Troll Brother
Page 17
~~~
The house guests who had all come for a little celebration of Uncle Bill’s retirement from the fire department in one of the towns down in the valley had already left when Mom finally came up to talk to the two boys. Dinner was done, mostly in quiet, except for where the cousins could slip in not-so-subtle remarks about the maturity of both Ricky and Robert. Cake had been served, though R & R were sent up to their rooms to sit quietly. During the pause, Robert kept wondering what Kile was up to in the room next door as there were bumps and other noises coming from Ricky’s room, but he was hesitant about calling out to him with Mom in such a foul mood. He was about to find out when his mother passed by his door way quickly telling him to step into Ricky’s room so she could talk to them.
“Aaaah! Arrrggh…” he heard his mother say before Rob could get off his bed and come out to join them next door. “Ricky! What on Earth are you doing?”
Robert found his mom standing in Ricky’s doorway assessing a very fine mess he could see looking past her from behind. Apparently Kile had disassembled most of the furniture in Ricky’s room and stock-piled the components into something completely different. Both parent and older boy stepped into the room and simply observed while the vision of Little Ricky popped his head out from under a blanket propped up on top of the assembly looking at them sheepishly.
“I just trying to get comfortable…” Kile said as humbly as he could muster.
The drawers of the chest of drawers had been pulled out and stacked onto of the dresser itself a couple high and then again on the opposite side of what appeared to be a little miniature cave made of the bedroom pieces. The box spring and mattress had been removed from the bed and looked to be forming the back two walls of the little cave. Clothes and bedsheets had either been integrated into the construction as part of the roof or as additional walls and entrance doors, or had been thrown off to one side of the bedroom, entirely discarded and ignored. On the floor of the cave Kile had built was a few blue markings apparently created with water color paints.
“Oh…Kile…er… Ricky! What did you do, dude?” Rob said as he pushed around his mom and started trying to gather up the art supplies.
“Color sticks did not work good on this floor. So I try to use this paint.”
Looking carefully, it appeared some crayons had been rubbed around on the carpet trying to make the little blue glyphs. There were also all kinds of knick-knacks and toys which had been broken down and crushed, then piled into the make-shift cave. Rob wasn’t sure but he supposed it was supposed to be troll bedding of some kind. Kile had tried to match his home here in Ricky’s bedroom, and if Robert knew his mother, somehow he was going to be blamed instead of Ricky, even if in this case it happened to be a little troublesome troll.
Mom was so red in the face, Robert actually thought she was going to explode.
“I try to make comfortable…” Kile said, standing now and wringing his hands.
“Comfortable?!!” Mom yelled. It was so loud the window panes in the room rattled for another three or four seconds after she quieted. Then the heavy breath and sputtering started. And then she left the room.
They could hear Mrs. Johansson stomp down the hall and then down the stairs. They heard her head out to the garage and the car started. Within seconds some screeching from the tires could be heard, perhaps barely long enough for the garage door opener to fully pull the door open, let alone permit enough time for Mom to get the car out of the driveway in reverse. And she was gone. They did not hear from Robert’s mother again until nearly 9:00. The reaction was the worst Robert had ever seen, and he’d wondered if Dad had in fact ever seen when his redhead had truly lost it.
“Kile…” Rob started quietly. Then he noticed some dark paint on the troll’s arms and cheeks. “What’s this stuff all over you?”
The little troll did not comprehend what exactly had just happened, but he knew he’d done something wrong. He fussed, smacked his lips, made to move things around and then thought better of it. “Um…I try to make my skin brown.”
Robert was thinking just how much Kile was like Ricky at that moment. “Why? Were you trying to be like Dan?”
Finally Kile smiled, though weakly, as he nodded his head and hummed an agreement.
Robert sat down heavily on the bed’s frame and blew out a sigh. “Kile…if you’re going to stay…somehow you’re going to have to not do things until after you ask me whether it’s a good idea or not.”
Scooping up the paints, brush and a sock being used as a rag from the troll’s hands, Robert continued. “Tomorrow is school. We only have two weeks left. Somehow, you’ve got to get through that by just…sitting there. Don’t do anything to call attention.”
The two looked at each other solemnly. Kile’s eyes were close to tears. He didn’t want to do anything wrong, that was clear, but he seemed absolutely compelled to experiment in the wrong thing at just the wrong minute…exactly like Ricky liked to.
“Do you understand, Kile?”
Kile nodded vehemently, then slowed the head jiggling, looked at Robert scrutinizing his face and then, started shaking his head slowly.
They talked then. Robert tried to do his best to explain what school was about, what the bus was like, what humans did day in and day out. He realized as he explained, that Robert’s world had become a lot less interesting than he might have thought it was if the troll had simply asked him in the cavern city of Machsa what it was like to be a human boy. Disappointment was digging at Robert’s heart, despite his original intent to just get through the ordeal of having a troll guest. A great tale for Kile to tell about humans upon his return had somehow become very appealing in the last twenty-four hours for Robert, and he didn’t want to be the one to curtail it.
When they were done speaking, Rob tucked Kile into bed in a manner of speaking. Even though the nights were still cool, he opened the window some because the little troll had asked to be able to smell the night smells. The blinds were closed though and every light upstairs that could be, including the little built-in LED night-light in the hallway, was either turned off or covered up. With that, the two went to bed a little early, just before Mom returned, Robert dreading what would happen the next day in third grade at school once Kile made an appearance as Little Ricky.
Once mom came upstairs, stepping quietly, she passed Robert’s room with a momentary pause. It only slightly woke him and he attempted to stay asleep, or at least appear that way, as best as he could. Then she went into Ricky’s room. She stood there watching the figure breathing under a few clothes piled onto Kile’s back. It was lucky that she didn’t try to climb into the manufactured cave structure to say goodnight because Kile had not practiced well enough with his glimmer that it maintained while he slept. She would have gotten a very rude awakening if she had. But when she was done, smiled and gave a little chortle, she went back to Robert’s room. She gave him a small peck on the forehead and whispered that she loved him and thanked him for watching out for Ricky. Robert’s heart twinged a bit at that, wondering what she’d say if she knew where Ricky really was. And then she went to bed herself.
Sometimes, a little while away from the boys on a drive or a walk was all that was needed to gain a little perspective. Mom slept soundly that night.