For the rest of the day we sort of avoided each other. I don’t know why this was. After finding the troll you would have thought we’d have plenty to talk about but after all the arguing in the garden we sort of drifted to separate parts of the house as if we were annoyed with each other.

I spent the afternoon in my room designing some new Meccano models. One of them was a scale model of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. I saw a photo of it online a few weeks before and I just fell in love with the way it curved and how it opened to let ships pass. It’s a bit ambitious even for me really, mostly because of the curve. Look it up online and you’ll see what I mean.

I’ve been building models for as long as I can remember. Dad says it must very therapeutic which I found out means it makes me feel relaxed and happy. I’d have found it a darn sight more therapeutic if I didn’t have the prospect of making them in a dingy, cold shed. I suppose modelling does make me relax though. I’m certainly never as happy as when I am building a model. It’s the thing I go to when I have five spare minutes. I guess you’d call it a hobby but it feels like more than that for me.

You don’t really get Meccano in the shops any more. There are little plastic sets for smaller kids but the proper metal stuff is harder to come by. I love it. I used to do a lot of Lego but once my Dad showed me his old Meccano set I was hooked. When I discovered you could get plans and guides online I was so happy I ran around the house whooping.

I think my favourite model so far is the music maker. I found a copy of the original guide on Meccanopedia, which is like Wikipedia but just for Meccano fans. The guide was a bit old–fashioned but I managed to make it and it really did make music. I had to replace the clockwork motor with a crank handle because I didn’t have that bit.

Angie teases me sometimes about my models. She says that my obsession with them is why nobody will be friends with me. It’s not true of course, I do have friends and I am interested in other things like football and stuff. Besides it’s not like she’s “little miss popular” anyway. She has her book–club buddies and I have my mates but I guess both of us a pretty selective in the people we choose as friends.

Not that it matters now of course. Now we’ve moved neither of us have any friends near here. All our friends are back at home. Sorry, I mean back where we used to live and that’s miles away. I sometimes get to speak to Simon on the webcam but not as much as we said we would when I first moved. I guess , deep down, I knew I’d have to find some new mates at some point but to be honest that wasn’t the most pressing thing on my mind that day. It was the fluffy troll in the middle of my garden.

After an hour or so – I lose track of time when I’m modelling – the front doorbell went. Dad answered it and I heard some muffled voices. I thought it was probably someone selling something and carried on with the gearing I was working on. I heard the front door close and then Dad called up the stairs for us to come down immediately.

“Who was at the door?” Angie asked as we got downstairs.

“It was Mr Peaflummock from next door.” Dad replied, “We have a problem.”

“Not as much as he does with a name like Peaflummock!” I laughed but Dad wasn’t laughing when he looked at me. I decided it might be better to keep the jokes to a minimum for a bit.

“Mr Peaflummock was concerned about our dog and the noise it is making.” Dad continued.

“We haven’t got a dog.” I said.

“Martin!” Angie sighed, “He’s talking about the you–know–what in the garden.”

“You mean it’s started making noises?” I asked.

“Didn’t you hear it?” Dad said, “It’s been like listening to a mouse howling at the moon.”

“You mean a wolf?” I asked

“No, a wolf has a deep howl, this was like a squeaky sort of howl.” Dad shuddered, “it went right through you.”

“Really?” I was amazed. I hadn’t heard a thing but then I also realised I had no idea what a howling mouse sounded like so I may not have noticed it. “When did it start?”

“About an hour ago.” Dad said with a shake of his head, “It went on for about forty–five minutes. Mr Peaflummock is worried what will happen tomorrow when we’re all out. He was upset that we didn’t mention the dog when we were looking around the place before we bought it.”

“Did you explain we don’t have a dog?” Angie asked.

“No.” Dad said, “think about it: if he thinks it’s a dog making that noise we’ll be fine.”

“Assuming we can get the you–know–what to keep quiet.” Angie said.

“Yes, presuming that of course.” Dad said sitting down at the kitchen table. We joined him as he continued, “But if he finds out–”

“That it’s not a dog but a troll.” I said.

“Exactly.” Dad nodded, “We’ll be in all sorts of trouble! He’ll call the police, animal control, the army!”

“Dad!” I laughed, “He’s hardly going to call the army.”

“Okay,” Dad said, “bit of an exaggeration but we could do without the bother couldn’t we?”, He didn’t wait for us to answer, “We need to get rid of this thing by ourselves if we can.”

“Get rid of it?” Angie said, “Why?”

“Angie,” Dad said, “we can hardly keep a troll in the garden! I mean we don’t know what it will do or how dangerous it is.”

“Dangerous?” she replied, “It hardly looks dangerous.”

“That’s not the point.” Dad said, “Every story and tale we’ve heard about trolls has them as monsters that look to eat things. If this, ” he nodded towards the back garden, “gets comfortable here there’s no telling what damage it could do.”

“Dad,” I said, “I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. We don’t even know if it is a troll yet.”

“It says it is and then there’s the sign.” Angie sulked.

“Yes but how do we know if it is or not?” I asked, “I mean I’ve never seen what a troll looks like – have you?” They both shook their heads. “How did the Googling go Dad?” I asked.

“Oh hopeless, completely hopeless!” he said throwing his arms in the air.

“You mean you didn’t find anything?” I said.

“Oh I found out plenty,” he replied, “but it was all about online trolls.”

“Trolls have websites now?” I asked.

“Well not exactly but it doesn’t really matter. The online trolls are not the ones we want to be researching anyway.” Dad pulled the laptop over to himself. He hit a key to cancel the screen saver and after a few clicks found his way to the browser window.

“Here we go. This is the kind of thing we need to consider.” He pointed at the screen to show a page which had information about trolls without mentioning anything about being online. I smiled to myself because it was on Wikipedia. Angie saw it and huffed very loudly.

“Don’t start.” Dad said without looking up. “Look, it says here that a trolls are mythical creatures mostly found in stories originating in Scandinavia.”

“What like Sweden?” I asked.

“Uh–huh and Norway, Denmark, Finland and the rest.”

“So what does it say about them?”

“Well it’s all a bit of a mess really. It says they might be anything from huge ugly, rock–like creatures to small human–like beings. Apparently some people say that they are very like fairies.”

“Fairies?” Angie asked.

“Oh, yes,” said Dad half turning to see her, “fairies. I don’t think that means they have wings, just that they are mythical or mischievous beings.”

“What does it say about feeding them?” I asked.

“That’s just it.” Dad sighed, sitting back in his chair. “It says nothing.”

“There must be something?” Angie said, adding “Have you looked anywhere other than Wikipedia?”

Dad shrugged, “The problem with searching online is that so much of it points to itself. You find a useful looking article and then find it quotes Wikipedia. You find a link on Google and find it’s a list of links to Wikipedia. As it happens there are millions of links about not feeding trolls but every single one of them refers to online trolls which are not what we are talking about.”

“What exactly is an online troll then?” I asked.

“Oh it depends really. Mostly it’s someone who causes a nuisance of themselves or looks to cause one in forums and on Twitter and Facebook and the like. In the worst cases it can move offline as well. It’s a form of bullying.”

“And you’re sure there’s no connection to the thing in our garden?”

“Not that I can see – unless it has a Twitter account.”

“Well I looked in my real encyclopedias.” Angie said with a slight sneer.

“Oh?” Dad asked.

“They say pretty much what you’ve found out.” She replied, ignoring my grin, “Apart from the bit about fairies. There was nothing on that. There was nothing about online trolls or about feeding them either.”

“So we’re stuck then.” I said.

“Looks like we’ll have to figure this one out by ourselves.” Dad said stretching his arms and yawning.

“Perhaps I may help you, if you allow me to?”

We all spun to see the troll standing in the door way.

“How did you get out?” I spluttered.

“I am able to jump,
although I land with a bump.”

“This rhyming is going to get annoying really fast.” Dad muttered.

“I can speak without rhyme,
if it occurs at the time.”

“Sorry,” Dad said, “it’s just hard to understand what you are getting at sometimes.” The troll seemed to shuffle and then said.

“Did you find what you need

to give me a feed?”

“Not yet.” I said. “There’s very little information about feeding trolls that we can find.”

“This may not be a surprise
as I’m sure that you realise
humans don’t tend to see me or my friends
as they rarely open their eyes.”

“What does that mean?” I asked

Dad said. “He’s saying humans are not very observant.” Then he sighed and shook his head. “Johan I don’t think you should be part of this discussion. It’s not helpful.”

The troll sort of bowed its head and backed away lightly.

“I am sorry dear man,
as much as I can
I seek to help others you see.
It is most upsetting
to find you are getting
bothered by something from me.”

“That’s not what I meant. ” Dad said, “I just mean we would like to discuss this alone, if you don’t mind.”

“So if I am not helping you
is there some thing I should do?”

“I’m not sure really.” Dad said looking at us, puzzled. “Why don’t you have a wander around the garden.”

“Okey–dokey”

“Just a minute?” I said, “What are you holding?” The troll was holding one end of a long piece of wool. “What is that wool for?” I asked.

“This will help me to find
my way home. Do you mind?”

“Why would I mind?” I said and then heard Dad gasp.

“Where did you get the wool?” he asked. The troll didn’t answer but looked across the garden towards next door’s fence. “Oh no.” Dad said putting his head in his hands.

“What?” I asked.

“What?” Angie asked.

“He’s grabbed a jumper off next door’s washing line and he’s unravelled it!” Dad shouted, rising to his feet and pointing to Johan.

“What?” I asked, “How do you know?”

“Mr Peaflummock was asking about his blue jumper when he came to complain about the noise. He mentioned it was missing and he wondered it had blown off the line into our garden.”

Johan stood still still holding the piece of blue wool by the end.

“I need this thread as I have already said, in order to find my way home. I sadly must say that we trolls lose our way, if we stray too far when we roam.”

“Mr Peaflummock said he got that jumper for his birthday! If he finds out you took it and ruined it he will be really angry and he’ll blame me!” Dad was fuming.

“Do not fear,

all is clear!

I promise to make recompense.
Once I am at home,
the jumper will go
back over your neighbour’s fence.”

“What!” Dad said “What do you mean it will go back? Are you going to somehow knit it back together then?”

“No.”

“No rhyme?” I said.

“For one word?
How absurd.”

“Never mind the rhyme,” said Dad, “we just don’t have time.” Angie and I both laughed at that but we stopped when Dad shot us a hard stare. He carried on, “You must not throw the remains of that jumper over the fence. In fact give it here!” and he made a grab for the wool.

Suddenly Johan was off running, well sort of plodding quickly, round the garden trailing the long piece of blue wool after him. Dad gave chase and started gathering up the wool as best he could. The problem was that Johan had run between bushes and across the rockery so Dad kept tripping as he ran. “Be aware of the yarn, you may come to harm!”

Johan yelled as he ran.

“I’ll bring you to harm if you don’t give it to me!” Dad puffed as he tried to keep up. “You really must heed my warning. Fear not. I’ll restore it by morning.”

Dad stopped running and stared. “You’ll restore the jumper? How?” he asked.

“I have my ways.
I think you’ll be amazed.”

“And it will be complete?” Dad was indeed amazed. So were Angie and I come to that.

“Yes do not worry at all
it will be complete.
I just ask something small:
give me something to eat.”

We all looked at each other and waited to see who would speak first. The troll had us trapped. If we fed it who knows what would happen. The sign clearly said not to. But then if we didn’t feed it, Mr Peaflummock would find out and we’d have even bigger trouble.

In the end it was Dad who shrugged and said “Okay we’ll find you something to eat but you must have that jumper back to normal by tomorrow morning!”

While Angie and I looked at each other, amazed, Dad went back indoors and got a handful of biscuits. He handed them to Johan. “Here will these do?”

“Oh indeed, oh yes.
Garibaldi’s, the best!
I am always surprised
How much I like dead flies.”

I smirked at that.

“Now get to work on that jumper.” Dad said and ushered the two of us back in the kitchen.

When we got inside I said “Now what?”

“What what?” Angie said.

“What do we do about the troll now?” I asked. “That’s what.”

“I guess we hope that it is telling the truth.” Dad said with a sigh, “About it not being a nasty troll I mean.” He glanced at the clock, “It’s getting late and we should eat ourselves but to be honest I don’t feel like eating here tonight. So let’s go out for pizza.”

He didn’t need to tell us twice.

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