Trolls

by Beth Sherman

Let’s say you had a different mother, one who hosted a tea party for your trolls instead of grabbing them by their purple hair and pushing them down the incinerator chute because she thinks they’re ugly. Let’s say the trolls, sipping jasmine tea in tiny porcelain cups, warned don’t go over the bridge in their gruff troll voices, harsh but well-meaning. Let’s say after the tea party, you stayed in your bedroom, reading The Secret of Shadow Ranch, wolfing one Mounds Bar after another. Let’s say Nancy Drew appeared in your room, with her bouffant hair and pencil skirt, her dead mother a throw away sentence never mentioned again. Let’s say Nancy taught you a thing or two about how to identify criminals.

Let’s say your mother wasn’t consumed with re-decorating the apartment for the umpteenth time, cut-outs from her design magazines littering the carpet like flimsy paper dolls. Let’s say she didn’t want some blessed peace and quiet. Or let’s say you didn’t live in New York City at all, but at a ranch in Montana – no one around for miles, nothing to see but tumbleweed somersaulting under a vast, empty sky. Let’s say your mother didn’t send you to the park with your little sister because it was the maid’s day off. Let’s say the two of you weren’t ten and four, but years older, old enough to take care of yourselves, fast enough to run an eight-minute mile.

Let’s say you played hopscotch and pushed your sister on a swing and tumbled down a slide shaped like a rocket ship. Let’s say you led your sister to the sandbox, holding her hand tightly because you’re in charge. Let’s say the man targeted some other little girl whose mother was right there, keeping a watchful eye on her kids. Let’s say when you got home you didn’t take off your yellow Danskin top and shorts and stuff them at the bottom of the hamper where your mother couldn’t see. Let’s say when she saw you at the front door, safe and happy, she opened her arms and you walked right in.

Beth Sherman has had more than 150 stories published in literary journals, including Flash Frog, Fictive Dream, Bending Genres and Smokelong Quarterly. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and the upcoming Best Small Fictions 2025. She’s also a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. She can be reached on social media @bsherm36.