Just when you think a school field trip can’t get any worse than going to the aphid hatchery yet again, the Powers That Be outdo themselves. Our trip to the Olympic Range Dwarf Mines was truly the most awful idea they have had to date, and I suspect Mrs. Elderberry of being the evil mastermind behind it all.
I’ll admit when we first learned that we were going there, I was a little excited. I was visualizing piles of gold, sparkling gemstones, and maybe a little gift shop where I could maybe buy myself a teensy, inexpensive little tiara to wear to the school dance. Dad squashed that idea out of the gate by refusing to even consider giving me an advance on my allowance, stating that I “already have drawers full of jewelry that she never wears” and would “be wanting more money the next week, anyway.” Honestly. Parents!
In the end it wouldn’t have mattered if he had given me a little spare change, because there was no gift shop. Nor were there any piles of gold. No sparkling gemstones either. Instead, after we all nearly froze to death riding on the stupid cranes for an hour and a half, we got to tour a big, dark, smelly cave. Seriously. A cave!!!
We walked for what must have been miles through the dank shafts, lit only by the occasional torch, seeing the important work that the Dwarves do chipping through mounds and mounds of dirt. Very exciting, I don’t think!
We listened to endless lectures by an ancient Dwarf called Toadfoot, who droned on and on and ON about such fascinating topics as Olympic geology and rock stratums. Or was it strata? I don’t know, I was too numb with cold and boredom to care. We saw a few lumpy things that Toadfoot claimed were diamonds, but they looked just like boring old rocks to me!
The only mildly interesting thing that happened was when Goober Flitwing, one of my dimmer classmates, tripped over his own feet and fell into an underground lake and had to be hauled out with ropes. At least he got to go sit in the front office for the rest of the trip! The rest of us had to soldier on, and I personally had gotten wet all the way through from all of Goober’s thrashing around in the water. Next time I see him, I‘m going to give him a good kick in the shins!
The most utterly appalling thing about the mines was the smell. Old Toadfoot took great pride in explaining the inner working of the Mine’s furnace, which is used to refine any gold they happen to find while they’re endlessly digging in the dirt. He explained, in quite unnecessary detail, the various types of dung that are used to produce various levels of heat for different types of metals. You heard that right, folks! Fairy gold is produced by burning dung. Dung from horses, dung from cattle, and even, I am sorry to say, from the Dwarves themselves! Toadfoot actually seemed proud of this last bit, stating that Dwarf dung burns hotter than any other type on the planet. Lovely.
He could have spared himself a lot of trouble by not telling us this, because there was no doubt in anybody’s mind about what the furnace was burning. The ungodly stench of superheated Dwarf dung filled every tunnel, every cavern, every nook and every crevice. It permeated our skin, hair, and clothing, and by the time we were allowed out of our underground prison we all reeked of the sweet, sweet aroma of burning poo. Even the cranes seemed to wrinkle their noses when we climbed back aboard.
Back at home, I scrubbed and scrubbed trying to get the filthy smell off, but so far nothing seems to be working. When I snuck into Melissa’s house to write this, BoBo the cat didn’t even try to catch me—he just slunk off and buried his nose in his cat bed.
I just can’t wait for tomorrows’ classes. Some of the older students didn’t have to go, including my older brother and a few of his cronies. They aren’t going to smell like the rest of us, and I’m sure they are going to have a great deal of fun at our expense! Oh, noooo, I just had a horrible thought--what if I run into Vik smelling like this? I can only hope we don’t cross paths until the smell wears off. Stupid field trips!!!!
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