Monsters Need Heroes Too

Human children make the best heroes. That’s why there are so many stories about kids who get yanked into worlds of magic and adventure. Hero kids always come back braver, stronger, and cooler than before, and stay that way until they grow up into boring adults. But the kids of Willowcreek must make the best heroes of all, since they got summoned more often than kids from anywhere else.

“I can’t wait until I get summoned,” Corin said, as he walked home with his best friend, Julie. “Instead of doing chores and homework, I’d get to help defeat the forces of evil and achieve my destiny!”

“Your chores and homework would still be waiting when you got home,” said Julie. “Besides, maybe you won’t get summoned. Not everyone does. My brother wasn’t, and he’s too old now.”

“That’s because your brother never cared about castles and dragons,” Corin said. “I’ve been studying fantasy books for my whole life. I even took that fencing class at Camp Lakeshore.”

“Fencing skills don’t mean anything,” Julie said. “Summoned kids always get an old mentor guy to teach them how to use their magic weapon.”

“My weapon will be a sword,” Corin stated. “And it’ll be easier to learn if I already have a head start. Being summoned is my destiny!”

“You and every other kid in Willowcreek,” said Julie. “What if you got stuck in a really dumb world and came back all goofy like Roger?”

Corin winced. After Roger was summoned, he’d returned with stories about the world of Huggy-Bunch Hollow, where forest creatures spent their days singing, dancing, and baking huggy-berry cakes. Now Roger spent recess trying to talk to squirrels. It was embarrassing!

“Roger was always a little goofy,” Corin said. “My cousin helped a wizard defeat an army of giants and flew around on a griffin. He used to be afraid of heights, but now he wants to be a pilot when he grows up.”

“But he won’t remember why,” Julie said. “I think that’s kind of sad.”

Corin didn’t know what to say. Sure, kids eventually grew up and forgot their adventures, but not for years and years. Besides, Corin planned to write his adventures down in a book.

Suddenly, there was an odd stirring in the air. “This is it!” Corin exclaimed.

A hazy green mist formed in the air. Corin watched it flow right past him and surround Julie like a cloak. “What is this stuff?” she asked.

“You’re being summoned!” Corin tried to keep the envy from his voice.

Julie’s eyes grew wide. “But I don’t want--” There was a deafening crack, and Julie was gone.

“You got the wrong kid!” Corin yelled. It didn’t help. He’d have to tell Julie’s parents she was going to be late for dinner. As Corin turned away, a thick red and black smoke billowed out of the ground. It engulfed him in darkness, and the sidewalk seemed to slip away from his feet. Corin fell into the mist and kept on falling.

Crack!

The smoke cleared, and Corin stared into eight sets of glowing yellow eyes. Each pair of eyes sat above a set of sharp, pointed teeth. Corin was surrounded by trolls with no old mentor guy or magic weapon in sight.

Corin screamed. The trolls scuttled away at the sound, and Corin crab-walked in the other direction until he hit his head on a soot-stained stone wall. He was in a small, dark stone cellar lit by one sputtering torch and a few odd balls of red light that floated in the air. The place smelled like a swamp.

“Where am I?” Corin managed, his voice barely louder than a squeak. “What--who are you?”

The trolls stared at him with their huge eyes. Then they cheered.

“It worked!”

“We’re saved!”

Corin’s hands shook as he realized what had happened. “I’ve been summoned...by monsters?”

A troll with scaly red skin nodded, its grin wide and toothy. “Those elves think they’re so great with their precious hero. We’ll show them, now that we’ve got a hero of our own!”

“Elves?” Corin asked. “Aren’t elves usually, um, good?”

The red-skinned troll nodded again. “They like to think so. Gave them a good excuse to banish us to this castle, half sunk into the swamp!”

“But if they’re good... then you’re...” Corin swallowed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to finish the thought.

“Misunderstood,” a green-skinned troll finished for him. “Completely and unfairly slandered! To hear the elves talk, all we do is tromp through the forest and eat baby unicorns.”

“So you don’t eat baby unicorns?” Corin asked hopefully.

“Only the slow ones,” said the red-skinned troll. “But if trolls didn’t keep the unicorn population down, the forest would be overrun with them. It would be an ecological disaster!”

Corin wondered if he should refuse to help these monsters. Then he looked at their teeth again.

“The summoned hero has to fight for whoever summoned him,” the green troll said, as if reading Corin’s thoughts. “You’re going to defeat the elves for us and take their castle. Maybe we’ll send them to the swamp this time!”

Corin faced the monsters as bravely as he could. “You said something about another hero? Fighting for the elves?”

The trolls hissed. “Yes, and their hero has already started questing after the legendary sword called Swampbane.”

“A sword?” Corin pumped his arm. “Yes! I knew there would be a sword!”

The red-skinned troll spat. “You will need to find the sword first. Use it against the other hero, or the other hero will use use it against you.”

“I can do that,” said Corin. It wasn’t exactly the adventure he’d hoped for, but at least there weren’t any Huggy-Bunch Friends. “Then what?”

“Victory,” said the green-skinned troll. “The elves will be helpless once you’ve defeated their hero girl.”

Corin felt his heart sink into his stomach. “Hero girl?”
“Yeah,” said the troll. “They call her Julie. Julie of Willowcreek.”