~~~
Downstairs it was a little difficult to interrupt Robert and give him the gift. He’d just entered the rotation for game time again and none of the boys wanted to stop until they finished at least the first round. Finally when Kile jumped in front of the television and waved the gift in front of him they paid attention. It wasn’t the troll’s silly dance he performed for them but the shape of the present that stopped them. After taking the gift and thanking Little Ricky, Rob and his friends were treated to another thirty seconds or so of Kile’s best moves that he’d learned watching various dance shows and pre-teen broadcasts showcasing kids busting a move at appropriate moments.
Kile was quite proud. But all he got for his birthday “dance” was a couple shaking heads and small grins before the boys sat on the couch to unwrap the present. So he stood and waited with baited breath just as the rest of the boys to see what it was.
The group of humans shouted excitedly as the first half of the paper tore off.
“Mom! I thought you said I was too young for this,” Robert yelled up the stairs.
Mom laughed and shouted back, “Yeah! Maybe I still do, but I think you’ve proven you’re getting pretty mature. Just be willing to shut off the games when I tell you it’s time.”
“No problem!” he yelled back. “Thanks Mom!”
“Let’s put it in!” Ron said loudly.
“Wait, wait!” Daniel interjected. “We should give him all our presents now too.”
It only took a couple of minutes to go through what the other human boys had brought him. Two of them had just brought a little bit of cash and told Robert he could use it for whatever he wanted. Ronald was one of them and he cracked a joke to which Kile laughed.
“I was going to give you a locket,” he said.
“What?” Rob asked back smiling.
“Yeah, you know. So you could put your picture in it and give it to Marissa if she came, but….” The smaller boy laughed.
Robert socked him once on the shoulder hard enough to be his retort but not so much to justify the fake pain Ron pretended he was in.
Then Daniel gave Robert a little box. It was felt and looked to Rob like it might be a jewelry box. He made a comment to Ron that maybe he did get a locket to share with someone, but Dan laughed and promised him that, no, there really was something good inside.
After flipping the lid Robert removed a credit-card shaped thing but stared at it vacantly for a moment trying to read what it said.
“It’s a gift card. For the hobby store,” Daniel explained.
“Oh cool!” Robert replied, very much grateful Daniel had given him something thoughtful.
“It’s not really a lot, but I thought maybe you could save money up on it and then buy a plane or a helicopter or something. I’ll help you put it together if you want.”
“Wow,” Rob said again. “That’s really cool. I’ll have to mow lawns this summer so I can go ahead and get it quick.”
Kile too mouthed “wow” silently to himself mimicking Rob. He vowed he would try to help Robert earn his helicopter so he could see it before returning to Machsa, but also because he wanted Robert to remain a friend after he left.
As the boys settled, Kile spoke up. “Can I share my tradition with you now?”
Rob smiled and said, “Sure.”
Then Kile bent down to hang his face low. He stuck one long, black-nailed index finger deep inside his nose and started rummaging around. His glimmer was turned off for Robert, though the rest of the boys watched Little Ricky fumbling around like a fool picking his nose. Robert got the full effect of the show though.
After a half a minute Kile withdrew his finger, covered with ooze and displaying one giant, particularly revolting glop of booger on the end of it. Kile was smiling ear to ear, and waddled over to Rob, sticking his finger in the boy’s face.
“Happy Birthday!” Kile said gleefully.
“Ewweee, Ricky!” Daniel said. “That’s not even funny!”
“Get rid of that Ky…er, Ricky!” Rob spluttered waving his hand in front of him.
“No, you have to eat it!” Kile said, smile faltering just a bit and then returning.
“What?!” Ronald said, plopping on the floor and laughing even harder than he was before despite Dan’s admonition. “Eat it yourself, Ricky!”
“No, no, no,” Kile plied to Robert’s senses. “It is a tradition. It will help you grow!”
The other two boys were alternating between laughter and awkward giggles. All five humans could not help but look at the glistening troll booger. It seemed to Robert to even be throbbing in the darkened basement light.
“Ricky,” Robert pleaded, starting on one track and then changing his mind. He was having a tough time remembering that the troll wasn’t really his human brother, despite being able to see him without glimmer. “Come upstairs. Here, you guys load the new game.”
Ronald caught the game package out of the air as Rob tossed it to him gently. He continued to chuckle as Robert dragged Little Ricky up the stairs.
“Why?” Kile said loudly. “You need to finish the tradition.”
Rob’s hand was clamped around the troll’s wrist, the one with the extended booger finger. Though the troll was surely stronger than he, Robert continued to pull him up the stairs hoping his mother would help him intercede before the boys downstairs missed him.
“Kile,” he rasped at the troll, “I’m not going to eat your boogers. What are you getting at here anyway?”
“No, wait! It’s a tradition!”
Mom came striding out of the kitchen wiping a small handful of flatware on a dishtowel. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“It’s Kile. He pulls out this honkin’ big booger in front of everyone and he wants me to eat it!”
Kile looked to Mrs. Johansson, still trying to force a smile. “Yes! Yes! It’s a tradition! All the friends of a troll give him a booger for good luck! It helps him grow bigger and stronger for the next year!”
“Ah!” said Mrs. J. “I see.”
“Dude, it’s totally gross!” Rob was still trying to clue the troll in.
“It’s alright. Go back downstairs, Robbie. I’ll explain.”
After Robert trotted down the steps and another roar of laughter came from a couple of the boys, Mrs. Johansson took the troll to the bathroom.
“Did I do something wrong?” asked Kile.
“You might say that,” Sara replied with a giggle. “Humans really don’t want to eat boogers, especially someone else’s, Kile.”
“Yes they do! I saw it at the school and on television shows.”
“Yes dear, but I think they usually do it to make fun of kids that eat their boogers.”
Kile waddled behind her towards the bathroom. Humans were so weird. He couldn’t understand what was wrong with them that they didn’t take care of their bodies better. After all, they did weird rituals like lather up soap inside their mouths with a bristley stick a couple times a day. What could be so wrong about eating boogers?
“Here, wipe off your finger on a tissue and then wash your hands,” Mrs. Johansson said.
Of course! Again with the hand washing. Humans loved to wash their hands all the time too. And while he had figured out what the tissue was the first week easily enough, he still had a question about it, but he held it while Mrs. Johansson continued to explain and then suggest a different tradition he might be able to go downstairs and do for Robert.
“Sara?” Kile asked experimentally after she was done to see if it was okay to call her by her first name.
“Yes,” she responded.
“What is that tissue for?”
“What do you mean? The toilet paper there?” she asked, pointing at the roll mounted beside the toilet.
“Yes. What do you use it for, besides wiping off boogers?”
Mrs. Johansson thought for a moment. “Kile, how do you get…you know…clean after yo
u go to the bathroom?”
“Bathroom?” Kile looked about for a moment trying to concentrate. “I get clean in the bathroom. Robbie showed me how to run the shower.”
“No, I mean, where do you go to the restroom?”
“Restroom?” Kile squished his nose and brow trying to understand where you go to rest.
“Potty? You know?” Kile continued to shake his head so she expounded, “Poop, Kile? Where do you go poop?”
“Poop?”
“Oh boy,” she mumbled under her breath. “Where do you get rid of the wastes from your body?”
Kile placed his index finger on his lips again while he thought. “You mean dewies?”
“If dewies means poop, then, yes. Where do you do your dewies?” She was getting exasperated.
“Oh,” he fiddled his fingers a bit, a little embarrassed. “I could not find where you put them so I put them behind the tree in the corner of the back yard.”
“Oh man,” Sara responded, placing her hand on her forehead. “So that’s what all that was.”
Kile was nodding.
“Okay…tell you what. Let’s just not mention it to Robert, and, uh…if you still want to do your dewies outside, can you go just a little bit into the forest back there, sort of out of the way?”
“Okay,” Kile grinned and nodded his head.
She patted him on the shoulder and sent him back down the stairs, returning to the kitchen a little light-headed.
“Sara?”
She turned begrudgingly. “Yes?”
“Should I do my streams out there too?”
Mrs. Johansson just nodded, mouth slightly open, unsure of what was the proper expression. She did not want to ask nor even imagine where he might have been doing those for the past two weeks.
Kile tromped down stairs. A few seconds later Sara heard her eldest son’s voice say, “Ow! What was that for?”
Then a voice similar to her youngest’s said, “A pinch to grow an inch.”
The rest of the gathering downstairs roared with laughter, and Sara Johansson knew she’d gotten Kile straightened out…at least when it came to birthday traditions. The rest of the issues would have to wait.