Hand Me Downs

by Maria Haskins

  Hand Me Downs

  Maria Haskins

  Late Cretaceous/Giganotosaurus

  January 1, 2019 Volume 9 No 3

  Grandma’s Hand Me Downs

  by

  Maria Haskins

  Most days, I love being a troll. Most days I love dancing. Most days I love being me.

  Today is not one of those days.

  Having to wear a troll costume for the spring ballet recital when you actually are a troll is pretty bad, but that's not the worst of it. The worst of it is that the costume my dance instructor Marie gives me has a tail.

  A tail.

  Whatever you think you know, whatever you've seen or read in movies or books, trolls do not have tails. Yet, there it is–two feet of brown velvet rope finished with a black tassel, dangling from the hem of the costume. Even without the tail, the outfit would be hideous: a patchwork dress, its rough fabric dyed a muddy, mixed shade of beige and dark green.

  "Not even fit for a bridge troll." That's what Grandma would say if she saw it, and she'd be right.

  "I thought we were getting rid of the tail," I say, unwilling to take the garment from Marie's outstretched hand.

  "I know we talked about that, but the tail adds a bit of playful, trollish fun, don't you think?"

  She smiles. I feel like snarling, but what can I do? I have nothing else to wear, and Marie pulled some strings with the ballet people she knows to get me this costume. She even got a seamstress to adjust it for me (not all dancers are troll-sized, after all). The recital is in just over a week, and if I do well, my performance could help me get into the high school dance academy program next semester.

  It's what I've worked so hard for these last few years, enduring aching muscles, sore feet, bruised toes. Lately, I've also had to endure Marie's choreography for this performance, tailormade to showcase my "particular talents," as she puts it, meaning it requires a lot of strength and stamina, but not much finesse. I've even endured her choice of music, Edward Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Ibsen's play "Peer Gynt." I didn't say no, though I'd rather drop a boulder on my toe than dance to that fake troll music.

  I've endured it all, but I don't know if I can endure that tail.

  I stare at the costume, at Marie, at her smile and then I do what I always do: I try to make the best of it. I take the costume. I say thank you. I put the hideous thing away in my backpack. But even as I do these things, a hot swirl of anger kindles inside me, and I know a troll-rage is brewing in my gut. The fierce magic crackles through my bones, from the top of my very large head and the tip of my very long nose, all the way down to my extra large, extra wide feet. I try not to let it show, but it's no easy thing to keep contained.

  Normally, we don't look like monsters. We're just tall and heavy and strong, with mottled grey skin, but in the grip of a troll-rage...that's a different story. Most troll-magic changes how and what people see, and a troll-rage changes how others see us. It makes a troll's mouth and eyes look terrifyingly huge, makes our teeth look like fangs, and turns our voices into a roar.

  Dad says trolls shouldn't use their magic around humans at all—it's too frightening for them, too dangerous for us, which is why, here at dance class, I do what mom and dad have taught me to do ever since I was a toddler. I breathe deep and do my best to gather up the fraying shreds of rage-magic inside me, balling it all up so it won't show on the outside.

  "Are you OK, Tilda?" Marie asks, concerned, probably because I haven't moved, even though my music is already playing.

  I nod, even though I'm not OK at all, and I begin to dance. With every step and turn I remember the last time I danced to this awful music by Grieg. That time, I was five years old and my dance group at the rec-center danced with tails of paper pinned to our behinds. Seven years later, I still remember it vividly: how everyone else happily stomped around on stage, wagging their tails, pretending to be trolls, while I, the only real troll there, made the best of it the only way I knew how: dancing my heart out, while mom and dad watched, mortified, from the audience.

  I dance my heart out today, too, spinning, leaping, turning, through the routine. Nothing can stop me, not even a troll-rage. Marie taps her foot in time with the music, calling out, "Make it more trollish!" I wonder how it can be more "trollish" if I'm not enough as I am: a big-boned, long-limbed, amber-eyed, sweaty troll, sizzling with suppressed troll-rage.

  Finally, the music stops. I look at myself in the mirrored wall. I see my perfect posture, my perfectly positioned arms and feet, the frizzy blonde hair escaping the ponytail. Marie nods approvingly, meaning I did OK. I should hope so. By now, I know this routine backwards and forwards, but all I can think about is how much I despise that tail and Grieg's music.

  I wish I had another costume to wear. I wish Marie had picked some other music for me, but it's too late for that.

  Later, I think, because that's what I always tell myself. When I'm older. When I'm a real dancer. When I get into the Academy. Then, I'll be able to dance the way I want.

  Right now, that dream seems faraway and futile.

  "Did you invite your parents to the recital yet?" Marie asks. "I didn't see them on the list."

  I clear my throat.

  "You know...they're really busy. Mom's a doctor and she works nights and stuff, and dad works all sorts of strange hours on his TV-shows. They might not be able to come."

  Marie smiles.

  "Surely they'll take time off for this?"

  Marie smiles a lot, and it's the kind of smile that wills you to smile in return, and makes you feel guilty if you don't.

  "I'll ask again." I say, stretching my lips into what I hope is a smile before I sit down on the floor with the other kids.

  "You OK, Tilda?" someone asks, and I nod, feeling the last of my troll-rage escape like a puff of hot steam when I exhale.

  I ride my bike home afterward, pedaling hard all the way, trying to forget the tail, but I can't.

  Maybe I should skip the recital…

  I try to imagine it: not doing the recital, not trying out for the dance academy, and it's like watching my entire future as I’ve imagined it swirling into a black hole.

  No. I have to make the best of this, tail or no tail.

  Mom is on her way out when I get home. She works at an emergency room in downtown Vancouver, and as always, she's in a hurry; peering down at me through the gold-rimmed glasses perched on her bulbous nose.

  "Watch out for daddy," she whispers, kissing the top of my head, and I breathe in the comforting scent of moss and leaves and grass that always seems to cling to her. "He's in a mood."

  Mom has a fondness for understatements, so I'm guessing a full-fledged troll-rage is imminent.

  "Why?"

  "That ballet lady, Marie, called." Mom gives me a look - kind, but piercing. "You might have warned us you'd be dancing to that music... I know it can't have been your choice, but a heads-up would've been nice."

  "I was hoping to change her mind, but...she picked it special for me, mom, and she's worked with everyone, even Baryshnikov!"

  "I'm guessing she's never worked with a troll before, though."

  Drooping, I think about the tail, while mom grabs her bag and heads outside. I barely have time to get into the kitchen before I hear dad, stomping up the stairs from his basement office, every step reverberating through the house.

  "Tilda!"

  I brace for impact, knowing he's been on the set of that new TV-show he's directing all day, drinking too many coffees, and dealing with too many TV-people since well before dawn.

  Trying to act casual, I grab a bowl and fill it with snail-stew from the pot on the stove. Snail-stew is dad's specialty, and the smell of cooked snails and grated pine bark fills me with a bit of
fleeting happiness before dad looms in the doorway.

  "Marie called," he huffs, angrily stuffing his massive hands into the pockets of his cable-knit cardigan. I can almost see steam puffing out of his large ears, the gold rings threaded through each meaty earlobe trembling.

  "Dad..."

  He probably can't hear me, because he's already angry enough that his mouth looks twice as wide as usual, and his eyes are the size of my bowl.

  "Marie invited us to come to the recital. Said you're dancing to a famous piece of music by... Grieg." He almost hollers the name. "Why would you humiliate yourself, and us, like this?"

  I swallow a spoonful of stew. I don't want to argue. I just want to get away - away from dad, away from Grieg and Ibsen, away from anything that reminds me of that tail.

  "Come on, dad. Marie picked it for me. She says this dance presents my skills in a way that the Dance Academy will..."

  "I don't care what Marie says. I will not let my daughter dance to Grieg. ‘Hall of the Mountain King’, indeed! As if that man ever saw a real troll in his life! I won't let you do it, and that's final!"

  "I don't need your permission," I say, snarling, but dad just keeps talking.

  "It's a waste of your time. You should focus on your studies. Not this dancing nonsense."

  "It's not nonsense! I'm a good dancer, and you're the one who always told me to do what I love and to do my best."

  Dad gives me a long look, almost softening, but unfortunately, another thought occurs to him.

  "You're not wearing a tail for the performance, are you?"

  Something in my expression must have given me away because his eyes and mouth widen with a new flush of anger.

  "That's it, Tilda. No more dancing!"

  "I'm only doing this so I can get into the Dance Academy. It's the same as when you played big stupid, scary trolls in all those Hollywood monster movies when you started out. You took those jobs and made the best of it, that's what you told me."

  Dad hates being reminded of his early acting days, and no surprise, his mouth turns into a cavern of sharp teeth.

  "That was different! In those days..." He stops, the golden earrings shaking fiercely now. "Anyway, that's no excuse for you!" His voice is so loud it makes the snail-stew wobble in my bowl. "I didn't move my family halfway across the world, away from our caves and forests in Sweden to see you act the fool on the dance floor. No more dancing!"

  "You can't stop me!" I shout, slamming the bowl down on the counter and storming out of the kitchen.

  I run through the house, into the backyard, looking for shelter, looking for Grandma. Usually, she's in the garden this time of day, watering the pile of leaves where she farms worms and grubs, but today, the yard is empty. Outside, I stop and let myself be still for a moment, just listening and breathing. I can still hear the sounds of the world outside, cars passing in the street, trucks barreling down the highway further off, the distant chug of a freight train, the neighbour’s old dog barking at some cat or squirrel, but even so, there’s a comforting stillness here, a stillness that belongs to Grandma’s garden, a stillness that smells of fresh-turned dirt and rain-damp grass. The grass grows tall and tufty here in our yard, like a meadow rather than a lawn, and the plants—hair-grass and timothy and mead wort (which Grandma insists on calling moose-grass)—sway and rustle around my legs when I walk through them.

  "Grandma?"

  There's no answer, except the voices of the trees, whispering to each other across the fence.

  I hurry down the garden path, cheeks still flushed from arguing with dad, but even on a day like today I feel better, here among the trees.

  The trees in the forest outside the fence speak with voices that belong to the Pacific northwest—western hemlock and maple, Sitka spruce, red and yellow cedar. The trees inside the yard whisper back, but none of them are natives here. They were brought from Scandinavia as seedlings, planted by Grandma when my family moved into this house forty years ago. Since then, the pine and spruce, the rowans and the birches have all grown tall, shading the yard and house with their boles and branches.

  Grandma and my parents chose this house because it's close enough to the city for work, close enough to the woods for a forest troll to stay healthy, and because the backyard is big enough that Grandma can have her own place.

  "My old-fashioned cave," Grandma calls it, though it's more like a root cellar, dug into the ground.

  She doesn't think trolls should live in houses, and she's not just old-fashioned, she's old. No one really knows how old, and she's certainly not telling.

  Grandma's door is made of grey, warped wood, and it's even older than she is. It's the door from our family's cave in northern Sweden, and Grandma brought it with her, wrenching it off its hinges, when she left the old country.

  A short ramp leads from the garden path to the door and judging by the muddy wheel-tracks on the plywood, my best friend Irene is already inside. There's a door-knocker too, made from an old badger skull, but I don't bother knocking, I just burst inside, hoping dad won't come looking for me here.

  Inside, the only light comes from Grandma's beeswax candles and the fireplace. In that soft glow, I see Irene and Grandma hunched together at the small table in the sparsely furnished room. Irene is in her wheelchair, and Grandma seated on her favourite boulder, leaning so close to Irene that at first I think she's about to sink her teeth into her arm.

  They both look up together, and Irene tries to cover something on the table with her sleeve, but I've already seen the gleam of sharpened flint: Grandma's favourite knife, its edge as sharp as any razor.

  "What are you doing?" I ask, feeling as though I've walked in on two plotting criminals.

  They exchange a look that makes me even more suspicious.

  "Nothing," Grandma says quickly and turns toward me, amber eyes glinting beneath her thick white hair.

  "Your grandma is teaching me troll stuff!" Irene exclaims just as quickly, wheeling herself away from the table, stray locks of black hair peeking out beneath the blue hood of her sweater.

  On the table I see Grandma's treasure box, lid flipped open, the dark wood filled with gold nuggets, shards of mountain crystal, raw garnets—all the gems and gold Grandma has gathered beneath the ground and elsewhere since she was born, each one a memory of a certain time and place, each one a treasured piece of her life.

  When Grandma sees me looking, she snaps the lid shut.

  "She's teaching me all sorts about troll history and culture, for our Socials project," Irene says, fiddling with a remaining gold nugget, bouncing it by flexing her leg stumps underneath the plaid blanket covering her lap.

  "Like what?" I ask, suspicious.

  "For example," Irene says in her best classroom voice, "that trolls see gold as keepsakes, rather than something you use for money. And, that in the olden days, trolls would sometimes keep people locked up underground for years before they released them! How cool is that?"

  "Grandma!" I exclaim, horrified. "Next you're going to tell her you used to cook and eat people at your feasts."

  "Did you really?" Irene asks eagerly.

  "Don't be silly!" Grandma huffs. "Nobody cooked them!"

  Irene bursts out laughing, and Grandma gives me a look, pleased and cunning at the same time.

  "Your dad found out about the dance and Grieg, then?" she says and scoots over so I can sit beside her on the boulder.

  "How'd you know?"

  "After your dance instructor called he screamed so loud we heard it all the way out here," she chuckles, caressing the flint knife, and again I wonder what they've been up to.

  Grandma mostly uses her flint knife for spells and magic, but she's not supposed to be doing that kind of stuff when Irene's around. Not that Irene would mind.

  Irene has been my best friend since Kindergarten, and she loves listening to Grandma, loves all the old jokes and stories I've grown tired of over the years, but when Grandma talks about eating people and keeping them c
aptive and using magic, it's sometimes hard to tell if she's joking, or if she's being serious and laughing at the same time.

  "Your dad's right," Grandma says. "You shouldn't dance to Grieg. That man knew nothing about trolls or dancing. And that costume you told me this Marie wants you to wear..." She looks up, teeth gleaming in a tight grimace. "Did she at least get rid of the tail?"

  "No. Marie thinks the tail is playful and fun and trollish."

  Grandma mutters something in Swedish, and I'm glad Irene can't understand her.

  "Tell her what you wore when you danced," Irene prods, and Grandma grins, a wide and wicked smile full of sharp teeth.

  "I wore a dress made of spider-silk and gold. Magicked, too, of course. We used our magic freely back then. No one thought anything of enchanting things or even people."

  "Sounds a whole lot better than your costume," Irene remarks and I roll my eyes.

  "I don't like it either, but I have to make the best of it. And now dad wants me to stop dancing. I've worked so hard for this, and now it's all just falling apart."

  "What's that music you wanted to dance to?" Irene asks. "Something by...Stradivarius?"

  I blush.

  "Stravinsky. ‘Rite of Spring.’ Marie thought it was too avant-garde. Meaning she thinks I can't do it."

  "She's wrong," Grandma mutters.

  "I even have a whole routine worked out." I sigh, nibbling on some of pickled earthworms from a bowl on the table. "But I'll save it for another time."

  Irene pounds the table with her fists.

  "Come on, Tilda. Show me!"

  "What? I can't dance in here."

  "Please?"

  Finally, I give in. I dance just a few steps while I hum the music, and even with nothing more than that, my body stirs with an effervescent joy I know I'll never feel dancing to Grieg and wearing a tail.

  "It's a shame," Grandma says holding the door open when we leave, and Irene is rolling down the ramp, "that you won't get a chance to show them some real troll-magic."