SWNOVELS Chapter 7
The four cars that were parked in the car park were all covered in light winter dew that Wilson first thought was a sign they had been parked there all night, but he pulled his brakes on sharply when the door of the sparkling white VW Scirocco opened. A rush of smoke spewed from the car as the driver stood out of it and the cloud clung to him, giving him the look of a block of dry ice.
“Mr Owen?” Marcus called out cautiously.
The teacher looked around sharply, making the smoke spin around like a mini tornado, and he feverishly waved around himself to disperse the smoke as he slammed the car door shut heavily.
“Who’s that there?” he called out, shielding his eyes from the smoke as he did.
“It’s Marcus and Wilson,” he called back. “We need to see you sir.”
Mr Owen walked towards them with short steps, as though he was expecting to be slipping on ice, and he reached them with half closed his eyes to help him focus, gasping when he saw the girls were with them.
“What is the meaning of this?” he said grumpily. “Why are you at the school at this ungodly hour, and who is that you have with you?” The girls both said hello, but Mr Owen was in no mood for pleasantries. “I need to speak with you two immediately,” he said as he flicked his fingers at them.
The boys drop their bikes and walked after Mr Owen.
“Just stay there for a second,” Wilson said to the girls, and they obeyed with a nod of their heads.
Marcus stood in front of Mr Owen, waiting for Wilson to catch up. He was staring at his teachers face, noticing that there was something strange about the way he was acting and the way his eyes were a deep bloodshot.
“Do you feel ill sir?” he asked him, but Mr Owen was too busy looking around as though he was checking that there were no other teachers or students around.
Wilson reached Marcus’s side and stopped still as he got a look at Mr Owens’ face.
“Whoa, sir,” he said with a giggle. “Have you been puffing on the dragon?”
Marcus joined Wilson as he laughed, realising that it was paranoia that was making him so agitated.
“What are those girls doing here?” he asked them in a low voice, ignoring Wilson’s comment. “I am hoping for your sakes that you haven’t mentioned my tale of Blaise Pool to either of them.”
“Sir,” Wilson jumped in before Mr Owen could say anything else. “There is something you need to see.”
He looked at Wilson without speaking, waiting for him to show him whatever it was that was so important.
“Well?” he said with urgency, “What is it?”
“Not here,” Marcus said quietly, “We need to go inside sir, it’s important.”
Mr Owen looked around again and then fumbled for his keys in his pocket.
“Come on,” he said as he walked to the entrance of the school.
Wilson waved at the girls and they walked the bikes to the school door, leaning them up against the wall.
“Sir, this is Aimee-Lou, she is my sister, and this is her friend Lana.”
“Yes, Bracewell, I teach them both,” He said with a hint of sarcasm, “But what have they got to do with Norse mythology?”
He put the key into the lock and jumped back when the door opened without him turning it.
“What’r ye doin here,” the janitor said in his deep Glaswegian accent. “The skool is shut until seven thurte.”
Mr Owen grabbed at his chest as he breathed deeply, trying to regain some composure, and the girls and boys behind him had to grip their mouths tightly so that the laughter didn’t escape.
“Morning Bob,” he said to the heavy set man. “I need to cover some extracurricular activities with these students, and was hoping to get to my lab a little earlier today if that’s possible?”
Bob Campbell looked the students up and down, and then did the same thing to Mr Owen, rubbing his unshaved chin as he did so.
“Yous not puffin the pipe this morn then, no?” he said to the teacher, which made the cheeks of Mr Owen flush ever so slightly as he uncomfortably laughed.
“So, would that be convenient?” he asked, as he dodged the question.
“Och aye the noo,” he said as he looked the girls up and down again, this time with a strange smile. “Jus todee,” he agreed as he opened the door wide for them to all walk in. “Don't thee tell,” he said after them as they walked down the hallway towards the history rooms.
“Bob the bog is so weird,” Aimee-Lou said to Lana.
Definitely a peado,” Lana added.
The door to the history room was already opened and the musty smell of bleach and damp was blowing out, so they all had a mouthful of it as they entered the room.
“Right,” he said, not looking at them as he placed his bag onto the head desk, “What is so important that it would make you four come all the way to school on a freezing morning in the dark?”
He turned his head and screamed louder than was comfortable for a man aged 65 to scream, falling backwards into the desk that his bag was resting on as his legs almost buckled.
Wilson had removed Clive from his backpack, and the 18 inch troll, with its dyed green hair and ridiculous Joker lipstick, which Aimee-Lou had left on him, was sat smiling at Mr Owen on the front desk of his history class.
“Norse mythology,” Marcus said with a smile.
“Where did you find it?” he asked, fascinated and scared at the same time. “You didn’t go to the island?” he suddenly added, remembering his warning.
“No sir,” Wilson said, wary of the change of mood the teacher was capable of. “It was them,” he added immediately, pointing at Aimee-Lou and Lana.
Mr Owen looked away from the troll and focused on the girls, trying his hardest to be mad, even though he was genuinely concerned for them.
“You went to the island?” he asked in a surprisingly soft voice.
Aimee-Lou and Lana were fully aware of the anger issues that Mr Owen has, and the mere fact that he was talking directly to them was enough to push them to tears.
Lana was the first to crumble when Mr Owen held his infamous stare on her as he waited for a response.
“We were looking for the trolls that we heard Pete talking about,” she said as the waterworks began. “We were really careful and we put the boat back when we finished.”
“A boat?” Wilson said loudly.
Mr Owen put his hand up to Wilson to stop him criticising, and to tell him that he was in control of the situation.
“Did you see any others?” he asked the girls, just as calmly as before.
“No sir,” Aimee-Lou said, not as emotional as Lana. “There were prints in the mud, but that was it.”
Mr Owen nodded, seemingly relieved, and then lifted his glasses onto his forehead so he could rub his eyes.
“You must not go back to that island alone,” he said as he flicked his glasses back down onto the bridge of his nose. “And you must not be alone with it,” he was pointing at Clive, “Any of you,” he added.
The group all nodded in unison.
Mr Owen moved closer to Clive, and he put his hand out to touch him, which the troll allowed him to do, and he touched the green hair that was a little more flattened than before. He moved his hand to his nose and sniffed deeply, pulling a face of disgust at smell.
“Jeez,” he said as he pulled his hand away. “It smells like ammonia.”
“That would be the hair dye that they used to get his hair that colour,” Marcus said accusingly.
Mr Owen looked at the girls and did something that all four of them would remember for the rest of their school days. He laughed. Not just a little giggle under his breath, but an actual full on laugh that made his belly jump up and down.
They all watched as he continued to laugh, almost uncontrollably, and the intensity increased when Clive began to copy him.
The sight of the out of proportion troll with it huge nose, long ears and wide painted mouth, had tickled Mr Owen to the point that tears were forming in his eyes.
He attempted to regain his composure, but the troll copied him again, and he burst into laughter once more. His relief that not only had someone else seen the trolls of Holy Island, but one of them was sat in front of him, helpless and none threatening, was more than he could ever had predicted.
Wilson looked across to Marcus and pulled a face that showed that he was beginning to feel the embarrassment of seeing the teacher that everyone at the school called ‘orrible Owen, laughing until he cried.
“So what do you suggest sir?” he asked him, interrupting his laughter.
Mr Owen reduced his laughter to a giggle and cleared his throat, regaining his collectedness as he did.
“I think,” he said seriously, which didn’t really work as he still had the remnants of a smile, “That it should be left with me for the time being so we can figure out what the best plan would be to get it back to its family.”
Aimee-Lou could feel herself becoming frustrated at the way the teacher was referring to the troll as it.
“His name is Clive,” she bleated out, almost stamping her foot down in the process. “He is a he and not an it.”
Mr Owen paused in pre-sentence, making Aimee-Lou stand motionless as she realised what she had just done, and he eased her dread by smiling and apologising.
“He is, and I'm sorry,” he said.
This was not as much of a shock to the boys as it was to the girls, as they had seen this side of ‘orrible Owen when they had spoken to him privately before.
The change in character was down to the fact that Stephen Owen had had to carry his secret for years, so to finally have someone else to share the knowledge with had taken him back 50 years to his teenager self. That vivid memory when the troll had begun to run toward him had kept him awake at nights, just to stop him having the recurring nightmare that the troll had made it across the water and had ravaged him to death. The weight of the biggest secret he had ever had had been lifted from his aging shoulders, and he felt a wave of happiness because of that.
“Why don’t you come around at break and at lunchtime to see him and we can work out how we are going to get him back before Thursday.”
Lana raised her hand sheepishly, and Mr Owen nodded at her for permission to speak.
“What happens Thursday sir?” she asked, happy that she was able to ask ‘orrible Owen a question without the threat that he would shout her down or belittle her in front of the class.
Speaking happily to Mr Owen was not something she was used to doing.
The teacher looked at Wilson and Marcus with raised eyebrows and a half smile, partly in questioning why they hadn’t told the girls about the total eclipse, and partly that they had kept his secret to themselves, something that was alien to him when it came to his school kids and secrets.
Mr Owen explained the same tale of Norse mythology and the way the trolls were banished to the Outer Hebrides, and the girls listened with the same fascination that the boys had.
“Is that why he was out in the daylight?” Aimee-Lou asked, intelligently.
“That is precisely the reason, Miss Bracewell,” he said encouragingly, “And that is also the reason you must not go to the island alone.”
“Where will you keep him?” Marcus asked.
Mr Owen wagged his finger as an idea came into his head. He walked to the corner of the room and opened the door that had the Janitor sign on it.
“Perfect,” he said as he inspected the room.
The four of them joined the teacher, with Aimee-Lou carrying Clive, at the doorway of the cupboard, and they all put their heads in at the same time.
“Place Clive into the corner,” Mr Owen instructed Aimee-Lou, as he moved the pile of towels from a shelf and into the place he was suggesting so the troll could sit on them.
“Perfect,” he said again as they stood back to admire the troll.
“Perfect,” Clive copied, and they all laughed.
They spent the next hour showing Mr Owen all of the tricks that they had taught Clive, (even though he was quite capable of doing them all before they had found him), and Mr Owen told them all about his encounter with the elder troll when he was 16.
All the time Clive was sat smiling, and as something scurried across the far wall of the classroom, out of the sight of the humans, he sniffed the air as saliva oozed from the corner of his mouth.