Troll Brother

by P. Edward Auman

  ~~~

  Robert had been eyeing Kile the whole time following their conversation, but the little troll seemed to be intentionally hovering around Mrs. Davis just so Rob couldn’t ask him any more questions. So they did not speak further except to comment on some of the animals in the display or for Kile to ask Mrs. D some questions, particularly about animals from other continents. It wasn’t a surprise then, when the little imp tried to casually disappear around the corner of one of the souvenir carts during lunch.

  They’d all been slurping at icecream cones that Mrs. Davis had bought for everyone, including Robert after they’d eaten their sack lunches. Kile had been sitting up on top of the picnic table in the concession area just as Rob had, bum on top and feet on the bench. He’d hunched over and seemed oddly quiet while he chewed his favorite PBJ sandwich. And then as Mrs. D pulled out a map and the papers they were to mark as they learned things about the animals, Kile slipped off quickly and stealthily from the table and snuck away.

  Rob was slightly taken aback. He’d thought at first maybe Kile had used a shimmer spell to get away. That might have been easier. But, no. He’d just wanted to look like a little kid getting into trouble. And that was just what Robert suspected. He hopped down and tried to move quickly too.

  “Hurry back,” Mrs. Davis called, barely looking up from the map with the other three kids huddled around her discussing where they saw the antelopes and how soon they might get to see the penguins.

  After scooting around the souvenirs and down the path, Robert negotiated around a small family with strollers and hurried around a corner that moved from giraffes to the monkey and apes area. There was Kile standing near the zookeeper’s entrance to an exterior, globe-shaped cage with what looked like several small monkeys. The sign on the rail next to the display said in large block letters Rob noticed as he passed trying to make a grab for Kile, “Ring-Tailed Lemurs” and “Madagascar.”

  But it was too late. Kile had waved his hand like he was hypnotizing or using a mind trick on the Lemurs. Except nothing happened to them. The cage door unlatched and swung open instead.

  For a moment, a very short moment, as Robert yelled “No!” the lemurs just turned and looked at the door and Kile. One cocked its head slightly considering while another bobbed his. And then the rush came.

  Lemurs don’t actually spend as much time in the trees as monkeys and other primates, since they aren’t really monkeys, Robert learned. Some did drop from where they were perched, but they all raced across the floor of the cage and out the door within a couple seconds of each other. A few climbed the guard rail and up and over Kile, while others just shot straight through or under it in the gaps. Robert would later swear that one of them paused on Kile’s shoulder just long enough for them to look at each other, nod and then pat the troll on his head before scurrying off.

  From there the lemurs mostly carried on in a pack, but they stopped to check out just about every human before making for cover among the trees. One Lemur stood on its hind legs and took an icecream cone from a gentleman.

  Another ran up to a toddler strapped into a stroller. While the baby’s mother screamed and pathetically kicked her shoe at the creature, it hacked at her, turned about and urinated right on the child’s lap. The babe yelled, “Bad Monkey!” and kicked his little shoes about violently before the lemur hopped off and followed the rest of its gang.

  A third lemur made a mad dash up a hill on the paved walk, looking very much like a house cat chasing a mouse. And then it saw a trio of staff in their khaki colored clothes and audacious large-brimmed hats and it stopped mid-stride, jumped and turned itself about, reversing course straight back at Robert and Kile.

  As the little thing ran towards the boys it made eye contact with Kile and even mid-gallop seemed to bob its head. Rob looked quickly at Kile who was standing watching the scene, one hand still hanging on the top iron bar of the guard rail, smiling. He also nodded and grinned as the critter ran past. The zookeeps came huffing and puffing down the hill past them intent on catching that lemur particularly.

  More yells, more running and more staff from the zoo could be heard all around. Robert snatched Kile’s shirtsleeve and quickly marched him away from the scene down one of the branching pathways that seemed to have appealed to the least number of lemurs. Down the path a couple hundred yards he spied a bench seat and strode up to it huffing and puffing some himself. He practically threw Kile into the seat, much heavier than Ricky though he was.

  “What the? What? HOW!?” Robert said pacing in front of the troll. “What the what, Kile?! Why did you do that?”

  “I told you,” he smiled pleasantly, “I’m going to break them all out.”

  “Dude!” Robert shouted in frustration. “You can’t do that! What if you’d let out the wolves first? Or…or…the mountain lion? You could have killed someone!”

  Kile realized he was in some serious trouble. From his perspective it reminded him of the once or twice he had been called to the throne room as “audience” to King Karapace for one…misunderstanding or another. He started wringing his hands together and rolled his lowered eyes back and forth.

  “They would not hurt, Robbie,” he said in softened tones.

  “Don’t call me that! You idiot!” Robert yelled. His thoughts hadn’t returned to clarity yet so he didn’t hold back his feelings either. “You are a menace! You seriously could have killed someone!”

  “No, no!” Kile pleaded with his palms held out before him. “They would not hurt, Robert. I tell them to run free and get away.”

  “Kile,” Rob said, raising an index finger right up to the troll’s nose and breathing heavily, “a mountain lion would probably go straight to eating that little kid instead of just peeing on him!”

  “Never!” Kile looked shocked. “I would not let it do that! I would tell it to leave humans alone!”

  Robert returned to pacing trying to organize his thoughts and regain his cool a little. Kile seemed to wiggle his bum and legs in an effort to slide off the bench and stand up. Rob’s finger whipped out and pointed at him so quickly the little troll thought he almost heard the sound of a whip cracked, and he scooted back into the base of the bench seat.

  Finally Rob stopped and folded his arms glaring at the troll. “You may not understand this Kile, but humans don’t talk to animals. In fact, all-in-all we’re not on particularly good terms with most of the ones here in the zoo. And we certainly can’t trust that they will just leave us alone!”

  Kile’s eyes actually seemed to be welling up tears as he looked into Robert’s face. He hadn’t meant to make Rob so upset. He certainly didn’t want anyone to get hurt. But he thought he was teaching the humans, especially Robert, the right thing to do for the animals. Could it be that what he’d known in his little cavern city of Machsa just didn’t apply in the outside world at all?

  Robert sat down next to him and blew out a long sigh. It was more of an attempt to stop his racing heart than to show any sort of exasperation, but that came across well too.

  “Kile…” he began slowly. “While you’re here you have to live by our rules. Okay? You’ve got to do what I tell you to do, and you can’t fight against me. Got it?”

  The troll frowned but nodded, eyes still shining.

  “These animals and humans just don’t mix very well.”

  Kile was slow in responding because he didn’t know if it was okay to speak again. But slowly, as he watched Rob’s reaction, he asked, “Is that why humans put them in cages?”

  Robert glanced at him, his own eyes tearing somewhat from his frustration. “No. No, not really.”

  “Then why do you make them live in a way that they don’t like?” the sheepish little troll voice asked sincerely.

  Looking down at his hands, Robert struggled to come up with an answer. “Because we like them, I guess. We want to learn about them.”

  Kile’s head began nodding as
he listened. Robert continued in a resigned voice.

  “But that doesn’t mean we can be friends with them like you do. We… don’t understand them like you do I guess.”

  Kile slowly gazed about. They were near the aviary section and there were several Macaws in an outside cage cocking their heads and watching him. At the moment, they stayed silent, perhaps listening to what Robert had to tell the troll.

  “And…sometimes, I guess, If we don’t understand something, we’re both amazed by it…and scared of it.”

  Kile nodded again. Then turning slightly on the bench so he could look at Robert, he asked, “Do humans understand trolls now?”

  Robert snickered, sniffling slightly at his tears and runny nose. “No, Kile. I think I’m probably the only human on earth that even knows one.”

  Kile smiled too and shook his head. “You might be the only human here that knows one. But I know other clans that sometimes talk with humans. …But I don’t think they understand trolls very well.”

  “No. Probably not,” Rob replied.

  Kile put his hand on Rob’s arm. “Does that mean you are scared of trolls too?”

  Robert laughed out loud again at that. “I think it’s pretty safe to say that trolls would scare the living bejeebers out of most humans, Kile.”

  “Are you scared of Kile?”

  “No. No, I’m not. But… Dronosh…and some of the others kinda scare me.”

  “Is that why you did not want me to come home with you?” the troll asked quietly.

  Robert shook his head, but not because he meant to answer in the negative. He just wasn’t sure what to say. He made an attempt anyway, using his sleeve to wipe away the last of the tears.

  “I guess I just didn’t want things to change. I’m scared Ricky won’t ever come back. I’m scared Mom would figure out what we did and kill me for letting Ricky stay to live in a cave. I think… I might be scared I’m doing the wrong thing.”

  Kile rubbed his closed lips with the side of his palm while he considered.

  “That is probably why trolls and humans used to fight, I think,” he finally said.

  Rob looked at Kile in a new light. He was becoming more of a school mate, or a brother, than a novelty odd creature to keep hidden than ever before.

  “You might be right,” Rob replied.

  “I was supposed to find out if Machsa trolls could be friends with Maple Springs humans now that you’ve grown so big in the valley. The queen was hoping humans had changed in the last few hundred years, with all your technology and schools. But I think maybe we can’t yet.”

  “Yeah…” Rob sniffed one last time. “Probably not quite yet.”

  They looked at each other for a moment, smiling, knowing that their friendship, regardless of how strong it was becoming, probably needed to continue to remain a secret. Even after Ricky and Kile traded back again. They sat watching the birds, who after seemingly hearing everything Robert had to say on the matter, went back to their regular squawking and racket.

  Suddenly, Mrs. Davis and three third-graders came hustling down the path in a flurry.

  “There you are!” she breathed on them once she’d gotten close. “I was worried you got all caught up in that non-sense!”

  Robert and Kile shared a quick smile. “What non-sense, Mrs. Davis?”

  “Wow! Dude!” said one of the trio of kids, who Rob thought was named Billy. “You totally missed it! Somehow the monkeys got out of their cage and swarmed the park!”

  “They’re lemurs, William,” Mrs. Davis tutted. “Anyway, it’s time for us to start heading back towards the bus. C’mon! Up and at them, lazy bones.”

  “Hey Mrs. Davis,” said the girl in their group, “What if one of the lemurs hides on the bus? Do we have to give it back?”

  “Of course we would,” Mrs. D said in her how-can-you-be-so-silly grown up voice.

  “Aw…!” Billy added. “I was hoping we could keep one as a school mascot!”

  “Sure! And where would they keep him? In Mrs. Haversham’s classroom I suppose? It wouldn’t be much different than the kids, I suppose.”

  Kile and Robert who were following a little behind turned and giggled at each other quietly. Kile reached up and patted Rob on the back, and Rob in turn patted Kile on the head.

  During the bus ride home, most of the children, and Kile too, had fallen asleep within two miles of freeway travel. It had been a long day for everyone it seemed.