Page 3 of The Troll’s Summer Flame

Chopin remains where he is, peering down at me, almost accusingly.

“What? You don’t want the guilt trip? Well, sorry, fluff butt, you’ve earned it. I spent all my savings on this trip, I wasted some UltraRyde guy’s entire afternoon, and I bet you I get a ding on my profile—not that I get to use it in this tiny place, I have to pay a pet-sitter fifty percent for canceling the day of, not to mention messing up her plans, and I’m stuck here.” I put the tuna down and begin looking for a way up this tree. It’s not going to happen in this dress or these shoes, that’s for sure, but I’m also afraid to leave Chopin in case he runs off.

Chopin, not surprisingly, doesn’t say anything to my tirade, just peers down at me, tail swaying lazily.

I circle the tree, trying to see if I can pull myself up into the lower branches. “Maybe I can meet you halfway,” I grunt, jumping and barely grazing my fingertips against it. “How the hell did you get up there?”

“Ssss,” Chopin hisses at me when I rattle the whole tree with my next attempt to run and jump—and succeed in snapping the bendy lowest branch into several others and losing my grip.

“Don’t sass me, mister. You and me are about to have a whole lot of quality time,” I grumble, glaring up. “Yeah, that’s right. Because even if I get my money back—which I won’t—my friends are all going to be working the rest of the summer. I need to make teacher buddies with the summer off. And, rrrgh—” I try pulling myself up again, and fail again, “even if I get all my money back and they miraculously get another two weeks of vacation, we won’t be going on a cruise with a bunch of hot law grads to a tropical paradise, because people book those cruises months in advance!”

Like I did during winter vacation, when all of my cousins and a bunch of family friends who might as well be related because they’re like family were all sitting around after eating way too much and talking about how much we missed each other, and how tough work was. We escaped the aunties gossiping and the uncles arguing, snuck out to drink tsokolate and scroll on our phones while we commiserated about the realities of being working adults, no longer college students. Danica was the one who suggested a cruise, saying it would be a bargain vacation with all food, drinks, swimming, and entertainment included, plus traveling to a destination.

My family isn’t the “cruising” type. We’ve always saved our big vacations to meet family halfway or simply gone to the Jersey Shore. It’s fun, but it’s never been relaxing (nothing with Tita Carla is ever relaxing). When I agreed to go with my cousin and two of our best friends to celebrate our first “adult summer vacation,” I was knee-deep in flu season, kids who leave germy, sticky fingerprints on the school piano, two all-school choirs, and four ensemble groups. Three months into my first “real” job as a music teacher at Pine Ridge Elementary and Pine Ridge Middle School (mornings at one and afternoons at the other), and I was already wondering how teachers survive until Christmas Break, let alone summer vacation.

Come to think of it, I’m still wondering. I think I know, though... We live for these complete and total breaks, unfamiliar sights, carefree days, sultry nights...

“You have so much to answer for, little man,” I growl. “I still love you, though. Please come down?” I let out a sigh and hold up my arms for Chopin to descend.

“Mrowwwwwr,” Chopin lets out a decidedly unhappy noise, and it dawns on me. He’s not being stubborn. He’s stuck.

I’m gonna have to call the fire department.

And after the fire department laughs at me and I die of embarrassment and/or disappointment, I’m going to leave Pine Ridge.

Chapter Two: Gordon

“You have to take the truck out to the red brick apartment house.”

I look up from the station copy of The Pine Ridge Gazette. Captain Sunderland is standing over me, mustache twitching as he tries not to laugh.

I don’t have that problem, nor do I need to ask, “What red brick apartment house?” There’s only one in Pine Ridge, across from the campus, on the town side of the river. It can’t be on fire, or there would be a station-wide alarm blaring. And he said I need the truck, so I don’t think it’s idiot college students who’ve done something stupid, like supergluing themselves together for a dare. “What is it?” I ask, rising.

When I stand up, I dwarf Cap by a good ten inches, and he’s not a little guy. If he ever wondered how come I’m the only guy in the department who can reach the top of the truck without a stepstool or needs size seventeen boots, he never shows it. He’s a human, so he’s oblivious to a lot of things, like the gray-green color of my skin and the little underbite with tusks that most trolls have.

“Lady has a cat up a tree. You’re going to need the ladder; might as well have something to carry it. If we get a call, you’ll have to abandon Mr. Mittens and rush to the real priority, okay?”

“Its name isn’t really Mr. Mittens, is it?” I look at him in horror.

“No, the dispatcher didn’t say that. It could be, I guess. All I know is that Dottie says the lady is crying—not so much because she’s worried about the cat, or that the cat is in imminent danger, but because she’s sick of this place, everything has gone wrong, and I quote, ‘I need my cat out of the tree and my day un-fucked.’”

I wince. “Oh, joy. I bet she’ll be screaming at me to ‘hurry the hell up’ the whole time I’m trying not to get clawed in the face.” Cats don’t like trolls. Most animals don’t. I don’t blame them. Most trolls survive by stealing cows and sheep from farmers and shepherds, but they’ll eat any meat they can catch, even humans. Of course, I can’t tell Sunderland that I don’t want to go on the call because I’m a troll. He’d send me to the shrink, and I have no desire to explain my hang-ups to a guy who can’t understand that self-loathing and repressed anger are the norm for any troll who has to walk away from his whole family and childhood in order to “be good.”

Maybe being a firefighter was taking the whole “redemption” for the sins of my kind thing too far.

“Nah, Dottie says she’s actually really nice. I bet you know her—Andrea Flores?”

I’ve lived here for six years, and I don’t know half the people here. “Nope.”

“Yes, you do! She’s the music teacher up at the elementary school. She teaches Dottie’s kids. Did you see the holiday show?”

I shake my head. I don’t have kids at the school, so why would I? Sometimes, Sunderland seems to forget that I’m a true loner, no nieces or nephews around here, no little kids who’ve adopted me as an uncle since I’m a parent’s best friend. Nothing like that.

“Short little lady, I think Dottie says she’s part Filipino, and the kids adore her. She made them all something... lumpia? Whatever, some rolled-up things, and taught them a lot about different cultures and instruments. She makes it fun, brings in foods and clothes from different nations when they learn about that country’s music. Teaches piano, too. Dottie’s boy, Brady, is actually practicing the piano at home without being bribed.”

“She told you all that on the phone?” I ask, getting my gear (mainly for the coat and gloves to protect me from cat claws).

“No, during the spring concert two weeks ago. Brady played real well for a third-grader. Had a solo and everything. Oh! I know. She played at church last week, after the organist moved away. They’re looking for a new one, you know.”