Chapter 6
Sunday Best
Mom woke the boys at 8:30 AM on Sunday morning already chewing them out for sleeping so late. She started with instructions that Kile clean up his room and the play room while Robert took a shower and then they were to switch while Rob cleaned the family room and picked up the video games. That was, until she was reminded that Little Ricky had already showered. She was so pleased she reduced their sentence to “just clean up the family room and video games.” The conversation made Robert wonder what Ricky would be doing to stay clean while he was with the trolls. Do they even have bathtubs or showers? He wondered. But Ricky was such a little beast when it came to hygiene he gave up the thought and figured Ricky was going to need an hour long soak once he did come home anyway.
For clothes, Mom had picked out some nice semi-dress pants and button-up shirt for each boy. Most of the morning, Kile just followed Robert around while Mom made the selection from the chests of drawers in their rooms and they straightened up the family room. While the cleanup went fairly smoothly it was mostly because the troll was so distracted with all the interesting human things they left just hanging around the house. If he’d had them back in his own cave, Kile would have put the weird plastic cases with round, mirror-like discs into one corner, the books in another, and all the little nick-knacks like the action figures he’d found setup attacking a funny looking model of a human vehicle. In the end, Robert huffed and said they needed to go upstairs and figure out what to do about the clothes Mom laid out.
“There’s no way you will fit these pants without me cutting almost half the leg off…and I don’t think Mom will miss that when she goes to wash them. Could you wear the shirt?” Robert asked while they stared at the clothing on the bed.
“Mmmm…” Kile grumbled. “Maybe. But glimmer would be better!”
The little troll had stuck a finger up in the air, cocked his head to one side and raised one eyebrow, as if he were awaiting confirmation from Robert on the matter.
“You mean you could make yourself look like Ricky…wearing these clothes?”
Kile climbed up on the bed and bounced a little. He spread his arms and grinned, almost just as Ricky might have done. “Of course! I just need to see it…and practice a little.”
“Good. Start practicing,” Rob replied. But as he had turned and started heading out of the room to go get the clothes for him in his own, he heard a raspy little giggle and a squeak and had to turn back.
Kile was bouncing on the bed, arms flapping and a little drool splattering out here and there. He started laughing noisily.
“Stop! Kile, STOP!” Robert was flapping his own arms in a settle-down motion to try to get the troll to hold still. “You’re going to get Mom in here and you don’t have your glimmer turned on.”
“Yes I do!” He kept bouncing and laughing uncontrollably, so much so that he finally bounced himself off the bed and landed flat on his back on the floor. The laughing continued.
“You dork, Kile! You’re going to have Mom come in here and figure out what you are at some point.”
Picking himself up off the floor and giggling the whole time Kile responded, “No, no. Glimmer will keep her from seeing. It going good, I think. Robert not think so?”
Robert folded his arms and watched the little troll trying to climb on top of the bed for another round of bouncing. “Actually…I think it is going pretty good. I don’t know what I’m worried about. Ricky gets in trouble for bouncing on his bed so much Mom hardly even bothers anymore.”
Just then Mom’s voice interrupted, calling up from the stair bottom and through the slightly open door of Little Ricky’s bedroom. “Ricky! Can you keep your furniture together for just one day while the cousins visit?”
But that was it. No threats for grounding, (never worked anyway), and no quick inspection. Mom was too busy prepping the afternoon meal for their guests.
“Alright then, can you show me what you look like to them?”
“You want see glimmer?” Kile asked, pausing on the bed for a moment.
“Yes. Show me what they’re seeing so I know.”
There was a shimmer in the air, much like when they first saw the little troll and he disappeared before Robert’s eyes. However, Kile’s little image merely flickered and was replaced by one of Little Ricky, eyes sparkling, large grin on his face. He was wearing the dark slacks and dress shirt that was lying on the bed. In all, it was a pretty convincing replica.
Robert quickly grabbed the duplicate clothes from the bed cover, wadded them up and threw them into the dirty clothes hamper in Ricky’s closet. Kile had returned to jumping.
“Kile?” Robert asked casually.
“Hmmm?”
“How do you do that glimmer exactly anyway? Do you use mental telepathy? I mean, would it work on someone who’s never seen Ricky before?”
“Oh yes!” Kile replied as he continued trying to knock his breath out of himself by getting an unstable enough bounce to throw him off the bed. “What telepathy is?”
“Like using mental powers,” Rob added. He watched the troll while continuing his inquiry. “Is it like hypnosis, or a jedi mind trick? Or is it like magic?”
“Ooohhh!” Kile said in a hoarse groan. He’d stopped bouncing on the bed and sat down at the edge, fixing Robert with his large yellow eyes. “It is magic. Kile forget. Humans don’t use magic anymore. But trolls do. We never forgot. As long as Kile know what the glimmer needs to look like then I can use magic to trick other eyes.”
“I see,” said Robert somewhat doubtfully. Here he had a troll, a living, breathing, actual troll sitting in his brother’s bedroom and he still had some doubts as to how magic could possibly work.
“Yes! And I can teach you too!”
“Really?” The response carried a fairly sarcastic tone, but part of that was that Robert didn’t want to let on too much that he still wanted to believe in kid things like magic, even with a troll before him making the offer.
“Oh yes!” Kile plopped down to the floor and spun around showing off the overall effect of being Little Ricky. “Kile is best boy troll at magic. That why Queen Isabel ask me to this mission.”
Kile seemed to understand he’d let slip a little too much information almost instantly. His eyes quickly searched left and right and then he slapped both hands over his mouth. He mumbled something to Robert, realized his hands were preventing it, placed them both back at his sides again and said, “Never mind.”
“A mission, eh?”
“No, no!” Kile’s hands were up before his face between himself and Robert. It looked a little funny because even Little Ricky was never so melodramatic nor had so much body language except when he was trying to out run the effects of one of his mischievous fires or experiments. “Not what I meant. Kile means, uh…honor. Queen Isabel gives me big honor to come live with you.”
“I don’t think so, Kile. I know what you meant. It was pretty clear yesterday at the dinner with Isabel in Machsa that you guys had this all set up,” Robert replied. He went to the dresser and grabbed a large, worn softball and started rolling it from hand to hand as he slowly paced the room. He didn’t look directly at Kile as he asked as if in contemplation, “The question is, what are you trolls up to?”
Kile’s glimmer dropped suddenly and he waddled up to Robert, placing his hands palm-forward again between them. “Nothing! Nothing, brother Robert. I just want to learn. The queen want to learn too. So…she…give let me do the job.”
“Job?”
“Uh…let me…” Kile’s eyes were flicking about the room while he placed an index finger on his lip. He realized he needed to learn a little more finesse with the human’s language or he was never going to be able to woo them the way he did all the male trolls back home when he’d gotten himself backed into a corner. “She let me come live with you. Kile’s idea. Queen said it okay so she can learn too. She likes to und
erstand humans. She likes humans more than most trolls. Thinks that TV and internet and cars are magic that we not have.”
“Mmm, hmm. I think I understand,” Rob said as he plunked the softball back onto the dresser on its little cupped holder.
“Boys!” Mom yelled from downstairs again. “Uncle Bill and Aunt Janine are here. Can you please come down and open the door for them while I finish putting the bird in the oven?”
Kile’s attention was drawn to the door for a moment and Robert groaned. As he led them both out he said, “We’re not done talking about this yet.”
Kile whimpered a bit, but followed him out of the bedroom to the stairwell.