Chapter 8
The Zoo, And All Which That Implies
The rest of the week at school didn’t exactly go without incident, but none of them were much worse than driving poor Mrs. Gardner of the Kindergarteners crazy. All in all, a fairly successful week whether it was Little Ricky himself or a socially awkward troll disguised as him. However, Friday was the third grade trip to the zoo, and Mom had already turned in her approval on the release form a couple weeks earlier, so of course Kile would be going. For several days as soon as Robert realized the potential dilemma he’d been working on getting Mom to go with the class as a volunteer parent, and giving reasons why she should call him out of class and excuse him so he could be with them as a family trip too. None seemed to work. Mom apparently didn’t think it was at all necessary for either condition, and it was too late anyway. All volunteer slots were full.
Then, luck struck! As Robert picked up Kile from Little Ricky’s classroom, Mrs. Haversham mentioned to Robert that one of the student-escorts from the middle school was actually leaving on an early summer vacation with his own family and she wondered if Rob would like to fill the slot. She tantalized him with a free entrance, but it wasn’t necessary. Robert jumped at the opportunity, recognizing only later that evening that Mrs. H might have set it all up just so she could have the older sibling help keep Little Ricky under control at the zoo. But it didn’t matter. Mom was willing enough to sign Robert up as an escort and wondered why Robert seemed so very interested in animals this time. He convinced her that he just thought it would be fun to go on the trip with Ricky, because Ricky loved animals so much. A promise to take a lot of photos for scrap books helped quash any suspicions too.
Thursday night, Robert tried to review what they’d see at the zoo and how Kile should behave. He fretted it was all for naught because the troll was a little too excited by the mention of getting treats along with PB&J sandwiches for lunch while they were at the zoo.
“PBJ! PBJ! Robbie and Kile likes PBJ!” Kile said, stomping around the room while earnestly trying to acknowledge the things Robert was telling him, but having great difficulty in doing it. Although Rob didn’t come away from the troll feast thinking there was a lot of variety in their diet, trolls apparently were foodies. Smallish mountain trolls from Machsa under Loafer Mountain, anyway. “Oh! And chocolate!!!”
Troll Brother Page 21
