Troll or Derby Read online

  Troll Or Derby

  by

  Red Tash

  Copyright 2012, Red Tash Books

  Kindle Edition

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

  This is a work of fiction. Any coincidence to people, places, etc., living or dead is purely coincidental, fictional, made up, and meant to be taken in the spirit of fun with no relation to reality whatsoever, except in the respective cases of each troll and/or fairy. Those buggers are real.

  For my Dad,

  Robert N. Cunningham,

  Who always told me when the choice came down to ballet or rock & roll:

  “You should stick with that stuff with the rhythm, kid. You’re better at that.”

  1927-1987

  Never Forgotten

  Acknowledgements

  No decent book is a solo gig. Everyone who touches us influences our writing, for sure. This time, the biggest thanks are easy to hand out.

  Tim Tash, my loving husband whose faith in me is a thing of beauty & magic. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and there would be no Red Tash without you.

  Our kids, who don’t yet understand why their Mommy watches old rock videos on YouTube for research, or why she quit writing for the newspaper to make up stories about trolls and fairies and zombies and wizards and things. Thanks for your patience, gang.

  Axel Howerton, writing partner extraordinaire, my brother from another mother. His suggestions on this here book made it better. Watch out for this guy. I mean that. I think he’s packing.

  Jessica Love, longtime blogging buddy and up & coming author of YA novels. One part Amazonian blonde and one part high school English teacher, her observations and suggestions helped me tremendously this time in switching from “writing” to “editing” mode in…well, let’s just say it took less than seven years to finish this one! Bless you, Jess!

  Marian Allen, who named this book years ago, and probably forgot about it. She also is responsible for my flying birdbath logo. You rock, MA!

  Brittany Smith, my wonderful cover artist. Julie Downey Davis for her mad proofing skills. Heather Adkins for zipping it up all nice and tight for me. You ladies are true professionals.

  Last but not least, the readers and authors I have come to know over the past few months! Edel Salisbury, Joe Perry, DeAnna Schulz, Mercedes Yardley, Joanie, Fiery Na, Katja, Deanna Watson, Shéa MacLeod, Jack Wallen, Amy Marshall, Nik Ceasar, Great Minds Think Aloud’s Kitty Bullard & friends, Ash Krafton, Tony Rapino, Jessica McHugh, Writerly Friends, Readerly Friends, my Goodreads buddies, my Triberr tribes, the entire gang from the Coffin Hop, IWU, Kindleboards, The BBT Cafe, my old pals from Southern Indiana Writers and my new friends from the Local Author Spotlight on LouisvilleKY.com. I’m sure I’m leaving someone out, so please forgive me, okay? It’s not intentional, I promise.

  All of you have encouraged and commiserated with me, and told me you were interested in a book about roller derby fairies.

  I hope you meant that. Because here it is.

  Prologues & Beginnings

  The Fortune Tellers

  Jarod McJagger crushed the fortune cookie inside a brittle fist. He let the crumbs scatter on the table of the Double Dragon, ignoring the scowls of the owner behind the take-out counter. With shaking fingers, he lifted the slip of paper from the remains of the cookie. “The Wheelers are going to kill you,” it read.

  Jarod grunted, almost laughed, and swept the mess from the table straight onto the floor. He slid out of the booth, much quicker than a decrepit old man should have been able to move. Jarod McJagger was nowhere near as old (or decrepit) as he appeared.

  “That’s the way the cookie crumbles!” he shouted at the woman behind the counter. She stared at him, but remained silent until he reached the door of the restaurant.

  “Sank you!” she called. “Have a nice day! The Wheelers are going to keel you!”

  A newspaper box on the sidewalk ran a bright red headline: Wheeler Family Responsible for McJagger Murder. Jarod squinted at the photo through the grimy glass window. A thin body in black leather lay in a pool of blood. “Drug overlord murdered in nefarious crime family feud,” the caption read.

  “Hell,” he said. “If you think I’m paying thirty-five cents to read that kinda news, you can forget about it.” He kicked the newspaper box, and kept walking.

  At the coffee shop, the pregnant hippie with too many facial piercings handed him his change with a smile. She leaned in and whispered, “The Wheelers are going to kill you.”

  Jarod smiled back, and told her to shut the fuck up.

  “I’m sorry, man,” she said. “I was just telling you to be careful—it’s hot.”

  Jarod smiled. “Mmm,” he said, taking a sip of his latte. “Sure.”

  At each stop on their route, Jarod’s driver spoke of his boss’s imminent death. The disc jockeys gleefully announced it between each song. The soap opera actresses on Days of Our Lives turned to one another tearfully and moaned about it. “The Wheelers are going to kill McJagger,” Hope Brady cried. Much boo-hooing ensued.

  Jarod changed the television station to PBS, but it was even more disconcerting hearing of his murder from the Cookie Monster.

  Jarod McJagger picked up the phone and called his aging aunt.

  “Hello, darling,” Zelda purred. “You receive my message, yes?”

  “Yeah, sure. The Wheelers are going to kill me. But is there anything I can do about it?” he asked.

  “I will look into my crystal ball, darling, read your tea leaves, maybe? You bring Zelda the money you promised, yes? I call you back, darling, right after Days of Our Lives.”

  “Fucking prophesies,” Jarod said to no one in particular, as he hung up the phone.

  “She call you back after Days of Our Lives!” said the Cookie Monster, before devouring a styrofoam set piece in a fiendish fury.

  “Who turned you back on?” he asked the TV.

  The Cookie Monster shrugged, and the television faded to black.

  **

  Zelda rested her head in her hands, slumped over her best crystal ball. She watched with dread as the fairy toddler and the troll child regarded one another with serious faces, this time at the Buy-Lo.

  Zelda didn’t worry much about the encounters—yet. There was little the fairy girl could say to the young beast from her perch in the shopping cart, jammed in next to her signficantly chubbier sister. The sister slurped messily on an oversized lollipop, and the fairy tot went without. Zelda watched the boy trail the cart throughout the grocery, watched him thieve a lolly from the candy aisle and sneak it to the girl while the mother’s head was turned, her mouth full of empty flirtation for the butchers, her head simply empty.

  When a store employee took the boy, Harlow, by the hand and led him to the office to page his parents, no one noticed. No one except for Zelda, and the fairy child, Debra. Little Deb. Roller Deb. Deb waved goodbye to him with a sticky hand, before catching her sister in the face with the sticky lolly and setting her crying.

  Zelda saw Harlow and Deb every time they met. Twice at the flea market, once at the bingo hall—now the grocery. Of course she would have visions of Harlow. It was the way her magic worked; her gift. Some gift, she’d often thought. Who asked for it?

  “Coach,” she said. She didn’t need to call out—not when her husband was six feet away in the other compartment of their gypsy wagon. “We need to talk.”

  The Coach stirred from his nap, and stretched. He shuffled into their petite sitting room, and rubbed Zelda’s shoulders for a moment, before she patted his hands for him to stop.

  “First, go down to the groc
ery and bring back a carton of Marlboros, darling. And pick up Harlow. He’s wandered off again. Then we talk.”

  Chapter One

  Burning Down the House

  Deb

  Meth fires are blue, the hottest kind of flame. I’d heard it before, probably from Derek, but now I was seeing it firsthand. Lucky me.

  A sickly smell hung on the air. The remains of chemicals, plastic, and pharmaceutical ingredients brutalized my lungs, but I couldn’t back away. I wouldn’t—no matter what.

  The trailer crackled with flame, and Gennifer was inside. Tall, eerie tongues of fire licked the outer walls—ten feet high, at least. I had no idea flames could reach that size.

  Plasticine, sticky smoke—brown and thick—engulfed me as I neared the trailer. I didn’t know where to look for my sister, but I was sure she was inside. A moan, then a scream—I could hear her through the thin aluminum walls.

  The trailer was melting into sludge and toxic smoke, and it cracked and popped on a warping metal frame. I didn’t know if I should try and run through the fire at the kitchen end of the mess, where a gaping hole belched sickening fire. Maybe I could try to get Gennifer to open or break a window and climb out from the other side. I wondered if she’d have it in her to bleed a little, to save her own life.

  The window was way too high for me to reach.

  “Open the window, Gennifer! Climb out!”

  She was never right when she was doing the drugs Dave gave her—could she even understand what I was saying? Could she hear me?

  I thought maybe I could pitch something hard enough into the glass to break her out. I ran to the woods, looking for a log or branch I could ram through the window. Everything was too rotten to be of any use—sticks and limbs crumbled in my shaking hands. Gennifer’s screams were getting louder, higher pitched. Was she on fire? Why wouldn’t she help herself?

  If only I had a crowbar.

  Then I saw them—tools. The trailer was up on blocks, with no underpinning. Of course Dave would be too cheap to finish out his rustic rural meth lab. I crawled beneath, the leaky septic line christening me as I stooped, groping for the abandoned tools. I hoped the mobile home wouldn’t collapse on top of me before I could crawl back out, but it wasn’t sounding so good.

  Dave and his gang of junkie slaves had been working beneath the trailer, and sure enough, they’d been too distracted, dumb, or high to put away a set of screwdrivers, some ratchets, and a really, really heavy wrench.

  It’s no crowbar, but it’ll have to do.

  Liquid shit dripped on me, but I didn’t have time to care. My sister was screaming her head off in a burning trailer and I was reasonably certain she was out of her mind on drugs.

  I flung the wrench at the window, but it didn’t break. I tried again, and again, but only managed to crack the damned glass, and Gennifer still hadn’t appeared at the window to save herself.

  There was only one thing to do. I grabbed the wrench and ran to the kitchen end of the trailer. I took a deep breath of fresh air, then I hurled myself through the cloud of fumes. The fire and smoke obscured everything, and I shut my eyes against the sting of chemicals. For a moment, I thought I saw the shapes of blue and orange dancers in the flames.

  I braced myself for the heat, but I didn’t feel it. Pops and hisses all around me sounded like whispers or cackles. The fire was eating through the trailer, and I felt the floor giving out with every step. I wouldn’t let it take Gennifer—I wouldn’t let it consume me, either.

  The hallway was short, and the door Gennifer was locked behind very thin. Her screams were so loud, there was no point trying to yell to her that I was coming in, especially if it meant inhaling more smoke.

  I swung at the handle, holding the wrench like a baseball bat. The brass knob fell to the floor, a chunk of splintered wood still clinging to it. I kicked the bedroom door in, and Gennifer stopped screaming long enough to pass out.

  Lovely. Now I’ll have to carry her.

  She wore a black bra and jeans, and her skin was burning with fever. I put my hands under her armpits and lugged her over my shoulder. She had at least 75 pounds on me, so I should have crumpled under her, I suppose. Instead, I stumbled into the door frame as I carried her across the spongy floor of the burning trailer.

  The heat touched my hair—I could hear it sizzle, could smell it burning, even—but I felt nothing but determination as I carried my sister out of that meth lab.

  With Gennifer still on my back, I jumped. She fell hard on top of me, and I was just pushing her off, struggling for breath, when the trailer collapsed onto the ground. The sound of sirens in the distance was no surprise—the smoke was so black and thick that farmers in the vicinity surely could tell this was no typical trash fire. I pulled my sister as far away from the flames as I could and watched for the EMTs to roll up.

  Gennifer groaned, and her eyes flickered open for a sec. She met my gaze and frowned. She closed her eyes again and drew a deep breath.

  “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch,” I said.

  “Dave didn’t do it,” she said. Her words were slurred. She reached up to rub her eyes, lazily, as if waking up from a nap.

  “Yeah, right, Gennifer. He’s such a saint, locking you in a burning trailer and all.”

  I didn’t see the point of arguing with her, though. I let it drop.

  Something sticky and hot dripped too close to my eyes, and I reached to wipe it off. Please don’t let it be crap from the sewer line. I pulled my hand away, and it was covered in blood. Even better. I won’t think of that now—nope, not at all.

  The fire truck roared up the gravel driveway. Guys in black rubber suits jumped off the truck—someone put a face mask on Gennifer and asked me if there was anyone still inside.

  I shook my head no, and then I fell through trees, air, sky, into the black. I felt my head hitting the hard ground near where my backpack lay, could hear the EMTs shouting, and then—nothing.

  Chapter 1.5

  I’d Love to Change the World

  Harlow

  I want you to understand something. I didn’t rise up out of the ground fully grown, I wasn’t the bastard child of an angry god, and I didn’t become this way because I was cursed. My skin’s not green and I won’t turn to stone in the sunlight.

  When I was young, I had a mother, and she was a troll. I had a mother and a father who were both trolls, in fact—and we were a family. Yes, I had a family. Just like you.

  Scared yet?

  Almost everything I know about humans, I’ve learned from their trash. Redbook and Woman’s Day show up at my doorstep more than any other source, I reckon. It may not be a perfect picture of what your life is like, but I’m betting I’ve got a more accurate view of your lifestyle than you have of mine, at least for the time being.

  For starters, there’s a shopping mall full of differences between troll family life, and how human families live. Trolls, for instance, do not typically invest a lot of emotion into their own young—often don’t even raise them. They especially don’t socialize with their relatives for special occasions. You won’t see us breaking out the patio umbrellas and the ice chests full of soda for a family barbecue. A special occasion in troll culture is when the villagers rise up and try to corral one of us in a cave, or something like that. At least, that’s how it used to be. That’s what my mom told me. I remember that.

  I remember a lot more now than I did, when this adventure started—but I’ll get to that.

  Best I can tell, my nuclear family was more like a human family than a troll one. The extended family, as you English would call it, was a mess. A big, illegal, drug-running, slaving mess. But I’ll get to that. This is my part of the story and I want to begin in the beginning. I’m not a storyteller. It’s not my profession. Bear with me while I sort this out, okay?

  Sure, you’re going to think what you want about trolls. I mean, you’ve seen movies, you’ve read Rowling and Tolkien. I’m telling you that the real-live working-class
trolls of the Midwest are nothing like you’ve been told. We’re capable of great violence, sure, and I’ll concede that our proclivity is largely toward evil, but let’s face it—a lot of that comes down to breeding and culture.

  In our world, might most definitely makes right. That’s the fundamental law of troll culture, although most trolls would forego the flowery wording and just express it with a grunt and blow to the head.

  Trolls as a species, though, are capable of great love. I know, because I’ve experienced it. You don’t live with something like that and ever forget. If you do, you’re a fool, anyway.

  My parents weren’t totally solitary like so many other trolls are. They even had a very close friendship with a fairy family called the Wheelers. If we’d celebrated holidays, the Wheelers were the ones we’d have invited over for a Fourth of July cookout. We didn’t do that a lot, that I can recall. We did raid sinkholes filled with garbage on a few occasions, though. Good times.

  The Wheelers were not just fairies, they were Protectors. Fleet of foot and quick of mind, their instincts were so well-tuned as to be mistaken for psychic powers, by most. According to my mother, in the old days humans and fairies alike worshiped or feared the breed of fairy the Wheelers were. Their massive black wings shimmering in air above a crowd of would-be foes were beautiful and awesome—I remember that, too. Sometimes. The memories come and go, unless I’m looking at Deb. Then I can’t forget.

  Anyway, these two particular Wheelers, Marnie and Mannox, were so powerful and strong, everyone lived in fear of them. Everyone but my folks, and me, I guess. The Wheelers were my fairy godparents. I don’t remember much about them, but I remember that.

  Trying to remember is a full-time job. I’ve visited the library in Bloomington, and even picked through the local bookstore in Bedrock, curious about what the old days used to be like. Maybe there’d be a book there, or something. I read in a muddy copy of Psychology Today once that some therapists use fairy tales to trigger vital memories in their patients—and I used to get these blank spots, this fogginess.