team. These are your brothers."
They all got to their feet and stood together.
"Everyone, grab an axe. It'll give you your dwarf name." said the older dwarf to all the eight brothers.
The first draft in a blue outfit and a feathered hat was given an axe. Then on the handle the name Stealthy appeared. Next Happy with a beating face, then Doc who wore little specticals. The next dwarf sneezed loudly as he took the axe and it read Sneezey, then Sleepy, then Bashful, then Dopey and finally the early hatched dwarf took his axe. It read Dreamy.
"The axe never lies, Dreamy." said the older dwarf. He turned to all the brothers. "Okay, folks. Grab a lantern and move out." They all grabbed a lantern.
"Today is the first day of the rest of your lives. Welcome to the mines!"
The dwarfs marched and chanted along. They whistled tunefully, through the mines, their axes over their shoulders.

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Sister Astrid ~ Nova