~~~
Robert had gone back out to the kitchen to help his mother clean and to see if he could get her to forget about Ricky for the evening. The less she spent grilling him the better. But all in all Robert had been pleased at how well Kile fit in as substitute Ricky. Mom might not ever suspect something was really different just because Ricky was such a spaz normally anyway.
Meanwhile, though his stomach growled and ached, Kile looked around Little Ricky’s room. On the shelves were a number of books. He took down a few and marked a few as ones he might want to try to read later, although he was likely to need Robert’s help. Some few television shows he got on his set in the mountain when he ran an antenna out of the cave covered the alphabet regularly for preschoolers and sometimes basic reading skills. But he hadn’t been very interested in those when there were so many exciting adventures the humans had on a regular basis.
Hanging from the ceiling was a cool mobile with a bunch of motorcycles. Kyle knew he’d seen some before on the TV now and again, but he still marveled at how they could possibly stay up on just two wheels. He thought perhaps he should ask Robert soon if he had any they could try riding. And then he remembered, one of the key things he was supposed to do is look into the humans’ magic “technology”. A quick circle around the room was a disappointment. Little Ricky’s parents had not provided a TV, computer or anything else besides a few toys that looked like technology to Kile.
It was about the moment when Kile was sticking his nose out of a cracked-open bedroom door that Robert returned. He shooed the little troll back into Ricky’s room and sat down on the bed, gesturing that Kile should do the same. From out of his pocket he pulled a couple sticks of individually wrapped jerky and a couple cheese sticks.
“Do you eat cheese when it’s not on macaroni?” Robert asked.
“We have cheese. Ours very strong and tasty!” Kile responded as he snatched a stick from Robert.
Holding a jerky in one hand and a string cheese in the other Kile rolled his eyes with pleasure and then stuffed them both into his enormous mouth.
“Blech!” he screeched as he spat them both out, barely chewed once or twice. “These like plassstic too!”
Chuckling to himself, Robert picked up the two treats and began unwrapping them, despite the troll slobber all over them. “No, no! Kile, you have to take this plastic wrap off first. I promise, these taste better than yellow death.”
Kile eyed the food sideways and snatched at them with a little sneer as Rob held them out. But with the first two chews he had already changed his mind.
“Pretty good, eh?” asked Robert.
“Mmmph! Hmmm,” Kile said in a pleased mumble. “Very spicy! How you humans spice it like this?”
Robert didn’t know exactly what the troll meant and he certainly didn’t know the process for spicing meats, so he just shrugged and said he didn’t know. But the occasion began a life-long obsession for certain human foods in the little troll.
“Now, look! Tomorrow is Sunday…and we’ve had a really long day. I suggest we go to sleep and then in the morning we’ll sneak out early and I’ll show you around a little bit so you don’t embarrass yourself.”
Kile watched Robert stand up from the bed and move to the dresser with wide eyes, stuffing the remaining pieces of jerky and string cheese into his open maw as he did.
“Uh…I don’t suppose you would be willing to take a shower at all, would you?” asked Robert.
“What shower?” mumbled Kile around the nearly completed meal.
“Well…you kinda of stink. Not that you smell any different than Ricky does after he plays out in the dirt, but Mom’s gonna make you take a bath tomorrow morning…or maybe even tonight, if she catches wind of you.”
“Bath?!” Kile squeeked. It was the first time Rob had heard the little troll squeal like a little rodent. Kile hoped off the bed onto his short, stubby legs and waddled briskly over to where Robert stood. “No bath! If I take bath it ruin my glimmer! You mother will know!”
“What? A bath means she can see you?” While Kile nodded violently at him, Robert considered the situation. “I think you might be lying to me so you don’t have to shower.”
“No, no! Must not get water on me or humans will see!”
“Alright…but, she’s not going to watch you shower anyway. Can’t you just take a quick shower, get out and get dry before she even notices?” Robert tried reasoning.
The reasoning approach worked about as well as it did on Ricky most times.
“Mustn’t get wet! Please do not make me shower, brother Robert!”
“Dude!” Rob blurted, becoming frustrated with the little troll, “Can’t you just get the shower done? If you don’t, Mom will for sure make you take a bath tomorrow, and if you fight her she’s definitely gonna see you then because she’ll throw you in!”
“Whuh?!...” Kile huffed and shivered, hunching into as small a stature as he could manage.
“Believe me, she’s done it to Ricky many times before.”
As Robert went through his little brother’s dresser looking for clothes, Kile stood shaking and nodding his head. Rob was pretty sure the little troll had never taken a shower or bath before. Perhaps the little beast was even afraid of water. What was it the queen said? Rob wondered. Did she say trolls are afraid of open water?
Turning around Robert found the troll nearly squatting on the floor and cooing to himself, rubbing his awkward arms with his great big palms and licking his trollish lips uncomfortably.
“Uh…Kile?”
“No bath!”
“Kile?” Robert repeated.
“Huh-umm?” the troll finally looked up at him.
“You’re not going to fit into any of my brother’s clothes are you?” Robert was smiling. Maybe a redirection would work.
Kile pawed at the t-shirt, jeans and briefs Robert had pulled out but he seemed a little repulsed by them. Robert wondered if maybe they were too clean.
“Okay…How about we make a deal so that Mom doesn’t give you any problems?”
“Deal, good!” the poor little creature whined.
“If you will sneak into the bathroom with me, you can take a shower with your clothes on. Then you’ll be washing both you and your clothes at the same time.”
Kile was nodding his head, though he was standing more upright and was definitely paying closer attention.
“But! You’ve got to use soap, okay?”
The troll pondered this option for a moment. Soon, his shaking turned to nodding his head. But there was a counter-offer to the deal before he would agree. Robert must hold his hand while he took the shower.
“Wow…you really are scared of the water, aren’t you?” Rob giggled.
Kile gave a harrumph and placed his hand akimbo on his barely visible hips. “Only when not see the bottom of water!”
“Well then you should be fine in the shower!”
Waddling with Robert’s hand on his back, Kile slowly and reluctantly moved out the bedroom door. They quickly hustled across the hallway to the bathroom. There, Robert continued the goading.
“So…how do you keep from getting thirsty if you’re afraid of water?”
“Only when not see the bottom!” Kile responded. Then more reservedly, “I use a cup.”
“Yes, but who gets the water for your city if you’re afraid of the water?”
Kile was incensed again, and returned his wrists to their former akimbo state. “Not all trolls scared.”
“Well, obviously the queen isn’t,” Robert replied. But he was willing to let it go at that.
As the human boy turned the faucet on the bath tub, Kile watched wide-eyed.
“Not just queen. Girl trolls not scared of anything,” he suggested.
“Really? Nothing?” smiling again, Rob prodded his guest a bit further. “Not even a grizzly bear?”
“Nope. Not bear. Girls flippin’ tough!”
Robert patted his leg and laughed out loud. “Flippin’? Where did you hear that word?”
As the little troll stepped into the growing puddle of water in the tub bottom, which turned out to be not nearly so frightening after all since the water was clean and he could see the bottom, he turned and grinned at Robert. “On TV! They make flippin’ good pizza!”
Laughing even harder, Robert recalled the specific advertisement from a local restaurant he’d seen too. The word was not one they used back in his old town in Iowa, at least not yet. But it was very popular with the kids in the sixth grade in the little Rocky Mountain town where his family lived now. He started to realize having Kile in his home for a few days wasn’t going to be any different than helping with Ricky. In fact, if the little troll was less inclined to start little tee-pee fires in the kitchen and living room, then it might even be more enjoyable.
“So, see? This tub’s not so bad is it?” Robert asked.
“No. I see bottom. Very good water.” But the timidness with which Kile said those words gave indication that he was still nervous.
“Can I ask you, Kile, why are you so afraid of water that you can’t see the bottom of?”
Kile tutted a little and shook his head as he started at the water climbing up past his broad, ditry feet to the ankles, dust and dirt slowly drifting off him and mixing into the tub.
“Trolls sink…if can’t see the bottom, trolls might not know when they will stop sinking.”
Robert smiled with caring. As weird as it was to find real live trolls living in the mountains under his home, it was reassuring to know that trolls had things they were afraid of too. Despite his better judgment, and the peculiarity that Kile was so very much like Ricky in so many ways, Robert was quickly coming to like the little mountain troll.
Then he pulled the stopper on the tub spout. Rain-sized droplets started pelting Kile’s head from above accompanied with a little squeak and a pipe rattle as the water moved up to the shower head. Initially the spray was colder than the water that had run across the troll’s feet too, until the hot water made it up the climb a few seconds later. That was all a mistake.
“Bleeeaaahhh!” Kile screamed. It may have started as a scream but it sort of rolled into a very boisterous roar. And then he looked at Robert with a snarl. “Bad Robert!”
But as the water warmed, Kile realized he kind of liked the gentle feel of the shower too. It was like a warm, clean rain. Clumps of mud and dirt quickly rinsed from his head and hair, his clothes, and down into the drain in a river of mud. All would have been very well if he just hadn’t screamed.
A hustled rush of footsteps down the hallway’s wooden floor and brisk knock at the door before it was quickly cracked open was all the warning Robert and Kile had that Mom was responding to the alert she’d heard several seconds before. Why didn’t I lock the door? Robert berated himself. Mom stuck her face in just enough to see Rob with one arm stuck in the shower and the curtain there pulled with water running. Fortunately, she wasn’t in a position to catch any sort of glimpse of Kile holding his breath and covering his mouth with his hand, water pouring down his face causing his huge eyes to blink uncontrollably.
“Mom!” Robert said, honestly startled.
“Uh…what’s going on here?” Mom asked, swinging the door a little wider. “I thought I heard one of you screaming bloody-murder.”
“Oh! Uh…well…Ricky was really, really dirty from the climb and playing in the stream so I’m helping him take a shower.”
Mom leaned against the door jam and folded her arms. “Is that right?”
“Uh…yep!”
“Mmm-hmmm,” Kile hummed loudly from inside the shower. It sounded to Robert as though he were trying to raise his voice a little to match that of Little Ricky’s. He hadn’t thought of it before but he wondered if the glimmer trolls used could mimic voices too when it’s turned on. Of course, Kile had already told him humans could see through the glimmer when they’re wet, so maybe they could hear through it too?
“Well…That’s two pleasant surprises then,” Mrs. Johansson said to the pair.
“Waddya mean?” Rob responded.
“You, willing to help your little brother like that without saying “Ew! Gross!” and Ricky, willing to take a shower for the first time without me having to threaten him with no video games for ten years.”
“Yeah. I guess,” was all Robert could say. Kile had grabbed Rob’s loose hand when the shower started spraying, and he hadn’t let go yet. So for the duration of the conversation with his mother, he stood like that.
“Alright,” Mom made for leaving again. “I was thinking I smelled something pretty ripe at dinner. When you’re done get ready for bed. I still have that party for Aunt Janine and Uncle Bill tomorrow, you know. All the cousins will be here.”
Kile squeezed Robert’s hand even more tightly.
“Oh, man!” Rob replied. “I had totally forgotten.”
“Yes, well. I expect you to come in and spend some time with them.”
“Crap. I hate talking with the cousins,” Robert fussed, oblivious to the fact that he was actually retaining his mother’s presence in the bathroom still longer, further risking discovery.
“What? They love visiting. And you shouldn’t be rude,” Mom said as she slowly closed the door and began moving away.
“Yeah, but they’re like, a decade older than me. And all they do is take over the video games and not let me play,” he yelled back as he heard her walking down the hallway.
Finally, Kile exhaled loudly and released Robert’s hand. He yanked the shower curtain aside and looked at his adoptive brother for a moment before speaking.
“Kile not sure he can glimmer for that many humans. And…I not talk exactly like you yet either. They will know!” the little troll hissed.
“Yeah…” Robert thought for a moment. “But I think we’re going to go find something else to do for most of it anyway.”
“Good!” Kile smiled again and nodded his head. Water was splashing out of the tub and Robert flicked the shower curtain across again.
As he sat down on the toilet to think for a moment, Robert suddenly remembered a potential problem.
“Kile?”
“Yes, brother Robert?” Kile said in a happy tone.
“Uh…how long do you think you will be living here with me before we trade back for Ricky?”
Kile was rubbing his hands on his head and shoulder by that point, enjoying the feel of mud-free skin and continuing to send the dirt down the drain.
“Mmmm…I think a few months.”
“Oh! Oh crap!” Rob huffed.
“What wrong?”
“Well,” Robert slumped on the toilet a bit. “We still have a week and a half of school.”
The shower curtain flipped open again and the football-shaped head poked out with a huge, toothy grin. “School good! I will learn more about humans!”
Standing up, Robert began pacing the bathroom a bit. “Yes, but on Monday you have to go to a class that has, like, thirty people in it!”
“Oh…” Was Kile’s only response.
Neither said anything, but the topic was put aside for the time being, to be pondered over the following thirty-six hours before they had to cross that bridge when they came to it.
Using soap took a little convincing, but by the time Robert was done with Kile the little troll was actually probably the cleanest he’d ever been in his entire life. The only difficulty was that they hadn’t considered how they would get Kile’s clothes dry since none of Ricky’s clothes fit and they’d had to wash them. Robert tried the hair-dryer, which caused about as much panic for Kile as the shower head did at first, only this time the troll bit down on his right hand instead of screaming. He never really got accustomed to the blower either, as he had the warm water, and he was very uncomfortable with the whole thing such that Robert couldn’t leave him to do the drying himself
while he searched for something to dress him in.
Just as Robert was about to switch off the hair dryer and sneak back to Ricky’s room to see if there was anything at all he could find to put the troll into, he realized that Kile’s attire was a fairly rough burlap sort of material that dried pretty fast. The crisis was averted for the moment. But Rob resolved that they needed to find some normal clothing…and that he was going to need to talk Kile into returning to the troll cave for Little Ricky much sooner than in “a few months.”
Troll Brother Page 13