Trolls Go Home!

by Alan MacDonald

  He pushed back his chair and headed for the door.

  ‘You haven’t had any breakfast,’ said Mrs Troll.

  ‘I’d rather eat bat droppings,’ replied Mr Troll sulkily.

  ‘Oh well, suit yourself,’ said Mrs Troll. ‘You do the shopping if you’re so fussy.’

  She followed him into the hall. ‘Now where are you going?’

  ‘Out,’ growled Mr Troll shortly and slammed the door behind him.

  Mr Troll stomped off down Mountain View in the worst of moods. It’s well known that trolls can be bad-tempered in the mornings, but a troll who has started the day without breakfast in his belly is the kind of troll it’s better to avoid. If there had been a thought bubble above Mr Troll’s head it would have been filled with a big black cloud.

  As he reached the main road he headed into town without the slightest idea where he was going. Shoppers saw him coming and crossed to the other side of the road to avoid him. Most of them had never seen a fully grown troll before and they certainly didn’t expect to meet one stomping along Biddlesden High Street on a grey Monday morning. Cars whizzed past like flies buzzing in his ear. Mr Troll didn’t like the noise or the smell they made. He longed to smell the sweet stink of another troll. Back home he might have run into one of his friends, Snorvik or Boglov, and he would have greeted them with a loud roar and a mighty huggle. But here the only creatures to be seen were pasty-faced peeples who flattened themselves against walls to let him go past.

  He came to a set of steps leading down into a subway. It looked dark down there. Mr Troll went down the steps hoping to find some kind of cave. The subway was dingy and deliciously smelly. A rumbling sound came from above him as cars passed overhead.

  It reminded Mr Troll of the old wooden bridge back home where he used to hide and wait for the skinny goats to pass by. ‘Trip-trop, trip-trop,’ their little hooves would go on the bridge. How he enjoyed the moment when he sprang up like a jack-in-the-box to give them the fright of their lives. The look of surprise on their silly goat faces!

  He closed his eyes, imagining he was back home again under the creaky, old bridge. He could hear footsteps descending the steps into the subway. Mr Troll felt an urge to give something a thumping good fright. A roar was swelling up from deep inside him …

  Meanwhile, back home, Mrs Troll was waiting for him to return. At first she was cross with him. Grouchy old grump-bag, she thought, storming out like that just because he didn’t like his breakfast. Well, let him go hungry. What did he expect her to do: produce goats out of a hat?

  But as the hours passed by she started to become rather anxious. She was used to Mr Troll’s sulks, but normally they didn’t last longer than an hour or so. Yet when Ulrik returned from school there was still no sign of her husband.

  Mrs Troll stood at the window, looking along the road anxiously.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ said Ulrik. ‘What are you doing? Where’s Dad?’

  ‘That’s the trouble,’ replied Mrs Troll. ‘He went tromping off down the road this morning and I haven’t seen him since. Oh Ulrik, I do hope he’s all right! He’s never been far from the house before. What could have happened?’

  Ulrik didn’t know. He had wanted to tell his mum about his miserable day at school, but she seemed too worried to listen. He went and stood next to her, resting his head against her shoulder.

  Just then a police car pulled up outside the house. A man and a woman in smart black uniforms got out. One of them opened the back door and out climbed Mr Troll.

  ‘Thank uggness!’ said Mrs Troll, and hurried to answer the door.

  ‘Is this your husband, madam?’ asked the police-woman.

  ‘Eggy? I’ve been worried sick. Where have you been?’ asked Mrs Troll.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s been making a bit of a nuisance of himself,’ said the policeman. ‘We found him in a subway under the high street.’

  ‘Oh Eggy!’

  Mr Troll looked down at his feet, embarrassed. ‘I just wanted somewhere to hide, somewhere dark and stinksome. I only meant to fright them a bit, that’s all.’

  The policeman looked at him. ‘You did that all right. Scared the living daylights out of them, jumping out and shouting like that.’

  ‘Roaring,’ corrected Mr Troll. ‘I was roaring. Grarrr!’

  ‘Don’t start again,’ said the policewoman sharply. ‘We had enough of that in the car.’

  ‘Are you going to prison, Dad?’ asked Ulrik, tugging at his dad’s arm.

  ‘Not this time, son,’ replied the policeman. ‘We’ll let him off with a warning. But from now on he’d better behave himself. No more lurking in dark subways. No more scaring folks out of their wits. Nearly gave that old lady a heart attack, you did!’

  Mr Troll remembered and smiled. ‘Her teeth jumped right out,’ he told Ulrik. ‘I never did that to a goat!’

  ‘It’s not something to be proud of,’ said the policewoman sternly.

  Mr Troll tried to listen while the police talked for a long time about ‘not looking for trouble’. He explained he hadn’t been looking for trouble, he had been looking for a cave. But then the conversation got a bit muddled. Finally Mrs Troll saw the police out. When she opened the front door however there was someone else waiting outside: the neighbours from next door. It was turning into a strange day.

  Mr Priddle had seen the police car pull up outside the trolls’ house through his telescope and had hurried round with his wife.

  ‘Are you arresting them?’ he demanded hopefully.

  ‘No, sir,’ said the policeman. ‘Just a misunderstanding – there’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say. You’re not living next door to them,’ replied Mrs Priddle.

  ‘It’s all in here, officer,’ said Mr Priddle, brandishing his Troll Watch Diary. ‘All the evidence you need. Noise at all hours of the morning, biting people …’

  ‘Biting?’ said Mrs Troll. ‘We’ve never bitten anyone!’

  Ulrik hung back behind his mum and said nothing.

  ‘Ask them,’ said Mr Priddle, pointing. ‘Ask them why there’s a dirty great pile of earth in their garden. Ask them what they’re eating for dinner tonight!’

  Mr and Mrs Troll looked at each other. ‘Bean,’ said Mr Troll, gloomily. ‘It’ll be that or maggot soup.’

  After much argument the Priddles were eventually persuaded to return to their house.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll keep an eye on them, madam,’ said the policeman.

  ‘A fat help that will be when we’re all murdered in our beds,’ replied Mrs Priddle.

  ‘Why don’t we all have a nice cup of tea to calm down?’ suggested the policewoman.

  ‘If somebody else mentions tea,’ said Mrs Priddle, ‘I’m going to scream very loudly.’

  Next door the trolls sat round the table, sunk in gloom.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Troll. ‘What was that all about?’

  Mr Troll propped his head in his hands. ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘It’s all my fault. We should never have come here.’

  ‘We’ve only been here a few days,’ Mrs Troll pointed out.

  ‘I miss the mountains,’ brooded Mr Troll. ‘I miss our stinksome old cave. I miss goat pie. I miss hiding under bridges and frighting goatses.’

  ‘It was you who wanted to leave home, Eggy,’ Mrs Troll reminded him.

  For a while they all sat in dismal silence.

  ‘Ulrik, I completely forgot,’ said Mrs Troll, suddenly. ‘How was your first day at school?’

  ‘Oh … uggsome,’ said Ulrik feebly.

  ‘You see, Eggy?’ said Mrs Troll. ‘Everything’s going to work out fine. Ulrik’s doing well at school and making lots of new friends, aren’t you, hairling?’

  ‘Yes,’ lied Ulrik. ‘Lots.’

  His mum and dad beamed at him fondly. How could he tell them the truth – that his first day at school had been a complete disaster? That he had no friends and no one spoke to him. His parents had enough t
o worry about already. Instead he took out Mrs Melly’s letter and gave it to his mum. Mrs Troll read it through. ‘A trip to a farm!’ she said. ‘That sounds like fun!’

  Goblins!

  That night Mrs Priddle couldn’t sleep. She had been tossing and turning for hours. Every creak and groan of the house made her tremble like a leaf. At last she gave up and shook her husband by the shoulder. Mr Priddle grunted and rolled over.

  ‘Wake up, Roger!’ said Mrs Priddle.

  ‘Eh? What’s happening?’

  ‘I can’t sleep!’

  Mr Priddle groaned. ‘Whassamatter?’ he mumbled.

  ‘I told you, I can’t sleep. How can you lie there snoring like a pig when there are murderers living next door? What if I’m next, Roger? What if that brute comes for me in the night and snatches me away.’

  At least I would get some sleep, thought Mr Priddle.

  ‘What do you expect me to do, Jackie?’ he asked. ‘You heard the police. They don’t believe us.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to make them believe. We need proof, Roger. Proof that they … I can hardly say the word …’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Proof that they eat children.’

  ‘What sort of proof?’ Mr Priddle asked. ‘I can’t just go next door and start poking around for evidence.’

  Mrs Priddle fixed her husband with a steely look he knew all too well.

  ‘No, Jackie,’ he said. ‘No, I can’t …’

  ‘You’ve seen that big pile of earth in their garden. What else is it for?’ said Mrs Priddle. ‘That’s where they bury them, Roger. The bones. Think of it – there may be skulls and skeletons and all sorts.’ Mr Priddle was thinking and he didn’t much like the sound of it.

  ‘There’s our proof,’ insisted Mrs Priddle. ‘If we take a bag of bones to the police they’ll have to believe us.’

  Mr Priddle lay down again. He had to get up for work in a few hours. ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow,’ he murmured. But his wife’s hand gripped his shoulder.

  ‘No, Roger, tonight. I can’t put up with another night like this. My nerves won’t stand it. You have to go tonight.’

  Fifteen minutes later the Priddles held a counsel of war in the kitchen. Warren had heard his parents talking and came downstairs to find out why everyone was up. When he heard about the raid next door, he begged to be allowed to take part. If his dad was going to creep around someone’s garden in the dead of night, he wanted to be there – especially if there was the chance of digging up some human bones. Mr Priddle made a show of protesting, but secretly he was glad of the company. The thought of sneaking into the trolls’ garden in the dark terrified him.

  He was wearing his best black sweater and his face was smeared with dirt. Leaves and twigs stuck out of his floppy gardening hat. He had once seen a film where tough commandos dressed this way so that the enemy wouldn’t spot them in the dark (though he didn’t remember them wearing gardening hats). Warren’s face was masked by the navy balaclava his grandma had knitted him for Christmas. Both of them were armed with torches and spades.

  ‘Right,’ said Mr Priddle, trying to sound brave and determined. He glanced at the clock. Four a.m. Soon it would be getting light. He wondered if he would live to see the dawn.

  The first problem was climbing over the fence without making a racket. Warren stood on his dad’s back and managed to get a foot on the top before jumping over.

  ‘Are you all right, my lambkin?’ whispered Mrs Priddle.

  ‘Fine,’ came the reply. ‘Come on, Dad! Hurry up. It’s easy!’

  Mr Priddle tried to haul himself up on to the fence, but found his leg wouldn’t reach.

  ‘Give me a leg up, Jackie!’ he said.

  ‘No thank you. You’ve got dirty shoes on,’ Mrs Priddle replied.

  ‘Come on! Do you want me to go or not?’

  ‘All right, but mind my dressing gown – it’s Chinese silk.’

  With a lot of pushing and grunting, Mr Priddle managed to get one foot on top of the fence. Gingerly he brought up his other foot. He tried to stand up, tottered for a moment on the top and finally overbalanced, landing on top of something soft.

  ‘OW!’ yelped Warren.

  ‘Shhh!’ hissed Mr Priddle.

  He hoped that trolls slept soundly. What if one of them came out? He would be savaged by a wild, man-eating troll. All they would find of him one day would be a pile of bones and a gardening hat. Mrs Priddle peered at him over the fence.

  ‘Go on, then! Don’t just stand there!’

  ‘All right,’ he whispered. ‘For heaven’s sake, Jackie, keep your voice down.’

  He shone his torch at the huge pile of earth near the end of the garden. It looked bigger in the dark – like some weird-looking mountain. His hands were trembling. ‘Stay calm,’ he told himself, ‘It’s just a pile of earth, that’s all. Earth and possibly skeletons. Human skulls. Nothing to be scared of.’

  He took several steps towards the mountain. Then the ground disappeared and he fell down into a deep hole with a startled cry. ‘Arrrooof!’

  Inside the house, Mr Troll was woken by a loud noise. For a moment he thought he was back in his cave in the mountains, but then he felt the soft mattress beneath him – and remembered where he was. Was it the cry of a wolf or a bear that had woken him, or had he imagined it?

  Getting up, he looked out of the back window. He caught sight of a tiny beam of light moving in the darkness.

  ‘What is it, hairling?’ asked Mrs Troll’s sleepy voice.

  ‘Goblins,’ said Mr Troll grimly. ‘There are goblins outside.’

  It was true Mr Troll had never actually met a goblin, but he knew all about them. His grandmother had warned him about goblins when he was a little troggler. Goblins were after your gold. They came in the night with their pointy ears and their sacks over their backs. It made little difference that Mr Troll didn’t have any gold – that wouldn’t stop goblins. Well, he would give them a nasty surprise. He would teach them a lesson.

  He crept into Ulrik’s room and shook him, placing a hand over his mouth to stop him crying out.

  ‘Shh! There’s goblins in the garden,’ he whispered.

  Ulrik sat up in bed. ‘Goblins? Uggsome! Can I see them?’

  ‘Get dressed sharpish,’ said Mr Troll. This is a chance for you to do some proper roaring. I want you to roar so loud you fright the bogles out of them.’

  Outside in the garden, Mr Priddle had managed to clamber out of the hole with the help of Warren. Now they made their way to the foot of the earth mountain.

  ‘Where do we dig?’ asked Warren.

  ‘I don’t know. Anywhere,’ said Mr Priddle. ‘As soon as we find anything, let’s get back over that fence.’

  ‘You’re not scared, are you, Dad?’ asked Warren. ‘Your hands are shaking.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Warren,’ snapped Mr Priddle. He dug his spade into the earth but then froze with terror. Out of the dark, a bloodcurdling roar reached his ears.

  ‘GRRAAAARR!’

  It was followed by a second, not-quite-as-bloodcurdling roar from Ulrik.

  ‘Graaarr!’

  Mr Priddle shone his torch up the garden. Two angry trolls had burst from the house and were thundering towards them across the lawn. He could see their massive black shapes and their sharp white fangs. Beneath his feet the ground was shaking like an earthquake.

  ‘Dad! What do we do?’ yelped Warren.

  ‘Run!’ said Mr Priddle, and to show what he meant he dropped his spade and streaked towards the fence faster than a greyhound.

  If it hadn’t been for the dark, things might have gone badly for the Priddles. An angry troll defending his cave can be ferocious. He will tromp on his enemy with both feet. He will pick them up by the ears and bounce them around like a rubber ball. But this didn’t happen to the Priddles because they switched off their torches and no one could see a blind thing in the dark.

  Ulrik roared and Mr Troll roared.

  Warren crie
d: ‘Dad! Don’t leave me!’

  Mr Priddle remembered that in his panic he’d left his son behind just before he fell into the gigantic muddy hole for a second time.

  Meanwhile, at the foot of the earth hill, Mr Troll caught hold of someone who gave him a hard kick in the shins.

  ‘Yah! Ulrik, that’s me,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry Dad, I thought you were a goblins.’

  ‘Over there – they’re getting away,’ pointed Mr Troll, seeing two shadows running for the fence.

  Mr Priddle had managed to climb out of the hole and was now clambering over the fence with surprising agility. Warren wasn’t so lucky – he wasn’t tall enough to pull himself up.

  On the other side of the fence, Mr Priddle found his wife waiting for him anxiously.

  ‘Where’s Warren?’ she asked.

  ‘Run!’ gasped her husband.

  ‘But where’s my lambkin?’

  ‘Mum! Help!’ came Warren’s terrified voice from the other side of the fence.

  Mr Priddle reached over. ‘Grab my hand!’ he ordered.

  But as Warren was hauled up by his dad, he felt another pair of hands grab him by the legs.

  ‘I’ve got one, Dad!’ cried Ulrik.

  ‘Where are you?’ said Mr Troll, who had blundered into a wheelbarrow.

  ‘Over here, Dad!’

  Mr Priddle pulled and Ulrik pulled. Warren was the rope in a game of tug of war. But something was starting to slip down his legs and he decided it was no time for preserving his dignity.

  Ulrik fell back on the grass, clutching a pair of trousers.

  There was a thump from the other side of the fence and footsteps hurried away.

  ‘What happened?’ said Mr Troll, arriving at last.

  Ulrik showed him the pair of black school trousers. ‘He left these behind,’ he said.

  Mr Troll held up the muddy trousers and examined them. ‘Whew!’ he said. ‘Biggest goblins I ever heard of.’

  How to Make Friends