Troll Brother

by P. Edward Auman

  Chapter 16

  Grandma Has Such Big Eyes To See You With!

  On the second of July, after significantly more time for Richard to process the idea of a troll living in the house had passed and many more questions about when Little Ricky would be returning had been asked, the family took a short trip north to go visit Grandma Johansson. The cousins were there again, much to Kile and Robert’s chagrin, as well as a few other relatives. Great Grandma Johansson was also visiting, relaxed in a large leather recliner in the den, television blaring something about some funniest American pranks or other. She would snore roughly every once-in-a-while, but whenever one of the other adults stepped into the room and inquired how she was doing would casually look up at them and reply that she was fine, as though she’d been alert the whole time.

  The boys had decided to make that room their getaway space while cousins occupied the television in the larger family room, adults chatted in the kitchen and smaller children played outside. That is until Kile got a little carried away talking about how big, (and small), some of the other faerie folk could get.

  The little troll was moving about the room using his arms and hands to illustrate and provide Robert with an introductory course on Faerie races when GG seemed to sit upright in the recliner, pulling on the lever and then peering at what should have looked like a handsome, blond nine-year-old prancing about playfully.

  “Boy?” She said in a raspy voice.

  Kile turned somewhat startled, instantly knowing she meant him. Robert leaned over, still in his cross-legged seating position on the floor to look around the troll and see GG. She was pinching one side of her thick bi-focal glasses and sort of moving them slightly up and down, apparently to swap back and forth between the focuses.

  Swallowing hard, the troll did a quick double-check to make sure his glimmer was up and then replied. “Yes?”

  Grandma was peering over her bifocals. Then she pushed them back up on her nose. She raised and lowered her head a couple times but transfixed the two beings before her with piercing eyes, as though she were still trying to decide which lens of the bifocal glasses she should use.

  “You’re Faerie folk, aren’t ya?” she hissed.

  Kile looked back at Robert, who could only shrug and shake his head, opened-mouthed as he was. The troll turned back and then pointed his right-hand index finger to his chest as if to ask, “Who, me?”

  “Yeah, you, boy,” she said as she tried to lean even further forward. “You’re a Faerie, ain’t ya?”

  Still stunned silent, Robert finally answered for Kile. “Uh, no, GG. Why would you say that?”

  “Oh stop foolin’,” she grumbled. She had clenched a nearby magazine in her left hand from the nightstand during the exchange unnoticed. Now it was an attention-getter, banged on the arm of the chair.

  Luckily, the chair’s arm was padded under the upholstery, so no one else in the house was alerted to the conversation. Even GG seemed to realize there could be consequences for that as she seemed to keep her voice low.

  “You’re a Faerie, or I’m already in the grave!” She rasped again. After observing a minute longer and enjoying the awkward reaction Kile gave, she cackled pleasurably. “I think you’re a troll!”

  “No, no!” Kile said heatedly waving his palms before him again as he had when he first met Robert and Ricky. “I’m human. I am your great grandson!”

  “Like Hell, you little twerp!” she continued to cackle.

  Robert was on his feet and at her side, trying to pat her arm and calm her down. He checked over his shoulder to make sure no one was rushing in to see what her ramblings might be about. Having checked out safely he turned his attention to the matter at hand.

  GG looked up at Rob as he continued, “No, Grandma. I think you must be seeing things. This is Little Ricky…you know…the spastic grandson?”

  “Robbie! That ain’t Ricky. I remember Ricky. Ya’ll visited just a few months ago and that kid was a darling. That thing on the other hand has got to be a troll, ‘cuz I’ve never seen nothing that ugly before.”

  Kile’s nervousness changed to a defense in a flash. “You are a rude human, lady!”

  “Ha ha!” GG cackled, slapping her leg. “I knew it! So which are ya? A Mountain Troll? A Bridge Troll? Maybe you’re a Dark Troll? Nah…your eyes ain’t red.”

  “Dark Troll?” Both Kile and Robert said in unison as they looked at each other. But that puzzle would have to be addressed later.

  “GG! How can you see him, then?” Rob asked.

  “It’s these dern bifocals I guess.” She took them off and rubbed them in her dress sleeve as if to clean them.

  “Those glasses let you see me?”

  “Oh yeah,” she continued, plopping the glasses back on her large nose. Moving her head up and down again while her eyes maintained position she explained. “Every time I catch the edge of the two lenses I can see what you really look like!”

  “Crap!” Robert said.

  It was clearly a glitch Kile hadn’t been aware of either. Perhaps there weren’t too many bifocal wearers in old Europe to have tested it in the trolls’ homeland. Rob couldn’t recall when glasses had been invented but he was pretty sure it was Ben Franklin that invented bifocals. But even more strangely, Grandma knew what she was seeing when she saw it.

  “Uh, GG? How do you know about trolls?”

  That started her cackling again. “Oh, I been ‘round, young man. You don’t live to your 90s without seeing a thing or two.”

  “Well, uh…GG…we need you to keep this a secret, okay?

  “Secret!?” she practically yelled. Rob worried that her voice would surely bring the adults running. “Who you think I’m gonna tell? Everyone here will say I’m crazy anyway.”

  It was true. At times Grandma had said a few things, things which until then Robert assumed were a little bit of crazy talk, but now he recognized might just have been experience. There had been small gossip for years, even when they lived back in Iowa, that Great Grandma Johansson may be getting a little “senile” or that perhaps she had “dementia”. He hadn’t even been entirely sure what those words meant, but if she started talking about trolls disguised as grandsons, the talk would surely continue.

  “Listen!” she continued, “I don’t think you’d better tell yer parents ‘bout this critter, neither. I kept the Faeries a secret from my own kids for decades now. It’s not safe to have the whole world know about ‘em. …Would probably start some feuding or something.”

  “Yeah! Yeah, you’re right GG!” Rob agreed quickly.

  “So you ain’t gonna tell your mother or father, neither. Right?”

  Robert and Kile looked at each other. For a moment they both seemed perplexed, but then Kile reasoned it out first. He smirked sideways out of the corner of his mouth.

  “No, Mrs. GG. We will not tell anyone,” Kile also agreed.

  Robert shook his head promising as much in his own way as well. They had silently come to the same conclusion it was best not to mention Mom and Dad already knew, much the way true siblings would.

  Granny leaned back in her chair again, propping her arms upon the arms of the chair as if the conversation had already exhausted her energy reserves. “It’s not like Faeries are bad, mind ya. …Well… most of ‘em anyway. But…humans and Faeries tend not to mix very well. Just consider it a blessin’ that one of ‘em brought you in on the secret, Robbie.”

  “Oh!” Rob quickly agreed, and then turned to take in Kile in his view. “I do GG. Kile is a good friend now.”

  The little troll squeezed his hands together and smiled genuinely at Rob. Friends. Kile didn’t know how well his mission to feel out the human regard for trolls would end up. But he did know his own personal mission after selecting Robert and Ricky as his contacts earlier in the Spring had finally proven to be successful. If he never got back to Machsa, he would still be happy knowing he had made a friend among
humans. No more would his only friend be a secret trust between the queen and himself. This was a friendship of which he could speak openly and boisterously about. And in the future, he would too. In fact, it would later serve to unify his people in defense and in an alliance with the humans.

  “That’s nice,” GG said, sighing. “So, where’s that little cutey-pie, Ricky, anyway?”

  But before Rob could even clear his throat and figure out a way to explain it, GG had fallen deep asleep.