~~~
It was true that Mom had received a call by the time the bus had dropped off the boys. But she didn’t seem nearly as stressed about it. She took Ricky aside and asked him a little about it, and he pretty much gave about the same story as he had told Robert. Fortunately, the idea of Little Ricky wanting to try to eat paste didn’t clue her in much. She reminded him, with a smile, that he’d already tried paste several times before and said every time that he didn’t like it.
“You’d think you’d know by now,” she said, gave him a squeeze and then sent him out with a PB&J to help quash his continued appetite.
The boys met up again in Robert’s room where he’d been waiting for the troll to finish his so-called lecture with his mother.
“I don’t understand why you always get off so easy,” he grinned.
“You mean Ricky!” the troll correct him. “I like this sandwich…I still don’t like this bread. It still taste like bag. Hmmm…or like paste. But the jelly is very yummy. And peanut butter taste sort of like the snack small human gave me at school.”
Through some trial and error description and charades, Robert figured Kile had been given a stick of a candy bar with cookie and peanut butter. But in that case it was the chocolate Kile liked most. And apparently, the chocolate tended to make trolls a little goofy. Rob decided he’d better manage the troll’s diet much more closely while he yet remained in his house or there could be worse problems than a freaked-out, elderly Kindergarten teacher.