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Once upon a time in a magical kingdom lived an ugly, lazy and bad tempered troll named Meekawl. Meekawl didn’t care much for anything and especially hated taking baths. His body odour could burn one’s nose off from miles away. It was why many of the animals in the forest had run away, lest they end up like the others who had strayed too close to him and dropped dead.

One day, when Meekawl was out hunting for his favourite food, speckled red cap mushrooms, Meekawl noticed something odd. Someone or something, had been digging up the little patches of fungi and devouring them whole. This made Meekawl very angry as eating his favourite mushrooms was one of the only joys he had in life. Mind made up, Meekawl set off to find the one who had dared to take what was his.

A distance away, a princess named Bianca, who was completely doused in a thick cloud of perfume and thus immune to Meekawl’s hideous troll stink, was on her way back to her castle after a day of horseback riding. Feeling uneasy at the complete silence and isolation of the area she had wandered through, she noticed a huge black shadow overtake the light of the sun. Turning slowly to look over her shoulder, she glimpsed a green hideous face, mouth full of what looked like red mushrooms. Before Bianca could open her mouth to scream, a large ugly fist slammed so hard into the face, propelling the monster far away and rendering it dead.

“TAKE THAT YOU DUMB MUSHROOM THIEF!” Roared the owner of the fist.

Gasping, Bianca being a well brought up princess quickly tried to express her gratitude.

“Oh! Thank you so much for saving me! Since you have done such a good deed, I will grant you entry inside my palace despite my no ugliness allowed rule. Aren’t you lucky?”

Turning to glare at her, Meekawl snarled, “NO THANKS. I DON’T LIKE PEOPLE.” Looking down his large bulbous nose at her he sneered before walking back to his forest. “YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT TAKING A BATH. YOU STINK.”

—Michelle Shieh

“Trolls”

(For the full effect this should be read in a bad Brooklyn accent.)

As he stood outside the restaurant on the corner of 200 and 5th Joe Smart finished his fifth cigarette and made his way across the street to the back door of the shoddy Brooklyn restaurant. He could feel the sweat from his palms make the handle of the briefcase slide through his hand as he was crossing the street, as he walked through the door he was met by the largest Italian man he had ever seen.

“I- I’m here to see Marty.”

Joe stammered. As the Italian stared back at him with dead eyes he said “The fuck are you?”
As Joe didn’t have an adequate response due to his completely unassociated identity with these people he felt compelled to add a,

“…please?”

The man turned from him and called into the din behind him.

“Marty!”

Suddenly Joe heard a

“Yeah, I got some time.”

And was sent through.

Now Joe had heard stories of Marty Troll, what seemed like myths or legends even, he had always assumed they had been the construct of exaggerated gossip, as Italian housewives are prone to create. But what Joe saw before him now slackened his jaw and made all the stories seem that much more horrifying. Standing before Joe in the smoky back room was the ugliest man he had ever seen. Marty Troll seemed to be coated in grease, it started at the top of his head, combing over the few strands of dyed black hair into a cow lick all across his shinning round head, dripping down into the sweat drops that crawled over his face which one could hardly see due to the giant bulb of a nose that was jutting out of it, Joe thought he could smell the sweat seeping into Marty’s XXXL black t-shirt, it seemed like the fabric was stuck to his skin, forming into the deep folds in Marty’s belly. Joe could feel those beady black eyes staring at him but for the life of him he couldn’t shut his mouth, it felt like all the courage he had was seeping out of his gaping mouth leaving him with nothing but the accelerated beating of his heart pounding in his ears.

“There somethin’ in particular you lookin at?”

“N- n- no sir. I- I’m sorry.”

Joe stammered.

The room shook as Marty let out a deep-bellied howl of laughter. This both frightened and eased poor Joe who began to hesitantly laugh along with Marty, although Joe knew now what he hadn’t before, he was unsure of whether he could really go through with this, if this was really what he even wanted. But now he knew, after seeing Marty fuckin Troll he knew he was in way over his head and didn’t want anything to do with this kind of company. As he was trying to think of some excuse to leave the place Marty interrupted his thoughts with–
“So what is it you’re lookin’ for? I see you’ve got quite a nice briefcase in your hands there.”
Marty continued to chuckle through his words, Joe didn’t know what to say so he just nodded vigourosly.

“So tell me, I’m a reasonable man, you’ve obviously come here lookin’ for something, let’s do some business.”

Marty seemed truly genuine with these words, it eased Joe up and loosened his tongue,
“Well- well thank you, really, because you see the thing is, I- I thought I wanted
something, and so I came here, thinking I was looking for something”

“uh-hu”

“But you see that thing, that’s just not me.”

“I see”

Marty responded with a smile, which relaxed Joe even more

“yeah, yeah. It’s just, not. Who I am”

“I understand”

“You do? Really? That’s, that’s really fantastic, because I’m just not- y’know I’m not like this, I’m just-“

“Yeah, you’re a good kid, right? I can see that”

“y- um yeah.”

“I can see that, you. You’re good. I can see you. You think you’re good. You think you’re better-“

“wha- NO!”

“Do NOT interrupt me.”

Marty was glaring at Joe with those beady eyes, Joe unconsciously started backing away until he bumped into the wall. Cornered.

“You come in here, with your weasel fucking face and your god damned briefcase lookin like some punk out of a movie and you’re trying to come to ME. You? You insignificant little fuck come to me in my place of business and try to tell me that you’re better than me? Is that fucking it? What, because you got a damn desk job? Does that make you’re money better than mine? You think I don’t work as hard as you? What, you feel like “this isn’t you” like you got somethin’ fuckin’ better to do? What’s the difference between you and me, huh? I was born into my life and you were born into yours, I grew up this way, this if my family, while you were at college what exactly the fuck do you think I was doing? Even if I fuckin—“
And for a moment, Joe thought he saw something flicker past Marty’s eyes, just for a moment.

“Yeah… Yeah, well you know what. Not today kid. Today is not the day I forgive or forget, you came here for business, so let’s do some business.”

—P. Sehat

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When I woke up this morning, something felt odd. There was some sort of stench in the air. Something was off about the day and I intended to find out what. I went and told my parents immediately but they were sleeping and told me they did not want to be bothered for the next several hours so I went on my way to figure out what the stench was.

I left my burrow and went around back to the shortcut that led to the mountains. It was very foggy and I could not see much. So, I climbed up the trees to get a better view. And there it was. The largest beet I ever did see. But, what was it doing plucked on its side? I had to figure out why. So I jumped through the trees to get a better view of it and it looked like these miniature bunnies were chomping away at it! The nerve of them! I could feel the anger boiling within me so I began to run over to the beetroot yelling at the bunnies. “Get away from the beet! Go away, SKIT, YOU PIECES OF SCUM!” They all started dispersing and hopping away and I felt bad. I could tell they were all confused and scared because I was yelling but I was too late to stop myself from yelling at them.

All I wanted was for them to take the beet somewhere else because I didn’t want the smell around my home. It was a very potent smell. I would have even helped carry the beet for them since I’m bigger and they would need help. But, I just scared them off. I felt so awful I slid down the tree and wept for hours.

—Sarah Jung

“Troll Jerky”

You know, not so long ago, over there in the hills on the other side of the bay, there was a family of trolls that settled into an old mine shaft.

In the summertime, some of the local kids would go over to the mine and dare each other to go further and further along towards the trolls’ den, which surely must have lain at the very end of the tracks, in the darkest part of the cave. The bravest boys and girls would creep deep down into the shaft until the daylight behind them was only a whisper, and the air grew damp and began to stink a bit of pork.

“Troll farts!” observed one girl. “They smell like bacon ‘cause the trolls have been feeding on mister Jensen’s hogs. They smoke ‘em, make jerky out of ‘em. But they prefer human jerky when they can get it!”

When they wouldn’t dare go any deeper into the mine, the kids might pick up stones and see who could throw one hardest and farthest into the darkness, closest to the troll family’s lair. Of course, all of the kids made sure that they were well on their way home from the hills by the time sunset came around.

One sunny Saturday, a group of girls and boys had crept as far as they would creep along into the mine and were throwing stones in the direction of the troll den. One large boy hurled a stone as straight and as hard as any boy could, and to everyone’s surprise, a cry of sharp pain echoed down the shaft.

“Ow!” shrieked a voice. It wasn’t much deeper in tone than the voices of the young girls, but it was enough of a shock to freeze every kid on the spot.

They seemed to wait silently and motionlessly for some instruction from someone. To run? To scream? To stand and fight the nasty, ugly brutes?

But before a decision could be made, a stone whizzed back up the mine shaft, striking the large boy sharply on an ear. He wailed horrifically and the kids bolted back towards the daylight.

All the kids ran back except one little girl, who lingered a moment, then dared to creep just a little further into the darkness. She had a sugar cookie in her pocket, baked that morning by her mother, which she now offered out towards the darkness.

A dainty, brown, fuzzy hand, almost the exact same size as the girl’s, reached out for the cookie. It didn’t snatch, but gently took the cookie back into the darkness. The little girl heard a soft crunching and munching, and even a polite groan of satisfaction.

“Mmmmm…” cooed the little troll in the dark. And before the girl knew it, the small fuzzy hand reached back into the light, and offered her back a slice of the most deliciously scented pork jerky she had ever caught a whiff of. And, you know, it was magic jerky! For as soon as the last bite of the stick was finished, another would surely reappear in the eater’s hand.

“Thank you” said the girl towards the darkness, and she went back down the tracks, out of the mine and home to her family.

Well, the bloody-eared large boy who threw the stone told his large dad who got all up in arms and eventually he had the mine blown up and caved in with dynamite.

It really is too bad, you know. But at least I got my piece of jerky! And one is really all you need.

—Matt Clarke