~~~
In the kitchen, Mom Johansson gave both boys a real chewing-out again. Robert made a lot of “I know’s” but the figure of Little Ricky just seemed to stand and stare. Finally Mom picked up on the unusual stillness of her little boy and eyed him while she handed plates to Robert to pass around the table.
“What is it tonight, Ricky? Cat got your tongue?” she asked.
“Cat?” Kile then smiled finally at the human mother. “No. I eat cat. Not get my tongue.”
“What?!” Mrs. Johansson sputtered. But she laughed a little uneasily and continued. “There’s the Little Ricky I know.”
While turning to pull some forks and knives out of a drawer she nodded at Robert and said, “Exactly what went on today? Did you put some fear into your little brother for once in his life?”
“Uh…No,” Rob hesitated. “I think he’s just really tired from climbing.”
Robert squinted at Kile while his mother was turned away and silently mouthed be quiet! to the small troll. There was something else at the end of the lip-read too, but Kile couldn’t quite figure that part out. He was pretty sure by Robert’s scowl that it wasn’t a very friendly word, whatever it was.
Once the places were all set, Mom set out a bowl of macaroni and cheese and put a loaf of white bread on the table with butter and sat down with the two boys.
“What this is?” Kile asked poking his finger into the cheesy pasta with a scrunched nose.
“It’s your favorite, Ricky. Mac’N’Cheese, silly. Now, why are you poking your fingers into it? My goodness,” Mom sighed as she slapped Kile’s hand as she’d done to Little Ricky all his life since he was no better at keeping hands out of the food than Kile. “Now go ahead and say grace.”
Kile was looking at his hand, holding the wrist with his other hand. His eyes were moist and Robert wondered if the little troll was going to cry. What would happen if Kile cried? Would it look like the glimmer of Little Ricky was crying too?
“Grace?” the little troll asked.
“Yes. Say prayer, please, Ricky.”
“Uh, Mom,” Robert interrupted after he picked up what was going on. “How about I say it. Ricky really is tired.”
“Fine. Let’s just do it. I’m starving already.”
Robert uttered something quickly to satisfy Mom while Kile busily tried to emulate their arm-folding. He closed his eyes to follow suite as well, but kept peeping them open to check what the others at the table were doing. After grace was done, Mom slapped a huge helping of macaroni and cheese onto Kile’s plate and then one not quite as large onto Robert’s.
While Mom tried to ask the boys, mostly Robert, what they saw up the mountain that day and kept the conversation going, Kile poked at the pile of pasta with his right index finger and grimaced. Whenever Mom got distracted by something she was saying or in taking a bite of dinner, Robert tried to catch Kile’s attention and give him some signals. The first took a few tries to get the little troll hiding in Ricky’s image to notice. He flicked his fork a little before him and then flicked his eyes down repeatedly to the fork beside Kile’s plate.
Kile eventually caught on, lifting the fork and fumbling it around with both hands until it was roughly griped in the troll’s right hand. He jabbed it into his pile of pasta and scooped up a huge bite noticeably dramatic enough that Mom looked over and stopped mid-bite. The visage of Little Ricky looked up and beamed at her, and then beamed at Robert as well. He seemed to be awaiting some applause or congratulations. Not finding any on Mom’s face, and a funny, half-cocked smirk on Robert’s he went ahead and stuck the whole huge forkful of macaroni into his mouth.
The glimmer of Little Ricky had not been turned on for Robert’s sake and so he got a full view of the approximately forty-two bites-worth going into Kile’s wide, toothy grin. Rob wasn’t sure what exactly Mom saw but by her expression it probably wasn’t pretty.
For a moment, it looked like Kile was going to turn the situation around. But that was only for a moment. He did not actual chew the food but held it as his eyes stopped looking towards the others for approval and seemed to glaze over. Then it all came back out.
“BLAH!!!” Kile said, and stuck his lengthy troll tongue out with the entire contents of the spoonful now perched directly under his nose, mouth very widely open.
“Now Ricky!” Mom raised her voice. “Don’t you dare spit that out!”
Kile rolled his eyes over at Mrs. Johansson and mumbled over his tongue, “Huhn?”
“Yes, that! Don’t you spit it out young man. You swallow that food.”
Robert started laughing, try as he might to control himself. The spectacle was too much, but in reality it wasn’t anything he wouldn’t expect Ricky to do…if it wasn’t his supposed “favorite” Mac’N’Cheese. Kile very carefully pulled the tongue-full back into his head. Without chewing he swallowed it in one enormous bite.
“What is wrong with you tonight, Ricky?” Mom asked. She sat, her fork pending a lift of her own food on her plate and eyeing the little boy before her. “Take a bite of bread if you don’t like it for some reason.”
Kile looked around the table and then saw the loaf of white bread in the plastic sack. He looked at Robert for confirmation, who nodded very slightly so as to prevent his mother from seeing their silent communication. The troll struggled a little with the plastic clip holding the bag closed and he became even more nervous because the human mother wouldn’t stop watching him. Finally he got the bag open, took out a couple pieces of bread and stuffed them all into his mouth. The result was worse than the macaroni. He very nearly spewed the mushy bread across the table and onto Mom and Robert.
“Blech!” he sputtered. “That not taste like anything!”
Robert watched his mother with great hesitation. He wondered how this was going to go down, and wasn’t sure what exactly he could say to explain if it turned out he and his little troll friend had to come clean about the exchange they had made with Ricky.
“Honey?...Ricky?” Mom placed a hand on Kile’s forearm. “Are you feeling okay?”
Kile looked to Robert for an answer as he started to nod his head uncertainly. As soon as he saw Rob’s quick, subtle shake of his head he reversed course and started shaking his own instead.
“No. I feel sick,” Kile tried to annunciate very carefully.
“Oh dear.” Mom stood and cleared both her plate and Kile’s. “Robert, did you guys get into anything? Maybe take a drink from the stream up there or something?”
“No, Mom. I think Ricky is honestly just really tired. Here, I’ll get him into bed.”
“Oh that’s very nice of you!” she replied, and it really was, because Robert hardly ever did something like tuck his little brother into bed. At least not since they were about two and four years old. She started wondering if maybe it turned out to be a really good idea to have the two spend the day together out in the wild. Dad might have been right about spending time in the wild together as a family after all.