Chapter 1
Chapter One
Pinching Troll
“Elsie!
“What?” I answered straddling the chair backwards with my chin resting on my arm. I was lost in thought only now registering that Radhika was calling me. My mind had drifted to my meeting at the UCOSB, the United Confederacy of Supreme Beings office yesterday. I had gone there to report on the last mission of a simple retrieval of a bracelet for the Lady Margo. It seems she accidentally left it behind when paying a visit a few days earlier, to the new Mayor of Green Hills. I recovered the bracelet from his bedroom. The retrieval had gone smoothly, slipping in through an open window and out again unnoticed.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that I entered through his bedroom window I may not have found it so quickly. Spotting it just under the bed had been a stroke of luck. After giving it back to Lady Margo I reported it to my new handler. One Denarius Gotain, an elf from the borderlands. Initially, I thought he was a rather handsome elf, light green eyes, taut body and long dark hair, falling past his shoulders, braided at the sides.
Still for as handsome as he is, there is something about him that had my inner feeling spiking. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it but there was just something about him that was off, and that was before he had said two words to me.
“Honestly Els I don’t know where your mind goes at times. Three times I shouted at you. What are you thinking about, someone handsome perhaps?” Radhika asked cocking her head to the side, hoping I would share a tad bit of information.
Honestly, I think she got off more on thinking about my love life than she did about her own. Did I say love life, ha, she was more interested in every detail of my life, it didn’t really bother me.
“No one, wasn’t thinking about anyone.” I could see by her raise of an eyebrow she was not convinced in the least. If anyone knew me well it would be my best friend Radhika. Sometimes I think she knew me better than I knew myself, well almost.
“No time for daydreaming now, your two o’clock will be here any minute. Mrs Meadowlock.” The words Mrs Meadowlock, Rad uttered more in a whisper.
“Nooooo, not Mrs Wincey-whiney-lock. She is the worst of trolls. Please Rad do her hair for me.” I pleaded not that I thought it was going to get me anywhere.
Rad eyes me with another raise of an eyebrow. “Not a chance girl. Besides she asked for you personally and…well who am I to stand in between a stylist and her client, and I know you just swore.”
I give her an incredulous look. “No, I didn’t.” Not out loud.
“I know you were thinking it.” She said pointing her chin to a jar that sits at the far end of the room on a cabinet. The swear jar. It was nearly full of my coins. I huff as I withdraw a coin from my pocket and go over to drop it in the jar.
Turning back to Rad I give her my most saddened expression. “Please Rad, she smells like a cesspit, her hair is like steel wool, she dribbles worse than a slug on a hot day, and the last time I did her hair she pinched me on the butt.”
“Well, you will just have to keep your butt away from her fingers.”
“Easy for you to say, she has fingers like steel tongs, it’s not your butt she wants to pinch, and my comb does not like her hair.”
“Pfft.” Scoffs Rad. “You have had that comb since you were five summers, and like your dryer and wand given to you the day you graduated, they will no doubt still be working when you turn ninety summers. Not to mention your scissors that never need sharpening. Think yourself lucky girl.”
Before I could answer the bell on the door tinkled the arrival of Mrs Meadowlock. Her large body filling the frame of the doorway as she lifted her chunky arm to wiggle her fingers in a wave. I took a deep breath, whispered a plea to the Goddess and forced a smile on my face.
“Mrs Win…Meadowlock how lovely to see you.” I felt like swearing but Radhika was flicking her eyes from me to the swear jar. I took a deep breath and plastered a smile on my face. “Take a seat dear.”
“Aye, there you are Elsie. Knows I am your favorite client. I tells everyone. So, you look after me well!”
Dear Goddess, preserve me and my mouth. “And what would you like today dear?” I said through gritted teeth.
The troll tapped her thick green finger on her chin. I knew exactly what I wanted to do to her hair, and it wasn’t color it. “Hmmmm, I like your hair, blue. But not suit me, I think. No, today I have pink. I is pink today.” Sweet Goddess green skin and pink hair, that is not going to go down well at all.
My hair was blue like that of a deep blue primrose. A good match with my violet eyes, though Radhika thought I looked sexy. She actually said I looked like sex on a stick, whatever that meant, adding I would catch the eye of all unmated elves, yeah right.
I took a quiet sigh and handed the troll a color card of varying shades of pink, so she could choose her perfect ‘urgh’ color. The troll chose “ashes of roses”. There would have been nothing better, I thought, than turning the troll’s hair into ash.
Tapping the comb to the chosen pink and placing the card on the small table in front of her I pushed the lever on the chair to take it down to its lowest setting, sure that if she put any more weight on it the chair would be plastered to the floor. Never to raise again.
Mrs Meadowlock was a huge troll, her arms wider than my body. A face green, warty and bumpy with small black eyes and a nose bigger than my fist. Not all trolls were as big as she was. Some were actually not bad looking for a green being. Mrs Meadowlock, however, ate too much, did no exercise, and gossiped about everyone whether it was true or false. She spent all her time at the bingo lounge, with a constantly full jug of mead, while playing her numbers, not to mention flashing her eyelashes at anything that walked past her, male or female.
“Elsie you come to my house, we have tea party, new toys I have now, you come yes?” The troll urged as she flicked her tongue across her bottom lip. I felt like heaving. I gave Rad a look that said, see what did I tell you. Perverted slimy frog.
“I am sorry dear, but I am very busy, and we have a policy not to…. fraternize with the clients.” We didn’t have a policy, but I will be sure to put one in place as soon as possible. I think the last thing on this troll’s mind was drinking tea, and whatever her type of fun was, I did not want to know who knew what she was into. I had heard the rumours that she likes to paint people’s faces with makeup she rummaged from funeral homes. The thought made me shiver.
I was so tempted to change the settings on my hairdryer and blow her clean out of the salon. Rad must have been reading my mind giving a loud cough to catch my attention, standing arms crossed one eyebrow so high it nearly disappeared under her hair.
I gave her a silent look that said, ‘geez mom, you spoil all of my fun’. I attacked the troll’s hair, not attacked exactly, let’s just say I wasn’t gentle, more fool me when I realized she was enjoying it.
The comb pulled and snagged, but as it did the hair changed to the selected color of ashes of roses. Pulling a strand next to the troll’s face I checked to see how the color would blend with the tone of her skin, nope not good. I shook my head, knowing the client was going to look awful. Looking over at Rad I nodded my head at the piece of hair I was holding against the troll’s face and a lift of my eyebrows to ask her mutely what she thought. Rad covered her mouth with a hand and turned so I wouldn’t see the smile on her face. Rad you are such a coward.
I kept my body a distance from the trolls roaming fingers. The last time she had pinched me she left a black and blue bruise the size of my hand. Stepping back, I leaned over to colour the troll’s hair at an uncomfortable angle, making sure to keep a distance from her fat green fingers. I am so going to have a backache after this.Combing each strand of the bristly hair, it changed color, even though it was like trying to comb a network of rusty wires.
When every strand was done, which was no mean feat, I can tell you, I motioned for the client to look in the mirror, which she had not done once, since sitting down. Her eyes had been trying to keep track of where my butt was, and I kept an eye on her pincers.
“I’s love it. I look beaut…iful. Girls be jealous of me at bingo today.” More like shocked and maybe frightening to a few of the oldies.
The troll smiled displaying a mouthful of crooked teeth. The green of her skin, pink of her hair, and yellow of her teeth roiled my stomach. So glad I left home without having breakfast this morning.
“I’s will look like sex on a stick.”
Radhika and I snapped our heads at each other at the troll’s comment. Fighting down a giggle I composed myself the best I could under the circumstances. “I am very happy you like the color; will that be all for today then?” I said moving a few steps further back from her.
“Yes, yes, good job Elsie blue. Happy I am.” The troll rose from the chair, reaching into the pocket of her black and white spotted dress for the payment. “How much now?”
“Twenty punta thank you, you can give it to Rad. I will see you soon.” I hoped not. If I thought I had managed to dodge the steel grip of the troll’s fingers I was soon mistaken. She spun catching a hold of my butt causing me to shriek like a banshee, and another damned butt bruise.
It was, however, Rad that came to the rescue. “Mrs Meadowlock! You know that we run a respectable business, and I will not have you…pawing the staff. Please keep your fingers confined to your sides. If you cannot, then you will have to go to Sussa’s salon from now on.” Radhika snapped taking the payment from her.
“No, no please, am sorry, will not do it again. Last time Sussa’s she burns all my pretty hair.”
That is what I wanted to do to it, burn the crap out of it. The troll looked quite miserable, but not enough to warrant my getting any closer to her. She left looking a little embarrassed, so her green face took on an unseemly orange glow that added even less to her new image.
“Elsie how is it that you can face an army of ogres, fight them like a warrior of Jaspers Mountain, stand up to a squad of giants and yet you have a problem telling that troll to keep her hands to herself.” Rad huffed with her hands on her hips.
I shrugged. “I don’t like confrontation.” Rad’s eyes opened as big as saucers. Then we both broke out in a fit of laughter. It was true that I was a warrior and not afraid to take on anyone or anything, but our salon was fairly new, and we were trying to drum up business. Hence, why I had put up with the butt pinching troll. Rad gave me a hug and rubbed where the damn troll had pinched me.
“We need business but not at the expense of your butt.” Rad smiled adding a note to the appointment book.
“I know but if I lose my temper with her I am likely to turn her into a green fangleberry, then some poor toad would come along and eat her. Goddess only knows what that would do to the poor toad.
Rad laughed. “Give him indigestion, more like.”
