Troll Brother
Page 52
Chapter 20
The Warner Brothers Rise!
The next day, Kile and Robert convinced Mr. Johansson to take them to the hobby shop since there may only be a couple days left before the little troll went home. They wanted to see if Rob had managed to collect enough from Daniel, Marissa and some repeated raids of couch cushions both at home, and at Grandma’s previously to purchase the helicopter Rob wanted. Sure enough, once they arrived, Rob had enough to buy a modest 32” helicopter model, but did not have the money to purchase the four-channel radio controller he’d need to fly it.
“What if I gave you some of these?” the disguised little troll asked the elderly man at the RC counter. “Would that be enough?”
Kile dropped three rough looking coins on the counter. Ricky Jr. smiled at first but then he, as with the two other humans about him looked closely. The coins were not US mint at all. They looked like old, worn doubloons or maybe some Native American or South American treasure coins he’d seen in various adventure movies. They had various markings on them and each had a hole or two around the circumference, as though they might have been hung from a necklace or something originally.
“Are these what they look like they are?” the gentleman asked, pointing at them reverently, looking from boy to father.
Kile merely nodded. The clerk picked them up and adjusted his glasses to look at them carefully.
“Young man, I happen to be a coin and antiquities collector too. That’s sort of how I came by running this hobby shop actually. But even I can be fooled. How did you find these?”
“My qu… My...Aunt gave to me as a gift,” Kile responded.
“Really? Well…even if these are fake…if they’re solid gold I’m sure we can come to an agreement on that helicopter there.” The corner of the old man’s mouth was glistening and his eyes gleamed. “May I just take one of these in back and test it really quickly for content?”
Kile nodded again. When the man looked to father for confirmation, Rick Jr. just shrugged and raised one hand palm up gesturing for him to go ahead.
Upon his return the man seemed more than happy to negotiate. “I’ll tell you what…since these seem to be actual Aztec coins…I’ll give you any helicopter in the store and any controller you want. Don’t be shy. You pick out any of them you want and I’ll accept these three coins as payment. And you can keep your gift cards for a future purchase.”
As the trio entered Dad’s car and buckled, Robert asked, “Kile? Where did you get those coins?”
“Oh…I dunno. They were just laying around in the treasure room at Machsa. The queen gave me some in case I needed to barter for anything while I was living with humans.”
“I think those things might have been worth a lot more than just a helicopter,” Rick Jr. said.
“Yeah… Thank you Kile! I really appreciate it,” Rob said. He smiled as the Little Ricky disguise smiled back at him. Whenever it happened, he was definitely going to be sorry to see Kile go home.