Robin Tyler was a young boy who lived near Detroit. Let’s call him nine-ish years old. I’m often a bit fuzzy on some of the boring details like years, or street names, or precisely how many gremlins and trolls were in Michigan by that time.
So, this boy of nine-ish years who lived near Detroit went to school one day, and his teacher gave the class an assignment. They were to learn an interesting story about their family, and write a report on the subject to read aloud in class the following Friday.
If you have ever been nine-ish years old, you might be able to imagine how excited the children were about the assignment. Very few were enthused (which is another way of saying that almost everybody hated the assignment), but no one was less enthused than Robin Tyler. He was not enthused about his assignment because his was the most boring family in Michigan…or so he thought. When he got home, his mother thought that nothing interesting had ever happened to their family, but said he could look through some of his grandmother’s things in the basement.
Robin was finally getting just a bit excited about this report. He had never been allowed in the dark, damp “Michigan basement” before. There were mounds of chewed nut shells that squirrels or mice had left behind. The empty shells looked like little skulls. On a pallet in the corner was a stack of boxes. Robin sat down and opened the first one, clearly labeled: “Arabelle Tyler,” along with his grandmother’s address (which I don’t remember, and couldn’t tell you if I did).
Underneath some old clothes, Robin found a notebook. It was called Troll Diary, vol. 41, by Celine de Tuilleries. Robin flipped through the pages until he saw a rather frightening drawing of some kind of monster.
“I guess that must be the troll,” he supposed. He took the juice box out of his lunch, and saved the apple and sandwich for later. He then turned the page, and began reading the story.
Now that I knew what the ugly thing looked like, I could start to piece together the clues necessary to finding him, and dispensing with him once and for all. First, this was clearly no predictable Bridge Troll (if those even still existed), or plodding Moss Troll. This was a Cave Troll, albeit a relatively small one. I remember wishing Arabelle was with me. This wasn’t going to be easy.
I was able to contact Joe, and found out that a few of his guys had refused to go back to a certain warehouse. They said that the trailers were always banged up, and that the place always made their truck stink for days. That had to be it.
Right before dawn, I snuck through a small loose corner of the fence. It was Sunday, so nobody would be there to stop me. I knew that Cave Trolls smelled horrible and gave off a lot of body heat. The smell seemed to be everywhere, so that wasn’t going to help until I got closer. It looked like there were tracks in the snow (although troll tracks are notoriously hard to spot). They led to a pair of garage doors. One was covered in a giant icicle that had dripped down from the roof. The other was dented slightly.
I knew which way to go, but then suddenly–
When Robin woke up, he realized that he had nodded off in the middle of the story (which wasn’t so unusual, whenever he tried to read after school). Not knowing exactly where he had left off, he simply opened the front cover of the notebook. It said, in bold lettering:
DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!! The information contained here is not for everyone. It is hazardous to your health, and WILL put everyone you love in danger. Again, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!!
af orði er vísdómr
af vísdómi er nótt
orð sefr
As soon as he read the strange foreign inscription, the words began to vanish from the page. The entire notebook had gone completely blank. When he saw his grandmother the next day, he asked her about the story.
“Was ‘Celine de Whats-her-name’ related to us?” he asked. “She mentioned your name.”
“I mentioned Arabelle in that story,” his grandmother replied, “who, unfortunately, you’ll never meet. I’m the one who killed that troll, but this must remain our secret. Promise?”
Robin promised with a big smile.
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