troll in the attic

While sorting through more boxes yesterday evening (a seemingly never-ending process), I came across the following literary thriller. It has been reprinted here, with permission from the author, for your amusement. I should add that the events depicted are ficitional, and any resemblence to actual events is purely coincidental.

Troll in the Attic

Once in an old brick house in American Fork, there lived a family of ten-toed people. There was a ten-toed father, a ten-toed mother, a ten-toed sister and an itsy-bitsy ten-toed brother.

Well, one day the mother stood up, put on her coat and hat, and said, "I have to go to my bridge club meeting to decide how the new bridge should be built. You kids be good. Your father will take care of you while I'm away," and she left.

The father, brother and sister all sat down to watch "Duck Tales." It wasn't long before the father fell asleep. He snored happily as the brother and sister watched "Rescue Rangers." But during a commercial for Pop Tarts something strange happened. They heard a noise. First it went thump and bump and thump and crackle. Then it went CRASH! The brother and sister looked at each other.

"What was that?" asked the sister.

"I don't know," said the brother.

"Maybe we should go investigate," said the sister.

"Good idea," said the brother and he crawled under the couch.

So the brave ten-toed sister went by herself to see what she could discover. Thump went the noise, again. "That sounds like it's coming from upstairs," said the sister, so she began to tiptoe quietly up the stairs. She went up and up and up, etc. All the time she was listening to the strange thumps and bumps. So when she finally reached the top of the stairs, she listened again and it sounded like it was coming from the attic.

So she opened the attic door and went up and up and up and up and up, etc., and when she finally got to the top (again), out jumped a big, green, slimey troll! And he said, in a very deep voice, "Give me your TV Guide!"

The sister said, "What?"

"I said, 'Give me your TV Guide!'" the troll hollered.

The sister thought about it a while, but she knew she couldn't give him their TV Guide, because their father wouldn't know when a football game would come on, her mother wouldn't know when the news came on, her brother wouldn't know when cartoons came on, and she wouldn't know when "Full House" came on. So she said, "I can't give you our TV Guide. It's at the cleaners."

"Give me your TV Guide!" the troll screamed.

"I can't give you our TV Guide." she said. "The dog ate it."

"Give me your TV Guide!" he yelled with his eyes popping out of his head.

"What kind of creature are you, anyway?" the sister asked quietly.

"I'm a troll," he said. "Now give me your TV Guide!"

"You don't look like a troll," the sister said.

"But my mother and father were trolls." said the troll.

"Well, you don't look anything like a troll," said the sister.

"Well, I went to Troll Elementary," he said proudly.

"I read once that a real troll can easily do handstands," said the sister, "so if you're a real troll, show me your handstand."

"Oh, that's simple. I can beat you at a handstanding contest any old day," the troll boasted. He cleared his throat, he flexed his muscles, he beat his chest, and said, "Stand back, little girl." He raised his arms, stepped out, flipped up, and plopped on his bald, green head. Immediately, he jumped up and said, "I meant to do that." Again, he raised his arms, leaned back, kicked out his foot, flipped up and flew all the way over, landing on his back.

The sister said, "Hmmmm."

The troll said, in a puzzled sort of way, "That's funny. I thought I was a troll. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm not a troll after all." He picked up a nearby piece of chalk and an eraser, left the house, became a school teacher, and lived happily ever after.

Later, when the ten-toed mother came home, she asked, "Did anything happen while I was gone?"

"No, nothing unusual," said the ten-toed children.

The ten-toed father said, "Zzzzzzzzzz."

written by: Caroline Roberts
Dec. 13, 1990