~~~
Kile finally arrived near dark. Mom and Robert had already eaten, and by the smacking of lips it appeared the little troll had on the way back down the mountain too. Neither human wanted to ask exactly what it was he’d had but welcomed him back.
“How’s Little Ricky, then?” Mom asked immediately.
“He is having fun! The queen’s court is teaching him all kinds of magic and he understands it!” Kile said. “Can I have a Peanut Butter sandwich? …With the cocoa spread Robbie likes?”
Mom replied a little hesitantly before getting out the bread, jelly and spread, “Sure. Sure, Kile. But what does that mean? Is he going to come home soon?”
Kile was not using glimmer and so both Robert and Mom watched him work to get his bottom up on a kitchen chair since it was too high for his legs. He grunted as he sat back and put his two broad hands on the table cloth. “Mmm, we are wondering, can we keep the trade for two months?”
“Two months?!” Mom breathed. She flapped the sandwich bag and knife down on the counter and then returned to the table to sit down. “Why so long? The longest I ever spent with the sprites was overnight. My parents would have killed me if I’d asked them to spend more than a night at a friend’s house especially if they don’t know the parents.”
Mom wagged her head a moment before trying to rejoin the conversation. “I don’t even know how I got away with it the few times I did without my Mom wanting to meet Willy’s parents to be honest with you. And you want me to leave him with trolls for two whole months!? …Uh, no offense, Kile.”
Kile beamed at her. “I’m not offended. …Is it okay if I have that sandwich?”
“Sheesh dude,” Robert said, shaking his head and displaying a sideways smirk. “You don’t know how to deal with women very well, do you?”
Mom snickered and then laughed. She patted Rob on the shoulder, proud of her son trying to act so much like his father. “Yes, I’ll make it,” she answered getting up from the table.
“Mmmm…no. Not really,” Kile responded. “The lady trolls are all part of the Queen’s Court and don’t talk to the boy trolls very much. I think they might not be allowed to. But…they also make use nervous.”
“Nervous?” Robert asked.
“Yeah,” the troll replied, twiddling some paper and looking up occasionally to smile at Rob, apparently trying to ensure the humans knew he was happy to converse with them despite his edginess. “Boy trolls don’t like to be around girl trolls very much because they are so much better than us.”
“Wha?!” Rob sputtered.
Mrs. Johansson turned from spreading the cocoa spread, nearly done with a few sandwiches to share amongst them. “Kile, do you mean you’re intimidated?”
“Kile doesn’t know what that means,” the troll said looking down at his feet swinging off his chair. He was resorting back to his broken English in his frustration or nervousness.
“Well, sweety,” she said, as she handed both boys a cocoa hazel-nut spread and jelly sandwich. “It means that you’re not comfortable around someone because you think they are better, or smarter…or that they may embarrass you.”
Kile nodded his head, looking briefly up at Mrs. Johansson once and then back down at his feet. “Yes. Boy trolls are intim… What is it?”
“Intimidated,” Mom replied. “And it’s okay if you are. But you shouldn’t be. Everyone’s equal and everyone has something unique to add.”
“Oh!” cried the little troll, raising an index finger and smiling at Mrs. Johansson. “That sounds like Queen Isabel! That’s why she said she wanted me to learn and try to remember some magics while I get older.”
“I see.”
Rob interjected, “But why do you think girl trolls are better anyway?”
“Mmmm,” Kile said pleasantly around his first bite of sandwich. The next few lines were somewhat mumbled with the sticky pleasure of a peanut-buttery mouthful. “Well, girl trolls don’t keep growing.”
Mom nodded and Robert agreed that he’d seen that with the Queen and her escorts at the feast they shared.
“So…you know. They don’t get stupid.”
“Oh, dear. Kile, you’re not stupid,” Mom said, trying to reassure the little troll.
“That’s because I’m not that old yet!” Kile replied. He looked at Mrs. Johansson with glistening eyes. Then he remembered himself and tried to avert his gaze from her. It was as though he acknowledge her as the alpha-female of the Johansson tribe, so to speak. “When I get bigger, my brain will get smaller. I won’t be as smart anymore. AAANNNDD! I won’t be able to do magic anymore.”
“Well, it sounds like your Queen doesn’t think that it has to happen. Why would she be trying to teach you more magic, then?” Mom soothed him. Rob noticed she’d placed her hand on his shoulder, much the same way she might to him or to Little Ricky.
“Yes,” Kile nodded, somewhat unconvincingly. “She thinks she can help me re… return? She thinks she can help me keep my smarts and my magic.”
“Do you mean ‘retain’ your magic?” Mom smiled.
“Yes!” Kile was excited again. He liked talking to Mrs. Johansson. She had a way of teaching him things that was nice, unlike the head troll matron that taught the queen’s court magic. “She thinks I can retain it.”
“There ya go then,” Rob spoke up. “Girl and boy trolls can both do the same thing! So…maybe you could teach me some magic…you know. Since Ricky gets to learn some.”
Kile just shrugged. He didn’t seem very thrilled to try to teach Rob anything.
“Robert, don’t push. Maybe when it comes to trolls, boys and girls just are different. I’m sure Kile will share what he can with you if you give him time.”
Mom eyed Kile until he looked up at her bashfully for a moment and then gave him a wink. Kile himself began to wonder if Mrs. Johansson had some skill with magic she learned from the sprites that she wasn’t sharing. He decided he might need to be careful around her for more than just one reason, if she should happen to know more about the different races of faeries than she let on.
“So, tell me. Is Ricky really going to be comfortable staying with the rest of the trolls all that time?” Mom asked.
“Oh yes,” Kile nodded vigorously. “He’s having a very good time. I ate at a feast with the King and Queen again and he was there. He showed her several lesser magics he had learned already and was very excited. I don’t even think he ate any of the roasted rabbits he talked so much!”
“Ewe,” Rob said. “Who could blame him.”
“Rabbit is actually pretty good, Robbie. Just because I don’t make it doesn’t me you should shoot the idea down right away.”
“I suppose the sprites fed that too you,” Rob grumbled slightly.
“No, actually it’s something GG used to make a lot whenever we visited her house while we lived in Marshalltown.”
Mom seemed to entirely miss the bit about her secret of the sprites.
“Well, I guess we just wait then,” Mom said.
“Yes, wait. Oh! And we can send messages!”
“Really?” Mom said smiling. “That’s perfect. It will be like having a penpal, or writing to our exchange student son living in another country or something. Although, now-a-days we would just normally use the internet to message or video call each other. But that will work.”
Unsure of what it would mean in the context, Kile retained the information about the Queen’s little internet-connected “pad” to himself for the time being. Instead the group finished off their late evening second meal and then headed to bed. They still had four days of school left before Summer and Mom intended that Kile be there to sit in as Little Ricky for all four days.
Troll Brother Page 29