Chapter 5
First Night Away
“If we pull this off…” Robert was mumbling as he hurriedly bounced down the hill, breathing slightly knocked off when his feet pounded down the incline.
“Wait! Wait, brother Robert!” Kile said, hobbling along behind. The little troll’s stride became more of a slow tumble down the hill rather than a walking descent due to his short legs.
Without turning back or slowing down Robert said loudly, “I’m not your brother!”
Then the cellphone rang. Robert stopped suddenly and threw his pack to the ground. The sky was getting a little darker and the shadows much longer as 5:00PM was passing. Kile stopped suddenly too, mid-roll, and his pointed, gray ears perked up.
“Crap!” Robert said, and practically ripped the cellphone out from the side of the pack. “Ya?”
He had responded a little too briskly for the situation they were in. Kile could hear a human female voice raised on the phone coming through nicely in the cooling and still, late afternoon air of the mountainside.
“What do you mean, “Ya?” young man? I’ve been trying to get you for hours! Do you realize if you didn’t answer just now, my next call was to the sheriff’s office?”
“Sorry mom!” Robert did his best not to get defensive. He quickly flipped the phone away from his face, and sure enough in the lower part of the display it showed five missed calls. “I’m really sorry. I’m just…mad.”
“Why? What’s going on? Just how far up the mountain did you go?”
“Oh…uh. We didn’t really go all that high up.”
Kile snickered behind Robert. Robert turned away from him and took a couple steps as he might if he didn’t want a friend to hear his mother chewing him out on the phone. But Kile merely stepped along with him, staring at and fascinated by the phone glowing against Robert’s face. He had seen phones shown on the TV shows he’d watched but he hadn’t had a chance to touch one yet, and the queen had not ever shown him hers that she was rumored to possess.
“Okay. OKAY!” Robert was saying. “We’re on our way now. We just got caught up in a canyon that took us a while to get out.”
Some more muffled angry words burbled out of the earpiece. Robert was nodding as if his mother could see him answering her with his head.
“Yes. Got it. Straight home.”
Robert hung up, and then turned and stared at Kile. He sighed heavily and then moved to pick up his pack he left a few strides behind.
“Our mom?” Kile asked.
“No! It’s my mom.” Rob threw the cellphone back into the pack and shouldered it and prepared to continue down the mountain.
“Yes, but…” Kile tried to keep conversation going. He was beginning to wonder if maybe the queen’s plan was going to work out okay for him or not. He didn’t want to be trapped with humans if they dis-liked him even before they saw him as he really is.
“So, when are you going to do this “glimmer” thing anyway? Aren’t you afraid you’re going to get seen out here?” Robert asked him before actually moving on.
“Oh! No, not worried. I will shimmer if I see any humans on the way down.”
“What do you mean? What if they surprise you?”
Kile smiled and pointed at himself as he answered. “I am shimmering. No one see me but you for right now. That way I save strength to glimmer when I met Mom!”
“What’s the difference?” Robert prompted.
“Between what?”
“ARrrgh! It’s like I still have Little Ricky with me! What’s the difference between shimmering and glimmering?” he bellowed.
“Oh!” Kile put his pack down, which was actually Ricky’s and spread out his arms. He seemed to blink out of existence but his voice was still there. “Now I shimmer for you. You not see me, right?”
“Holy crap! No, I don’t!” Robert said sucking in his breath and then whistling it out. “Is that what you did at the cave entrance when we first saw you?”
Kile giggled his little raspy troll giggle and winked back into existence. “Yup! Kai’ana humans! I trick you good! Ha ha!”
“Great,” Robert retorted and turned away stomping quickly from the little troll. He’d decided Kile was just as bothersome as younger brothers
“Wait! Wait, brother Robert!” Kile hollered, swinging Ricky’s pack back onto his back.
Robert formed an opinion on his way back from the troll caves that evening: little trolls can be just as big a doofus as a little brothers.