The Curse of Greg

by Chris Rylander

  “STONEY UNQUALIFIED ACQUIRE COMPANIONS.”

  “We like you, Stoney,” Ari said. “Don’t we?”

  “Oh, yeah, for sure,” I said.

  “Heh, Fluffy and I could become wrestling buddies,” Glam said.

  “Ye gent couldst becometh thyne wondrous companion merely a fortnight’s watch!” Lake added.

  “FABRICATION,” Stoney said. “PROPAGANDA.”

  “We’re not like the Elves that held you captive,” I said. “We don’t lie . . . well, not as much, anyway . . .”

  “INVENTIONS CONCEAL LIES TO MANUFACTURE AUXILIARY FALSEHOODS.”

  “Come with us,” Ari said. “We can show you a better life than they did.”

  “STONEY REPUDIATES INCARCERATION,” he said, his already thundering voice rising again. “RENOUNCES MISERY REPLICATION.”

  “We won’t hold you prisoner the way the Elves did,” I said.

  “DENIAL!”

  “We have rocks in Chicago,” Ari said. “Lots of rare rocks and gems.”

  “PRECISE WHEREABOUTS?”

  Now he seemed interested.

  “Uh, the, uh . . . the Field Museum!” I said, suddenly remembering a Thursday field trip the PEE had taken there last year. “They have a whole exhibit there. Called, umm . . . the, uhh . . .”

  “Grainger Hall of Gems,” Froggy filled in.

  “We will take you there to see them,” I said. “Diamonds, rubies, emeralds. Other rare rocks. Lots of them! We’ll take you.”

  “FICTION,” Stoney said.

  Then he turned and started trudging back up the hill toward his rock outcropping. I was about to call after him to say it wasn’t a lie, but then I realized it was. It was a lie. There was no way we could just take a huge Rock Troll to a city museum and not cause total pandemonium.

  “You’re right, it was a lie,” I said, walking after him. “But I didn’t mean to. I want to take you there, but we can’t.”

  “WHY?”

  “Well . . . um . . .”

  “STONEY PRESENCE DISTASTEFUL,” he said, not stopping.

  “Wait, please!” I said, running to keep up with his huge steps. “That’s not it . . . it’s just complicated. Look, I know how you feel. For a long time I had just one friend. Or I thought I did, but it turned out he wasn’t really my friend at all. So I was alone just like you for years.”

  He stopped but didn’t turn around.

  “LIE,” he said.

  “No!” I pleaded. “I really was . . . well, okay, so yeah, I guess I had my dad but he wasn’t around as often as I wanted and . . .”

  I sputtered out, realizing again that he was right. Even if you didn’t count my dad, you had to count Edwin. Being alone is about how you feel in the moment. Whether Edwin was or wasn’t my real friend all along didn’t matter. I had thought he was and so I truly never felt alone in the way that Stoney surely must now. Plus, I think part of me knew deep down that in spite of how everything ended between us, there was a time when Edwin and I truly were friends. Maybe that was easy to overlook after everything that had happened, but I’d only be lying to myself—and Stoney in the process.

  What was this thing? A walking, talking, rock lie detector?

  “Okay, but you won’t be alone if you come back with us,” I said. “That’s not a lie and you know it. Since we’ll be there with you. Plus, I promise we will go outside and collect rocks for you every day. They may not all be rare, but we will do our best.”

  Stoney hesitated, still just standing there halfway up the mountain, but also still not looking back at me either. Then he shrugged one of his massive stonelike shoulders.

  “STONEY RETAINS ABUNDANCE COMMON IGNE-OUS ROCKS,” he said. “STONEY COVETS EXTRAOR-DINARY MINERAL.”

  “What extraordinary mineral?”

  “ANTECEDENT ELVEN SUBJUGATOR HOLD DIS-COURSE ASSOCIATED RECIDIVIST CONCERNING,” he said, finally turning around. “SCARCEST MINERAL. SOLITARY. ENDANGERED. UNIQUE. PURPLE GLEAMING MINERAL. RED SHIMMERING MINERAL. GREEN GLISTENING MINERAL. ORANGE SPARKLY MINERAL. VOLUMINOUS HUES. LUMINOSITY. ONE ONLY. ONLY ONE.”

  “Where is it?” I asked, not really understanding half of what he was saying—the combination of his broken grammar and extensive vocabulary making his speech like a code to decipher. “We can help you find it.”

  “STONEY PINPOINT,” he said. “LOCALITY DIAGRAM.”

  He pointed at his head.

  “You have a map memorized?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, let’s go get it, then!” I said.

  “DISTANT,” Stoney said. “ISOLATED. STONEY PLUM-MET SALINE TOMB.”

  Saline tomb? As I stood there trying to figure out what exactly he meant, Stoney turned to start back up the hill again.

  “You want the truth, Stoney?” I yelled after him.

  He spun around quickly like a dog that had just heard the word treat.*

  “TRUTH!” Stoney bellowed excitedly.

  “Here’s the truth,” I said firmly, staring right into his all-black shining eyes. “Others like us will come here to destroy you. That’s a fact. I don’t like it and don’t want them to, but it will happen. I won’t lie to you. But. Come with us, back to Chicago, and give us a chance to be your real friends. I won’t let anything harm you to the best of my ability. Come with us; listen to what our leaders have to say. If, after a few days, you don’t want to stay with us anymore, then I promise. Promise. Promise that we will let you leave. I will break you out myself if I have to. You have my word. This is the truth. The only truth I really know is what I know I will do.”

  Pretty corny, Greggdroule, the Bloodletter said. That’s some grade-A-Wisconsin-quality cheese right there.

  I ignored the ax and kept staring at Stoney. He gazed right back for several seconds. Then he dropped to one knee and leaned forward so his huge, craggy nose (which was the size of my whole head) was just inches from my own. I did everything in my power to stay firm and not back away. His hot exhales blasted my face with a surprisingly fresh and earthy pine scent.

  I’d never seen a stare quite like Stoney’s.

  He didn’t blink. Not once. And without irises or white parts to his eyes (they were literally glistening pools of pure black), I couldn’t tell what they were doing or where they were looking or what they were searching for. His gaze opened me up like a bad surgeon looking for something he wasn’t sure was there.

  No, the Bloodletter said. He’s just a dumb Troll. It’s like you’re having a staring contest with a crab.

  But I knew that wasn’t true. Sure, Stoney didn’t exactly strike me as someone who would want to get into the nuances of astrophysics with you. But he also didn’t seem nearly as stupid as the old Separate Earth texts attested. His vocabulary, for one thing, probably surpassed that of even the brightest college students. Also, his insistence on all things truthful (though perhaps a bit naïve) spoke of great emotional intelligence at the very least.

  Finally, the Rock Troll nodded and stood back to full height.

  “ACCEPTABLE,” he said. “STONEY ACCOMPANY.”

  Then he brushed past me and started walking back toward the clearing where my friends were quietly celebrating. But as I followed him down the path, I realized that convincing him to come with us without violence was just the first phase of a successful MPM. And maybe even the easy part this time around.

  Because of rule two: Don’t make a scene.

  How in the world could we possibly transport a twelve-foot-by-ten-foot, thousand-pound, walking, talking pile of rocks two hundred miles back to Chicago with nothing but a small minivan and a sweaty, Swiss cake roll–eating driver named Boz without making a scene?

  CHAPTER 11

  We Learn That Scooping Poop Could Make Us All Rich

  Stealing is wrong.

  I know that. You know that. We all kno
w that. But sometimes what’s wrong is the right thing to do. Does that make sense or does it merely sound like a desperate attempt to rationalize a guilty conscience?

  Well, either way it doesn’t matter because the fact is we stole a semitruck.

  But we had to. The minivan clearly wasn’t going to work. Why they sent us in a minivan in the first place still baffles me—though it surely had something to do with their very Dwarven assumption that we’d fail to befriend the giant monster stalking the woods.

  Our attempts to get a Rock Troll home started with Boz suggesting we simply strap Stoney to the roof of the van like a canoe or something. Which, though we were all skeptical, Stoney was game for, and so we gave it a try anyway. A few minutes later we were looking at a crushed, smoking heap of a gray minivan with four flat tires, no inside cabin, and a very sheepish-looking Rock Troll lying on top of it.

  Then I suggested that we find a fan bus full of Milwaukee Brewers fans headed to Chicago for tomorrow’s Cubs game. Because surely if we threw a Brewers jersey and hat on the hulking Rock Troll, he’d fit right in among the other Brewers fans on the bus. But nobody else was much of a baseball fan and so they didn’t really get on board, even after I assured them that there were definitely Brewers jerseys large enough to fit a thousand-pound Rock Troll.

  And so it ended with Boz, Glam, and Ari walking to a truck stop a few miles down the road, while Lake, Froggy, and I kept Stoney company in the woods and out of view. A few hours later (a few hours filled with Stoney telling us all about different kinds of rocks he had owned or wanted to own) a massive eighteen-wheel semitruck came barreling down the two-lane rural highway, horn blaring.

  I didn’t know how they’d stolen it, or from who, and frankly I didn’t want to know.

  The point is: it worked. The truck was built to withstand carrying cargo as large and heavy as a Rock Troll. We opened the back and, with Stoney’s much-needed help, ditched enough of the old cargo (massive boxes filled with bottles of some beverage called Spotted Cow) onto the side of the road to make room for all of us.

  Boz flawlessly drove the huge machine back to Chicago like he’d been moonlighting as a truck driver since he was ten.

  During the three-hour drive, it quickly became obvious that Stoney hadn’t had a friend to talk to in a long time—perhaps ever. Because he had a lot of pent-up stories to tell. Despite struggling with syntax, and using words so big we often had to think about them for a bit before getting what he meant, Stoney spent the entire time breathlessly telling us all sorts of rock-related stories.

  There was the time he found a pointy rock that he used to scratch his back.

  And the time he tripped over a rock but couldn’t get mad at it because, you know, it was a rock.

  And then there was the time he found a huge diamond the size of a baseball but threw it away because to him, “EXCREMENT DIAMOND. DIAMOND FECES MINERAL.”

  And of course we can’t ever forget about the time he found a buried stash of gold bars. “DELECTABLE,” was his comment on that.

  Yeah, so it turned out part of why Stoney loved rocks so much was because he ate them. Not all of them, though. We couldn’t really get to the bottom of which ones he ate and which ones he merely collected, but it seemed to have something to do with how soft they were, what he referred to as a “MOHS SCALE RATING” or a measurement in “VICKERS UNITS.” But regardless, we definitely discovered that gold was his favorite food. And also that when he finished digesting rocks, they, uh, came out the other end as diamonds.

  Stoney ate rocks and pooped diamonds.

  I couldn’t make this stuff up.

  But more than all that, he really wanted to talk about the special rock he’d mentioned earlier. The one he had heard his Elven masters talking about. The rarest rock in the world.

  “ROCK ONE,” he said for the tenth time—he was clearly obsessed with this stone that he referred to as Rock One. “STONEY PROCURE. FORTHCOMING. STONEY DETECT ROCK ONE. STONEY DISCERN ROCK ONE WHEREABOUTS. DISCOVERY ABSTEMIOUSLY IMMINENT.”

  Through all his stories, I had to shut out the Bloodletter’s insistent voice.

  Just cleave this thing here and now, Greggdroule. My blade can pierce his skin. Do it now before it’s too late. You don’t know these things like I do. You never saw Separate Earth like I did. You can’t trust it. He will only cause destruction in the end.

  I did my best to ignore it. To pretend it couldn’t be right. But the Bloodletter had a point: The ax had seen probably tons of Rock Trolls in its thousands and thousands of years of existence. It should know more about them and their nature than I did. At the same time, perception can distort reality. If Separate Earth Dwarves and their weapons were all told from day one to think only one thing about Rock Trolls, then how were they ever supposed to see past that?

  Now that we had a real, live Rock Troll with us, I hoped Stoney could change these preconceived notions.

  By the time we got back to Chicago, and successfully snuck our new Rock Troll friend into the Underground, none of us ever wanted to see or hear about another rock or stone or gem or mineral ever again. But it had been sort of fun watching this massive Troll (who we’d all assumed was a murderous, raging beast) chat excitedly with his new “CONSOCIATES” about rocks.

  But for now, I only hoped that the other Dwarves in the Underground would see Stoney the same way we did. That they would see past what they thought they knew about Rock Trolls. Because I had made a promise to Stoney. To protect him and keep him happy, and not harm him the way the Elves had.

  And I intended to keep that promise no matter what.

  CHAPTER 12

  I Learn the Subtle Art of Name-Dropping

  I was right to have been worried.

  Stoney’s reception in the Underground was, well, less than welcoming. As he lumbered along with me, Ari, and two armed guards through the halls toward a large chamber that was to be his room, almost every Dwarf we passed eyed him warily. Or crossed over to the other side of the hallway, as far from him as they could get.

  Some even said stuff like:

  “Ugh, I can’t believe the Council would allow this.”

  “They better not be keeping that thing near my quarters.”

  “Stupid rock eater.”

  Stoney, to his credit, either ignored them or just let it roll off his back. Because he remained nothing but calm and courteous. Maybe a little nervous, but I knew he trusted me and so he listened to my every request and stayed composed.

  The room they had found for Stoney used to be an armory. Now it was an empty chamber with high ceilings that dripped cold water sporadically and had no furniture of any kind. There was enough space for him to lie down and pace a few steps this way and that. A trough had been set in the corner for his waste (diamonds, in case you forgot), and a large pile of rocks (his food, I assumed) was heaped into another corner of the room.

  At the sight of his bare, uninviting quarters, my heart sank.

  “This is, uh, your room,” I said. “It’s, um, not much, but . . .”

  Stoney pushed past me and looked around the unadorned cavern with dripping walls. Then he shuddered a few times and I thought for a second we were about to get squashed like naïve, overly trusting bugs (proving the Bloodletter had been right all along). But then he spun around with that twisted, awkward stone smile on his face.

  “STONEY PROPRIETOR?” he said.

  He gestured around him.

  “Yes, Stoney,” Ari said. “This is your room.”

  “MAGNIFICENT!” he boomed. “STONEY ACCOMMO-DATIONS SANS MANACLES!”

  “Manacles?” I said.

  “Handcuffs or restraints,” Ari said. “The Elves must have made him sleep chained up when they weren’t using him as a mindless weapon.”

  “STONEY SLUMBER UNRESTRAINED!”

  One of the guards took a step back, looking nervous.<
br />
  “I’m glad you like it, Stoney,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Say, uh, guys?” the guard said. “Can you let me know when you’re ready to go so I can lock up?”

  “What do you mean lock up?” I asked.

  The guard scoffed.

  “Hey, kid, you can’t possibly think we’re just going to let this thing roam the Underground freely, can you?” he said.

  “But I promised him,” I said, clenching my jaw so hard it felt like my molars might crack in half.

  “I don’t care,” the guard said. “That’s between you and him. I got my orders. Orders are orders.”

  Stoney growled.

  “GREG VERBAL CONTRACT!” he bellowed. “STONEY AUTONOMOUS!”

  “I know, I know,” I said to him. “And I meant it. I did. I will take care of this.”

  Stoney was heaving in anger. He looked seconds from throwing a tantrum, which could have easily caved in the entire chamber.

  “I promise. I’ll take care of it right now,” I said. “You trust me, right?”

  Stoney nodded.

  “And I’ll stay,” Ari said. “I’ll stay here with him while you go talk to Dunmor.”

  I shot her an appreciative smile.

  “Is that okay, Stoney?” I asked.

  Stoney nodded again.

  “Okay, fine,” I said to the guard. “Do what you gotta do. I’m going to go fix this.”

  “Okay, sure, kid, whatever,” the guard said as he followed me out of Stoney’s chamber.

  The loud echo of the door’s lock clacking into place chased me down the hallway.

  * * *

  – –

  It was probably a little stupid to think I could just show up at the office of the Council Alderman (basically the president of all Dwarves) unannounced and expect to get an immediate meeting, even considering my history with him.

  So I shouldn’t have been surprised to be turned away by his outer security detail several times. I was about ready to give up when one of Dunmor’s assistants happened to be exiting the offices and saw me standing there, looking dejected.