Snig's Lost Bag

Today I think I must be feeling a bit nostalgic, because I've decided to post a little story (complete with illustrations!) that I wrote some time ago, despite the fact that posting my fiction isn't really what I do with this blog. Enjoy.

Snig's Lost Bag

“Was him.”

“No, it was you. I saw you,” said the farmer. “You took my coin purse.”

Snig took another swig from his beer stein—which was nearly as big as the little green goblin’s entire head—and tried to look casual. “Snig wouldn’t do that. Was that guy, like Snig said.”

“There’s a bulge in your cloak,” the farmer accused.

Snig looked down. “Ah! Snig’s spleen! Is coming out! ‘Scuse me. Needs to find cleric.”

Snig grabbed his hat and hopped down from the bar stool, leaving his beer unfinished. He reached for his bag, ready to make a quick getaway, but found that it wouldn’t move.

“Snig not steal that much,” the little goblin mused, looking back toward his bag, which had already been bulging when he entered the tavern and had gotten only slightly larger during his short tenure inside. What he saw was the farmer’s large, beefy brown hand holding firmly onto the bag, keeping him from moving it even an inch.

Snig cleared his throat and flashed him a wide smile full of large, sharp teeth. “Snig needs cleric for spleen. Let go of Snig’s bag.”

“Give me back my coin purse, you little varmint.”

“Now, now. No need to insult Sniggy. Help you find coin purse once spleen fixed, kay? Bye now!”

And with that Snig gave a mighty heave and managed free his bag from the farmer’s grasp, nearly toppling himself over in the process. As soon as he’d regained his balance, Snig was off like a shot, dodging in between the legs of other customers, underneath tables and chairs as he tried to find the quickest path to the door. The farmer was hot on his heels, pushing aside other patrons, overturning tables and kicking past chairs in an effort to reach the tavern door before the goblin.

Snig slid to a halt as the farmer appeared suddenly in front of the exit. He quickly turned around and ducked between the nearby barmaid’s legs. The young woman, already somewhat top-heavy, was sent bosom first into the farmer by Snig and his overlarge bag. It was a sign of how truly intent the farmer must have been to have his coin purse back that he did not even pause for a casual feel as he pushed the barmaid into another patron and began barreling after the fleeing goblin.

Snig continued to maneuver his way expertly through the dirty and crowded tavern as the farmer continued to chase after him, leaving a path of spilled beer, overturned tables and general destruction in his wake.

For a moment, it seemed as though the farmer had Snig trapped in a corner but as soon as the man reached down to grab him by the neck and wring the life from him, he found that Snig had vaulted onto his shoulder and down his back, making another narrow escape. By now, however, Snig had his work cut out for him. Every patron in the tavern, as well as the tavern’s owner, was doing his very best to catch the little green thief. By the time Snig had managed to vault out the tavern door, his ears had been pulled, his cloak had been ripped and the feather in his hat ruined.

Still, it was always a good night when Snig managed to come out of a place with more stuff than he’d walked in with (which made most days a good day for Snig), and so he gleefully hopped onto a nearby horse, cutting the horse’s ties with the meat-cleaver he kept on his belt and ordered it to “giddy-up!”

It was not until he attempted to make camp for the night that Snig realized anything was amiss. His bag had gone missing.

Snig plopped himself down cross-legged next to the horse and began to think very hard.

“Where bag?” he mused to himself. “Had it in bar, then took stupid-man’s monies . . .”

And thus Snig realized with great horror exactly where his bag was.

“I losted it in bar!” he wailed to the heavens, the points of his ears drooping downward in despair. “Bad peoples took Sniggy’s bag!”

Snig quickly settled it between himself and the horse that this simply would not due and that they would have to go back for his bag.

“Snig little but Snig not get kicked around!” he declared to the horse, who looked nervously back at him as spoke. “Snig take back bag, then turn town into campfire!”

As Snig neared the town, he took the horse into the woods near the southeastern part of town and tied the horse to a tree.

“You stay here. Snig get bag,” he told it as he tied the severed remains of the horse’s reins into a messy knot around a nearby branch.

Having secured his stolen horse, Snig sneaked off into the night toward the tavern, quietly humming his favorite song, “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” to himself as he did so. He quickly made his way back to the tavern and, being as quiet as he possibly could while still humming, began picking the lock to the tavern’s back door. He met quickly with success, which was to his good fortune for Snig’s attention had a tendency to wander and it was likely that if his first attempt to pick the lock had failed, he would have fallen into his usual standby of furtively destroying the door—an option which worked more often than logic dictated it really should.

Watching carefully for any sign of the tavern’s owner or his staff, Snig quickly made his way from the back storage room into the bar’s main area. All the tables and chairs had been righted, although the strong smell of beer still lingered, indicating that the spilled drinks had been cleaned up only in the most minimal fashion, if at all. Seeing no sign of his bag when he first entered the room, Snig ducked behind the bar and began a thorough search for his bag. Finding nothing, Snig placed his mouth wide open under the beer tap and turned it on, stealing himself a refreshing drink as he thought about where to look next.

Remembering the storage room he’d come in through, he hopped back down from the counter and returned there. Fifteen minutes and a number of smashed kegs and barrels later, Snig was finally reunited with his bag.

“Missed you!” he declared brightly, and gave the bulging sack an adoring squeeze. “Came all the way back for you,” he continued fondly, stroking a particularly prominent bulge in the bag’s side.

He gave the bag a final hug and then, having crammed a few more items from a nearby barrel into the bag, began to drag it outside as quickly as his little legs would allow. After a small delay caused by the need to hide from the single town guard’s nightly rounds, Snig finally returned with his precious bag to the spot in the woods where his pilfered horse was tethered.

Feeling quite pleased with himself, Snig plopped himself down next to the horse and began assessing the bag’s content’s.

“Painting . . . check. Snorkel. . . check. Pretty dolly . . . check. Squishy pillow . . .”

Snig went on like that for nearly a quarter of an hour until he discovered that one of the bag’s most precious contents was not to be found.

“Where’s Snig’s chicken?!” he exclaimed, shaking the empty bag in the vain hope that the chicken would fall out of it. “Chicken! CHICKEN!” he called, shoving his head into the bag’s opening.

“Is gone!” Snig finally declared to the horse. “Snig’s chicken gone!”

He was quickly on his feet and replacing all of his other items into the bag. “You guard bag. Snig go back to bar, get chicken.”

But Snig’s chicken was not to be found at the tavern.

“Where could chicken be?” Snig mused, taking another swig of beer from the tavern’s tap. “Has to be somewhere.”

“Chicken in chicken coup!” exclaimed Snig suddenly, a stream of beer suddenly hitting the floor as he removed his mouth from under the tap. “Stupid-man took Snig’s chicken and put in chicken coup! All Snig need do is search chicken coups and Snig find chicken!”

His spirits having been raised by his sudden brilliant idea, Snig skipped gleefully down to the end of the counter, hopping neatly down and scampering back out of the tavern without ever bothering to turn off the beer tap.

Realizing the need for a disguise to avoid the wrath of the farmers who owned the chicken coups he would be searching, Snig returned to the woods and his bag. Digging quickly through his bag, Snig pulled from its depth a well-worn beekeeper’s suit, much too big for him in size. Digging even farther into the bag, he soon pulled out a wad of feathers and some tar, which began using to stick the feathers to the suit. Within a very short period, he had fashioned himself an overlarge chicken suit, complete with a little beak made out of sticks.

Donning the suit, Snig made his way back to town and began searching through the first chicken coup he came across.

“CHICKEN!” he called loudly. “CHICKEN! You! You seen Snig’s chicken?” he asked a chicken standing near the door. Snig stared for a long while at the chicken in question, waiting on an answer. “You sure?” he pressed, after a few long minutes. Yet again receiving no answer, Snig tossed the chicken aside and resumed called for his chicken.

“CHICKEN!” he called again and again, searching under some chickens and shaking others to be certain that his chicken was not hidden inside another.

Eventually Snig determined that his chicken was not in this particular chicken coup and moved on. He searched chicken coup after chicken coup, finding his chicken in none of them. Finally, Snig arrived at the only remaining chicken coup in the area.

“CHICKEN!” he began calling as approached the chicken coup. “CHICKEN!”

“Hey! Who are you?”

Snig turned and found himself once again face to face with the man he’d stolen the coin purse from at the tavern. “I’s chicken,” he told the man, imitating a flapping motion with his feather-covered arms.

“No, you’re not.”

“Of course I is,” Snig insisted. “See feathers?” he asked, pointing insistently at them. “See beak?” he asked, pointing even more insistently at the little stick beak with both hands. “I’s chicken. Chick-en.”

“No,” said the man. “You’re that . . . that Snick fellow.”

“Snig,” corrected the little goblin. “Oops.”

And with that, Snig was off, running as fast as he could toward the chicken coup’s opening. “CHICKEN!” he called. “Come out, chicken! We’s gots to go!”

As soon as he was inside, Snig began rifling through the chickens, looking for his own. Feathers flew everywhere as Snig tossed some chickens in various directions, and others flew frantically away from the little green madman. He dodged wildly as he searched, leaping from side to side of the chicken coup as the farmer’s arm began to grope around inside, searching for the little thief.

Finally, Snig saw it. In the far corner of the chicken coup was a very skinny chicken with feathers that stuck out at odd angles.

The two locked eyes and the chicken’s face fell immediately.

“Chicken!” Snig exclaimed happily. “There you is!”

Snig bounded up to chicken and secured it tightly under his arm.

“We’s gots to go,” he told it. “Mean man trying to get Snig.”

The chicken clucked sadly but made no move to get away as Snig prepared himself to leap past the farmer’s groping arm and out of the chicken coup.

As soon as Snig came skittering out of the chicken coup, narrowly avoiding the farmer’s face as he did so, the farmer was after him, a butchering blade in hand. Snig narrowly dodged an attacked from the blade, leaping over a nearby cow trough.

Snig giggled maniacally as he dodged to and fro, avoiding the farmer’s attacks. He’d been in worse scrapes before and this time he had a plan. He’d promised the horse that he’d turn the town into a campfire and that was exactly what he was going to do—starting with this farmer’s house.

From the depths of his makeshift chicken disguise, three little glass vials with cork stoppers appeared in Snig’s hand.

“Bombs away!” he shouted with a maniacal laugh as he tossed them at the farmer’s little wooden shack of a house. The house was set quickly ablaze by the exploding concoction within the vials and Snig was left to skip happily through town, tossing more of the vials hither and thither as he went, while the farmer, screaming forlornly, abandoned his chase to try and put out his quickly burning home.

By the time Snig had returned to the horse and his bag, there was a thick black cloud of smoke rising up behind him into the fire-lit night. He stuffed his chicken back into the bag where it belonged, grabbed the bag and hopped back onto the horse, once again severing the horse’s ties with his cleaver.

“Let’s go,” he told the horse. “Needs to find campsite. Snig sleepy.”

And so they did.