ONCE UPON A time, there lived a young green troll. He made his home under a stone bridge which he had caulked carefully in order to make it draft-proof. In the autumn he collected provisions for the coming winter- sheep's eyeballs, goat ears, cow intestines and the like- and secreted them away in the well-organized pantry he had carefully carved into an abutment of the bridge. He liked nothing better than to claw his way to the top of the bridge during a winter snowstorm and hunch down on the balustrade, snow blowing in his eyes, and crack open a decayed pigeon from his stores for teatime.

Leonard- for that was his name- loved the quiet peace of these times. That wasn't to say he didn't enjoy leaping out at a hapless traveler, claws akimbo and fangs bared, to feast on their skin, but all that joggling around sometimes upset his stomach. He had always had a delicate constitution. His mother had warned him time and again to avoid too much physical activity during and after meals.

One particular Tuesday morning, Leonard woke up to a blinding snowstorm. He watched the swirling whiteness from his bedroom girder for a while, then yawned and swung down onto his wide living room truss. The little troll lit a fire in the grate, scratched his bottom with one claw and, yawning, put the kettle on. He rummaged for a moment in his live mouse box, picked out a plump wriggling specimen, and impaled it neatly on a sharp skewer. The mouse twitched a moment longer, then went still. Leonard turned to place his breakfast mouse in the glowing embers of the fire, but as he did so caught the faintest glimpse of grey beyond the sheeting curtain of white.

Leonard stared.

Nothing. The white snow puffed and played around the bridge. He shook his head, jowls jiggling a bit and drips of slime falling to the floor, and placed the mouse in the fire. He mounded the embers carefully over the skewer, turning once or twice to look over his shoulder. The silent snowstorm looked back.

The whistling kettle startled Leonard out of his reverie.