Jasper Fforde - The Great Troll War

‘Is there any other?’

‘From personal experience,’ I said, ‘things can and do come out all right. What rank were you?’

‘A second lieutenant in the Queendom of Mercia’s land army.’

‘Have you seen combat?’

‘I was in the catering corps, but it was still traumatic. Have you ever thought just how stressful it is making spaghetti and meatballs for six thousand soldiers? I forgot the cheese one evening and had to demote myself. Look, don’t you think Sir Matt Grifflon would be better suited to lead us all? I think I saw him just now in the Co-Op.’

‘No, we need someone we can trust,’ I said, ‘and I speak for the Queen when I say this: I promote you to General Worrier, commander of the resistance army. These two will be your second- and third-in-command: Major Worrier, and Private Worrier.’

‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ said the general.

‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘Besides, I appointed you in full recognition of the facts – so any failure of yours is a greater failure of mine. I promoted you; the responsibility is all mine.’

‘Oh,’ said General Worrier, pondering this for a moment.

‘Right,’ I said, ‘so I want you to all put your heads together and figure out who conceivably might be useful in a scrap. Shandar gave us two days and since we’re not doing a deal, we need everyone we can muster with whatever weapons we can find along the Button Trench at sunrise on Monday morning. Questions?’

‘What if we fail?’

I shrugged.

‘Shandar triumphs and we all get eaten, I guess. But that’s not going to happen. Let me know when you have set up some sort of command structure. Discipline and focus will be everything.’

They looked at one another, saluted smartly, gave me the remainder of their chips and hurried off.

I dawdled back down the hill soon after, and took a short cut through the rather lovely Morrab Gardens, full of rare shrubs, trees and perfectly manicured grass. As I was walking out of the garden’s exit near the Queens Hotel, the Quarkbeast said: ‘Quark.’

‘What is it?’

He was pointing at a small car: an Austin Mini. I think it was a Mark 1 estate version from the sixties as Kazam’s cook, Unstable Mabel, had one just like it. The car seemed to be moving slightly and snoring, but as I looked closer I could see that inside the car was a young female Troll, curled up on the rear seats, mouth open, fast asleep. The car was sagging on its suspension, and I think the roof actually bulged outwards when she turned over in her sleep.

I stared at her intently, feeling quite safe as, firstly, I had Exhorbitus and the Quarkbeast with me, and secondly, the Trolls were notoriously slow and jam-headed for at least half an hour after waking. In fact, Jimmy Nuttjob’s father, Timmy Nuttjob, toured with one of the captured Trolls in the 1950s, performing his ever-popular ‘putting my head in a Troll’s mouth’ act, a feat he could only perform within twenty minutes of the Troll waking. Sadly, one day at a Royal Command Performance, the pantomime horse act preceding him overran while performing their trademark ‘Dobbin Quickstep’, which brought Timmy Nuttjob’s career to a very swift end – and with no chance of an encore.

Intrigued, I examined the Troll minutely. She was not as big as most, and because of the small size of the car, had somehow managed to fold herself up in a manner that looked staggeringly uncomfortable. One arm was behind her head, the other was under her body, and she’d draped her legs over the front seats so her feet were pressed against the inside of the windscreen.

I felt conflicted. Conventional wisdom should have had me dragging the creature from the car and striking her head clean off her shoulders before she woke. True, Trolls would show us no mercy and had already murdered over two hundred thousand people, with many of those not eaten currently bottled in aspic, 34 34 It’s sort of a gelatine made from boiled-down bones that can be used to preserve previously cooked meat. but it seemed wrong to kill them as a routine, no matter how indifferently barbarous they were. Trolls had been captured only twice before, and neither of them divulged a single piece of intelligence, and without fail took every opportunity to savage their captors.

I was just wondering whether there wasn’t some other way of handling this when I noticed that the Troll had something written with a Sharpie on the back of her hand. Even viewed upside down it made me stop and take notice, for I recognised the unmistakable cadence of Zambini’s handwriting in the elegantly lettered script. I wiped some dirt off the Mini’s window to read it.

Contact Jennifer Strange in Penzance and tell her everything. She will not harm you.

I could feel my heart beat faster. The Great Zambini popped out of non-existence every now and again, and never more than for a few minutes. I had to assume that he had met with this Troll, found a friend, had a few words, and then sent her off to find me.

I had to know more.

Still keeping a wary hand on Exhorbitus I slid the window open, and poked the Troll to wake it up. She groaned, farted and rolled over, and I poked her again.

‘Jenny?’ came Tiger’s voice from just behind me. ‘What are you doing?’

‘There’s a Troll in this Mini.’

‘Crumbs,’ said Tiger when he saw what I’d found. ‘How did she get across the Button Trench? No, wait, scrub that – how did she even get herself inside that Mini?’

I told him I had no idea, showed him what was written on the back of her hand, then asked Tiger why he had come to find me.

‘Just that lunch is ready,’ he said, ‘and it’s macaroni cheese.’

‘My favourite,’ muttered the Troll, lifting its eyelids a fraction to stare at us both with a sleepy expression.

‘Fetch an armed guard,’ I said. ‘Actually, make that several. Tell them to blindfold her, lead her to one of the hotel basements, then say that I, Jennifer Strange, will be along to see her just as soon as I can.’

‘I need to stay in the car,’ said the Troll in a sleepy voice.

‘Why?’

‘Wide open spaces don’t agree with me. Or with you, come to think of it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

She opened an eye fully and regarded me minutely.

‘It’s a Troll thing.’

I took a deep breath.

‘Okay,’ I said to Tiger, ‘have a guard drive our guest to the hotel garage and tell them to watch her like a hawk until I come and see her.’

‘Shall I tell them to use lethal force if she doesn’t comply?’

‘You know what?’ I said, staring thoughtfully at the massive creature. ‘If her favourite meal is macaroni cheese and she likes Mini Travellers, I have a feeling she’ll be no trouble at all.’

The restaurant in the Queens Hotel was offering a reduced-service buffet owing to circumstances, but had to keep their waiting staff on hand to assist the princesses, who didn’t know what a buffet was and, even when it was explained to them very, very slowly and in great detail, could not really get their royal heads around the concept of ‘waiting in a line and serving yourself’. After half an hour of fruitless explanations, the staff went and got their food for them, and everyone was happy.

The weather had worsened while I had been walking in town, and a small water spout had descended from the storm clouds a few hundred yards offshore. It moved in rapidly, picked up some salty old sea dogs who had been mending nets on the beach, and then blew them in tight orbits around the promenade outside the hotel. The gnarled men of the sea seemed entirely unfazed and presented us with a medley of sea shanties as they were blown past the dining-room windows. After five minutes of this, the clouds lifted, the water spout collapsed, the fishermen went back to their nets and it was a bright summer’s day again.