Chapter 43

Sean parked his truck in the mall parking space next to the flattened police car. At least, he was pretty sure that it was a police car despite the fact that it was rather dimensionally challenged. He got out and walked around to the passenger side. Opening the door, he bowed and said, “Gold door service for the lady.”

“Why thank you,” Suzie said with a giggle.

Sean helped her out of the truck. Once she was out, she gave him a curtsy. Sean closed the door and said, “There’s another flattened police car here. Let’s see if Stomp is around.”

Having seen the gold truck approach, a policeman walked over to the young couple with a concerned expression on his face. Although no one had been hurt so far, he feared that the first would be a couple of kids. He could imagine the kind of lawsuits that would result from that. He said, “You shouldn’t be around here, kids.”

“Why?” Sean asked.

“There’s a monster over there,” the policeman said gesturing in the direction of the woods that started a few feet from the parking lot.

“We came to see him,” Sean said as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to want to do.

The policeman pointed to the flattened car and said, “You don’t want to get anywhere near him. He’s dangerous.”

“Stomp? I thought he was rather polite,” Sean said. He looked at Suzie and asked, “Didn’t you think he was polite?”

“He did introduce himself to us,” Suzie said.

“It is a big ugly monster that will chew you up and spit you out,” the policeman said trying to scare the kids away. They had tried a dozen times to arrest the troll, but it had flattened their cars like aluminum cans and was so strong that two dozen policemen couldn’t wrestle him to the ground. Their bullets just bounced off of him. The Tazer made him giggle.

Looking over to the woods in the hope of spotting Stomp, Sean said, “Let me go talk to him.”

“I’m afraid that I can’t allow that,” the policeman said moving to block Sean from heading into the woods.

Sean decided that if he couldn’t go to Stomp, that Stomp could come over to him. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Hey, Stomp. Come over here!”

The troll came out of the woods and looked around trying to figure out who had called him. He noticed Sean waving to him and stomped over to the young man with a big smile on his face. It should be noted that a troll’s smile looks a lot like a snarl that shows lots of very ugly looking teeth. People who were afraid of snarls like that typically found a troll’s smile very scary. The policeman backpedaled away from the troll while firing his pistol at him. The bullets just bounced off the magical creature.

Looking over at the policeman, Sean said, “Hey, stop that.”

“That’s not very friendly,” Suzie said putting her hands on her hips reminding Sean of her mother. She said, “What would your mother think of you, acting like that?”

“She’d be glad that I’m still alive and that I’m protecting stupid kids like you,” the policeman answered. He was busy trying to reload his gun. His nervous fingers were not helping him at all.

“That’s not nice,” Suzie said shaking a finger at him.

Stomp stopped in front of Sean and said, “Hi, Sean.”

“Hi, Stomp.”

Turning to face the troll, Suzie said, “Hi, Stomp.”

“Hello, Lady,” Stomp said scratching his stomach. He smiled at her; showing lots of yellow teeth. The policeman took another dozen steps away.

Sean pointed over at the flattened police car and asked, “Why did you do that?”

“Bad noise,” Stomp said holding his hands over his ears.

“What?”

“Hurt ears,” Stomp said. He went over to the flattened car and stomped on it a few times. His actions had little effect since it just wasn’t possible to flatten it any more than it was.

“You say that the siren hurts your ears?” Sean asked. It seemed to him that Stomp could only put together sentences of two words.

“Bad noise,” Stomp said nodding his head. He stomped on the flattened police car a couple of more times. He stopped and turned to Sean with a frown on his face.

“You don’t look happy,” Sean said.

Putting a hand on Stomp’s arm, Suzie said, “Poor Stomp looks very unhappy.”

“Not happy,” Stomp said.

“Why?” Suzie asked.

“No home,” Stomp said. The poor troll looked like he was on the verge of tears.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sean said.

“Want home.”

Nodding his head, Sean said, “I understand. It must really be hard being homeless.”

“Want home. Charge toll,” Stomp said. He reached over and pulled a sapling out of the ground. He used it to scratch his back.

“Let me see what I can do,” Sean said.

“We have to find a home for you,” Suzie said looking over at Sean.

Sean pointed at the policeman who was still busy trying to reload his service revolver. The poor man kept dropping the cartridges. Sean said, “You won’t hurt them will you.”

“Wrestle good. Like wrestle,” Stomp said with a smile crossing his face.

“You enjoyed it when they wrestled you?” Sean asked rather surprised.

“Good fun,” Stomp said.

Suzie looked over at the policeman who was staring at them incredulous that they were just talking with the monster. She said, “He doesn’t look very happy.”

“Too many unhappy people around here and only one of you,” Sean said shaking his head sadly.

“Of me?” Suzie asked surprised.

Surprised by her surprise, Sean said, “One look at you and it is like the sun came out. If that can’t cheer up someone, nothing can.”

“Oh,” Suzie said hugging his arm. Sean said the nicest things to her.

The policeman couldn’t help but overhear their conversation. He finally got a cartridge into his revolver. He shook his head and said, “I’m going to have to remember that line.”

“I guess we’re going to have to solve this problem the old fashioned way,” Sean said.

“How?” Suzie asked.

“We’ll just have a make a wild-assed guess at a solution and hope it works,” Sean answered.

Suzie laughed and said, “That just might do it.”

“Let’s go talk to the policeman,” Sean said deciding that would be a good place to start.

Suzie turned to Stomp and said, “We’ll be back.”

“Pretty lady,” Stomp said. He twisted the tree until it burst into slivers of wood. He took one of the slivers and worked it around his teeth like a tooth pick. He was quite proud of the fact that he had most of his teeth and attributed that to his dental hygiene rather than magic.

Sean walked over to the policeman and, holding up a hand, he said, “Hello Human. Take me to your leader.”

“Huh?” the policeman said staring at Sean.

Sean leaned over to Suzie with a grin on his face and said, “I’ve always wanted to use that line.”

“The opportunities are few and far between,” Suzie said with a laugh. She hugged his arm and asked, “What next?”

“I assume he’ll take us to his leader,” Sean said looking at the policeman.

“You want to talk to the Chief?”

“How,” Sean said holding up one hand so that the palm was facing the policeman.

“Huh?” the policeman said while Suzie giggled at his confused reaction.

“I would like to talk to your Chief,” Sean answered. He leaned over to Suzie and said, “Some people just don’t understand Indian.”

“It is just a sign of the times,” Suzie said.

“Political correctness run amuck,” Sean said nodding his head in agreement.

The policeman got on his radio. After a few minutes, he said, “The Chief said he would be here in a thirty minutes, although considering the distance it might take him an hour.”

“Must have a long way to come,” Sean said. The town only took about five minutes to drive through and that was only if you hit the traffic light when it was red.

The policeman said, “He’s riding a bicycle.”

“Why is he riding a bicycle?” Sean asked puzzled.

“We ran out of police cars,” the policeman answered pointing to the flattened police car. He gestured over to a bicycle parked a short distance away and said, “That’s my bike. It is a ten speed.”

“It must be hard to pull over speeders,” Sean said imagining the police peddling like mad to catch up to a car going seventy miles an hour.

“Uh, yeah,” the policeman said. Cars didn’t even slow down when they gave pursuit on bicycle.

“Maybe we should go to him,” Sean said thinking that it would be the polite thing to do.

The policeman said, “No. According to his wife, he needs the exercise. He’s lost about ten pounds since his car got flattened.”

“Why doesn’t he use his personal car?” Sean asked. He noticed Stomp pulling another sapling from the ground. He was running the branches through his hair.

Pointing to the other end of the parking lot, the policeman said, “It was flatted over there.”

“Oh, I didn’t notice it,” Sean said looking in the direction the policeman pointed. Of course, a flattened car was a little difficult to spot from a distance.

Pointing to the mall, the policeman said, “There he is.”

“It will only take him five minutes to get here,” Sean said watching the bicycle off in the distance. The bike was going all over the place. It stopped and the man on bike stood there. Puzzled, Sean asked, “What is he doing?”

“He’s catching his breath,” the policeman said watching the chief stand there breathing heavily.

“He went fifty feet,” Sean said incredulously.

“He’s doing better,” the policeman said with a nod of approval. Looking over at Sean, he said, “There was a time when he couldn’t walk that far.”

“You don’t say,” Sean said.

No one had noticed that Stomp had come over to see what they were watching. Surprising everyone, he said, “Fatman Come.”

With a yelp, the police officer backed away. He shouted, “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Want Wrestle?” Stomp asked looking at the policeman.

“Just stay away from me,” the policeman said.

“No fun,” Stomp said crossing his arms and looking unhappy. He added, “Want play.”

Suzie looked over at Sean knowing that there was only one person who could possibly play with the troll and that person was Sean. She said, “Why don’t you go play with the troll?”

“How?” Sean asked thinking that wrestling was definitely out of the question. He doubted that Coach Slaughter would even last a minute with the troll.