Troll Brother
Page 18
Chapter 7
Kile’s First (and last?) Day of School
At the bus stop, all went about as well or better than can be expected. Kile stared openly at some of the children. They in turn grimaced and gave him a wide birth. If Little Ricky was considered the weirdo, doofus or troublemaker of the neighborhood beforehand, Kile’s gawking, wide-eyed curiosity only served to make the perception stronger among the other children. When the bus pulled up to the stop, Kile had a moment of despair about the sharp climb. It seemed too much for the little troll. But without really saying anything the two communicated by eye contact, held back until the end of the line and then Robert subtly helped the troll climb aboard. With the glimmer in effect both were pretty confident that nothing looked too out of the ordinary…except for how nice Robert was being to Little Ricky.
Though neither really thought of it, it was a great blessing that the middle school was next door and basically attached to the elementary school where the boys attended. Robert walked with Kile to Mrs. Haversham’s third grade class. On the way to the door in the hallway there were several hand-drawn self-portraits created by the children. The troll recognized his exchange’s picture immediately because Little Ricky was standing next to a taller boy with a red baseball cap on, and the name “Richard Johansson III” was scrawled in very large letters to begin with, and then sloped and curved downwards to the right as Ricky had tried to squish the remaining letters onto the page. Kile pointed and then looked at Robert and smiled. Rob merely nodded and grinned in return. Robert himself did not know that Little Ricky had included him on his picture and it gave him a momentary buzz of pride.
Just before rounding into the door, Robert took Kile gently by the shoulder and went through last minute prep.
“Is your glimmer holding out?” he asked.
“Oh! Yes! I practiced the last two days a lot. I think I am better than the queen!” Kile said, gleaming.
The troll was wearing a pair of shorts they had picked up that looked just about like long pants on the creature’s short legs without the use of a glimmer, and a long-sleeved printed shirt from Robert’s closet. It had a picture of a waterfall, some pines and a large full moon with the words “Yosemite” written across it. All in all, the troll looked almost acceptable to Robert even without the benefit of glimmer.
“Alright…run through what you’re going to do then.”
“I sit in the chair third row over and second chair back,” Kile concentrated and placed his black finger-nailed index finger upon his lower lip again. “Wait for a bell noise. Don’t be surprised…Listen to the teacher. Try to do what she says. If I don’t understand, watch the other human children.”
Robert was nodding. It seemed they’d worked out the plan pretty well. In his mind, Kile should be able to follow directions better than Ricky considering he was well over one-hundred years old. But the more time he spent with Kile, the more he felt that trolls must age relatively slowly in mind as well as in height and girth.
“Good! Good!” Rob rasped at him. “Just be sure, when the second set of bells ring to meet me out here in the hallway. The first one, just follow the kids and watch them play. But the second one you need to be right here to meet me. I’ll just pretend I have to go to the bathroom or something from my fourth period. Then I can show you where to go for lunch.”
“Hmmmm…” Kile mumbled, smacking his lips.
Rob hoped the troll was actually listening and not totally lost in thought about food at lunch time. They’d had a pretty good sized eggs and bacon breakfast that Mom had made for them. It had been a sort of an apology, but then Mom had set some strong rules about where Kile was allowed to make messes and what she expected of him now that he was going to be turning ten late in the year. Kile had almost slipped and said he was turning one-hundred and thirty-eight the next year, but Robert used a second helping of bacon lumped on Kile’s dish to prevent it. Fortunately, both scrambled eggs with cheese in them and bacon suited the troll’s appetite well enough it did not prove to be a problem to explain to Mom why Ricky wouldn’t eat his favorite breakfast. Somehow though, Kile had gotten from home, to bus, to the beginning bell and was getting hungry again already.
“Alright. Go have fun. Meet me here though! Right?” Rob asked one last time as he started walking away.
“Yes, Robbie. I meet here!” the troll repeated pointing both fingers at the floor just before him.
Then he too turned and moved to his own labor for the day.