Chapter 25
Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig
After a good night’s rest, Little Ricky was at it again, but no more with little scouter’s fires on the kitchen tile. He was in the yard practicing his newly minted magic skills.
Inside, the other Johanssons, Marissa, and a trepidatious Daniel sat around a table smiling and considerably more comfortably discussing Ricky’s homecoming than they had talked just two nights before about their venture up the mountain.
“So, I wouldn’t worry about it, Robbie. I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing Kile fairly often,” Mrs. Johansson reassured.
“Look at him out there!” Marissa said. “Ricky is so cute! Practicing magic. I might just have to go out there and teach him a lesson or two about trees. Waddya think, Rob?”
Robert, who still wasn’t quite accustomed to holding a girls hand for the length of time which Marissa seemed comfortable with it, replied hesitantly, “I’m not sure you’re going to want to tease him, Marissa. He was telling me some of the stuff he learned while he was with the trolls and he might just be a force to be reckoned with.”
“But you did an amazing job, soldier,” Rick Junior said, patting her shoulder.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, smiling.
For now, the world was put right. Daniel sat sipping a lemonade Mrs. Johansson had given him, wondering how he would ever try to explain what he saw the day before should he ever have to. He’d already gone up early that morning to inspect the Airfield and found that the Bridge Troll had been removed. Although it must have taken at least a couple of them to do it, he imagined it was the big guys that seemed to be on their side that took it. He had already mentioned to the Johanssons and Marissa when he arrived that the body and even the goblins seemed to be all removed already. But no one else seemed to think it was that big of a deal.
“We’ll tell the rest of the town when it becomes necessary,” the adults had determined. “No one would believe us right now anyway…maybe even with a giant Bridge Troll’s lying in the middle of the field.”
So, life returned to normal. At least to as near a normal as those who’d had a Mountain Troll living among them could ever be.
Epilogue
“So are you telling me that you think my daughter is a…faerie? Some sort of magical creature?” Marissa’s mother accused the agent dressed in black.
What group was he from, again? Rob was wondering. The IPMA? Is that what he said?
Ricky, Robert and Dan had stopped for a visit with Marissa a couple weeks later and shortly after entering the home and sitting down to some cookies Marissa’s mother had just pulled out of the oven a knock at the door came.
“Well…ehmm…” The man in the suit, entirely too warm for late July, stumbled. “I suppose, yes. That is what we’re suggesting.”
“Look!” she said, rising from her chair, the four children watching her nervously, “You can’t come barging into my home and start spouting crazy stories about my children being some sort of mutant magic creature or something and expect to not be kicked out! Should I call the sheriff right now, or will you be leaving on your own?”
Mrs. Flemming stood much the same as Robert’s mother would, arms akimbo, toe tapping the hardwood flooring. She was fuming and the agent seemed to recognize it. He stood quickly and made to leave.
“You know, Mrs. Flemming…it’s not as though we don’t already have a file on you,” he smiled in very much unfriendly manner.
For a moment, just a brief moment, Marissa’s mother seemed startled. But if she had been the fear of it flew from her face immediately. She then started pointing her finger deep into the agent’s chest as hard as she could and explained what a mother living on a mountain slope would do to a city man such as himself if he didn’t get out of her home and head straight back down and enter the freeway in the next two minutes on that six mile drive.
Backing out of the doorway was ungraceful. What the kids wouldn’t have given later to have seen Agent A’s look as the door was slammed in his face, but alas they could not. When they heard his steps creak off the porch and mother stormed angrily into the kitchen to call her husband at work and tell him what had just happened, the kids resumed their conversation.
“So! Can we read Kile’s message now!!” Ricky blurted.
They agreed and Ricky began translating out loud.
~~~
THE END