TROLLS-- While Foundations Crumble (A Clay Fanfiction)

The Fun One

This one's in italics, so it means he's just remembering the past, what happened before the fight, though he does give some hints here and there! -Jessi 

I used to love my pranks.

Like, a lot.

If my fellow trolls wouldn't understand how hard math is, or what a butt John Dory can be sometimes, I knew that my prank book would.

And it'd have the perfect answer for all of my problems. Whether it'd be a simple bucket-of-tar-over-the-door or a more complicated fake-I-SLICED-MY-MIDDLE-FINGER- OFF-injury-with-faux-blood prank, it'd always help with whatever I was feeling.

Always.

But, sometimes, my feelings towards someone didn't match the prank I felt in the mood to do.

Like, if I was mad at Spruce but was in the mood to do the eyeliner-color-switcheroo prank– well, I obviously couldn't do that to Spruce himself, so I ended up letting my anger out on someone else.

("CLAY!!! NEON GREEN?!!! SO. NOT. COOL!!!")

Sorry, not sorry, Floyd. 😁

But I really was rarely mad at Spruce. After all, if anyone was going to help me with my pranks, it'd be him.

And, believe it or not, pranks weren't even the best thing to do with him. Sometimes he and I would do the worst-singing-competition (is it a good thing I won?) and sometimes we'd make a bunch of armpit fart noises. Those were the fun times.

Then there were the few times we weren't giggling our heads off. Sometimes I'd read my Sad Book Club book everyone in my family but John knew about— he'd kill me if he found out— outloud to him and he'd pretend that he wasn't crying when he totally was.

("Spruce, I literally see the tears in your eyes!!" "Those aren't tears!! No, I– I'm just, uhhh....my eyes are burning! Really bad! Yeah. That's it! JustleavemealoneIhavefeelingstoookay?!!")

Sometimes Spruce would drag me out to the longest branch on the Troll Tree and stretched out toward the east at exactly 5:56 in the morning and we'd watch the sunrise and talk.

Not about anything in particular, sometimes about each other, sometimes about girls (Spruce usually started that one, and then did most of the talking), but, every now and then, we'd just talk about plain life.

Whatever popped up in our crazy minds.

"Clay," Spruce might say, "did you see what Grandma was wearing yesterday?!!"

And I might reply, "Yes!! Oh my troll!! I told her that the 1800's called and wanted their clothes back."

"No way!! And what did she say to that?" Spruce may have asked afterwards.

And I would say, "Nothing. She just gave me that evil-grandma side eye."

And maybe, just maybe, we'd laugh.

Hmm. I haven't done that in a while.

I wonder what it feels like.

When I wasn't hanging out with Spruce, though, there is of course only one reasonable brother to go to when you want to be entertained:

Bitty B.

Branch is amazingly smart for a baby– I mean, I guess he's more of a toddler now, but no one in our family calls him that. He's just Bitty B or Baby Branch.