A Story About A Troll

Once upon a time, in the land of Highschoolia, in Upper Lighthousical Academial,surrounded by the mountains of Mathematics, there was a beautiful young junior named Matilda Joy. She was taking a frolic on a day, not unlike yesterday, in the month of March. She was armed, by order of the King of Highschoolia, with her trusty Calculator. Since the Day of No Graduation, ten hundred years ago, all young Highschoolians were required to train in the art of calculation – for their own safety.

            

Matilda Joy spent most of her time picking flowers for she greatly enjoyed making lotion. Mostly, she liked smelling it but making the lotion had to come first.

           

 As she picked, she was unfaithful in her vows to the art of calculation and she did not look where she was going. And before she knew it she had fallen into the dreaded pit of the evilest troll in all of Highschoolia.

           

Needless to say, Matilda Joy screamed a lot.

            

Several weeks before, a different young junior had disappeared from her kingdom after escaping the hands of the Wizards of Teacherdom. Her name was Mary Anne and she had been the very best friend of precious Matilda Joy. Matilda Joy had missed her so much, she had invented a new lotion scent with Mary Anne’s name on it, in remembrance of her best friend.

            

So she was quite surprised, that at the end of the thirty six foot fall, she ran into Mary Anne. Or rather, ran her into the ground. This saved Matilda Joy from any broken appendages but Mary Anne was knocked quite unconscious.

            

Matilda Joy jumped up in joy, screamed without words and fell to slapping her friend until she regained consciousness. There was much happiness and embracing and a little bit of a concussion on Mary Anne’s part but they were together again and that was all that mattered.

            

Until the stench of nine thousand rotting trigonometric functions reached their nostrils. They began to tremble in their fancy slippers.

            

A dreadful, grating, voice reached their ears.

            

“Whooooo daaaares enterrrrr myyyyy domainnnnn.”

            

“Um… no one?” suggested Matilda Joy. Mary Anne nodded, squeezing her eyes shut and wishing for her fairy godmother. Mother Google did not appear.

            

What did appear, was a huge troll with bright red eyes and a fearsome row of sharp numbers lining his mouth.

            

“You’re a troll…” Mary Anne whimpered. Both juniors began to cry as the evil being confirmed their darkest fears.

            

“I am the troll of Vile Trigonometrical Functionalia and this is my pit!” he cackled and threw the two girls into a classroom full of all instruments of torture. Suddenly, Matilda Joy remembered her trusty calculator!

            

With uncanny precision she destroyed each problem on the Evil Troll Torture Board and left the evil Troll frantically checking answers with a very broken pencil – it had been so long since anyone had challenged him he had forgotten to sharpen it and it had fallen into disrepair.

            

The two juniors ran for their lives.

            

Once outside, a beautiful sight left them breathless. A fine, musical rain was falling – the perfect kind for kissing a handsome junior prince. But alas, none were to be found. So they continued on their way.

            

Presently Mary Anne said: “I say, Matilda Joy, is that a marshmellow hanging from yonder tree?”

            

“I do believe it is,” she exclaimed and they ran to the tree to discover what might be the cause of such a thing. In their fascination they both forgot the second rule of the art of calculation and as their masters rolled over in their graves................ they misplaced their calculators.

          

An instant later, the evil troll was upon them and threw them back into the classroom.

            

“Here you will stay!” he shouted and showered them with geometry proofs. Mary Anne almost melted into a puddle. Matilda Joy found slight comfort in the fact that she could still smell her lotion.

            

After geometry proofs came polynomial division and after that was the terror of parabolas… until finally, the Troll waved an inconspicuous piece of paper in front of their teary eyes.

           

It was a trigonometry test.

            

Matilda Joy could no longer smell her lotion. Mary Anne hid behind her hair and begged, pleaded and promised money if Mother Google would just come save them.

            

But no one appeared…

            

The troll laughed and since he was the evilest troll in existence, it was the evilest laugh ever to be heard within the land of Highschoolia. The two juniors were doomed. They accepted their fate quietly, with folded hands and only a couple hundred tears.

            

The troll tore the paper in half and suddenly it became two sets of ten pieces of paper. These he lay in front of the juniors.

            

“And now, despair for I have sentenced you to – “

            

There was a knock at the door. The troll growled. “Can’t it wait? I’m in the very best part!”

            

The knocking grew more desperate and the troll rolled his eyes, stalked to the door and jerked it open.

            

“What,” he snapped. And then he took a step back. And then another. And then another, until the two juniors could what stood in the doorway.

            

There were two young men wearing shining armor, calculators thrust forward in an experienced fashion.

            

“I am Sir Gluten and I am a Knight of the Pi Radius Squared table,” said the first young man and he bravely began punching numbers into his calculator. The troll laughed. 

~ ~ ~ 

To Be Continued...

*ahem* : This is what I do when I just really hate Trig. Which is pretty much always... but at the moment I hate it more than usual. It is an evil troll. That is all.