Kevin the Troll

He’s crafty and cranky, mysterious and moody, and he wants children pie for his seven hundredth birthday party. He is Kevin the troll and he has his wicked little eyes fixed on you.

Nearly all the trolls look up to Kevin. Incredibly, by the end of this twisted adventure story, you will too.

Besides some remarkable trolls and ingenious humans, you will meet a chocolate giant, thirteen angry ghosts and a psychic called Rendor, who only predicts the opposite of what will happen. Take Rendor’s word for it. You will absolutely hate this book.

This is a book that happened by accident. I got writers’ block while I was writing Siggy and Amber. My publisher was expecting a funny novel about teen life in a yacht club, but I was twenty thousand words into the novel and I got bored with it. If I was boring myself, I figured the reader would be dead by now. So I put the manuscript aside and tried something else. I wrote about trolls, because I’d been reading about them and I thought they were cool. Maybe I could write a few short troll stories and sell them?

One of these little troll stories kept growing until I had about 50,000 words. I liked the story, but it really wasn’t what I’d promised my publisher, and indeed received some money for. It was a mad Scandinavian epic about trolls, snow-covered mountains, a giant chocolate man, ghosts, psychics and exploding lollies. Nevertheless, I handed it over and hoped my publisher wouldn’t notice that it wasn’t a humorous novel about teenagers in boats. But they did notice. For a start, there weren’t any boats. Or teenagers. But they decided to publish anyway. Here’s an early version of the cover.

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Troll fan Jean Watson sent me this picture of Kevin which definitely deserves a place here.

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Here I am doing field research in 1984 for Kevin the Troll, which was published in 2007. I have a good memory, and can recall falling off this alp as if it were yesterday.

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I like this part of the book, which shows that tough old Kevin has a soft side:

Deep down under the snow, the trolls were squashed together in an uncomfortable scrum. Kevin found himself pushed face-to-face against Midge. Their noses concertinaed together.
‘Is everybody all right?’ Kevin asked.
Muffled troll voices announced that they were all right.
‘We don’t know how far under the snow we are, but we must dig ourselves out,’ said Kevin. ‘All you trolls start digging right now.’
‘Shall I sing a digging song?’ asked Rupert.
‘No, just dig.’
‘Is this all part of your plan, Kevin?’ asked Peasoup the thick green troll. He wasn’t being sarcastic. Peasoup wasn’t clever enough to be sarcastic.
‘Yes, Peasoup,’ replied Kevin. ‘This is all part of my plan. I have tricked the humans into believing that we are trapped under a whacking great pile of snow. That way when we face them again we will have the element of surprise on our side.’
‘But we are trapped under a whacking great pile of snow,’ said Midge. The little pink troll added softly, ‘And I’m frightened.’
‘Don’t talk such drivel!’ Kevin yelled at Midge. It really wasn’t necessary to yell because they were pressed so close together.
‘I can’t help it,’ whispered Midge. ‘I’m afraid that we might die.’
‘No one here is allowed to die without my permission,’ ordered Kevin. The trolls started to dig at the snow with their claws. Then Kevin lowered his voice so that only Midge could hear.
‘You will not die, Midge,’ he said.
‘But I’m so terribly cold and we may never dig our way out.’
‘Of course we will. In my seven hundred years I’ve been in much worse scrapes than this.’
‘Really?’
‘Did I ever tell you about the time I met the gods of Ragnarok?’
‘No one has met the gods of Ragnarok,’ said Midge, ‘because when they appear it means the end of the world.’
‘I have met them,’ whispered Kevin. ‘They were a bunch of boofheads.’
‘You can’t say that about the gods of Ragnarok!’
‘I said it to their big ugly faces. It was a Wednesday, I recall, and I was out walking with a lady troll on the black sand beach of Garnten Island. This was back in the time when the ladies liked us.’
‘Lugwort often speaks of this time.’
‘He speaks of little else. He’s fixated on ladies. Anyway, I was out walking with this beautiful lady troll called Cafeteria and we were just admiring a pile of elk dung when suddenly these four mighty gods appeared right before us, in a blaze of green fire. They looked like giant Vikings and they carried huge knives made from sunlight. They told us that the day of doom was at hand and that they were about to annihilate the world.’
‘What did you do?’ asked Midge.
‘I threw elk dung at them.’
‘You threw poo at the gods of Ragnarok?’
‘I told them to nick off and get a proper job and not to destroy the world or I’d throw more elk dung at them.’
‘That was pretty brave.’
‘I’ll be honest with you, Midge. I was a little bit frightened. I think I might have been showing off to impress Cafeteria. But the gods didn’t know that. They all looked startled that a troll would speak to them in such a way. They agreed that destroying the world wasn’t much of a job. One of the gods said that he’d never wanted to be a destroyer of worlds, he’d had his heart set on being a dentist, only he didn’t think he’d pass the exam and that would look bad for a god. In the end the gods decided not to destroy the world but to see a careers advisor instead. I don’t know what they’re doing now. Probably work experience.’
‘Gosh!’ said Midge. ‘It was nearly the end of the world but you stood up to the gods of Ragnarok.’
‘I did,’ said Kevin. ‘And let me tell you, Midge, this is not the end of the world. It’s nowhere near the end of the world. We’ve just got a stupid bunch of snow on top of us. So help me dig.’
‘I’m not scared any more,’ said Midge. ‘Thank you, Kevin. Sometimes you can be very kind.’
‘Yes,’ said Kevin. ‘And if you tell that to any of the other trolls I will pull off your nose and feed it to a bear.’

Here is an early sketch of Kevin by the people who did the cover, The People’s Republic of Animation in South Australia. (I always thought that Kevin the Troll would make a good cartoon series.)

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At the end of the book is a troll song. This was written for a play that wasn’t about trolls, and didn’t go ahead. I decided to recycle it in Kevin the Troll. I hate to throw things away.

The Curse of Beauty
(A traditional ballad for lady trolls)

I have the curse of beauty
It’s tragic but it’s true
I can’t help looking beautiful
No matter what I do.
When menfolk set their eyes on me
Their passions I inflame
I have the curse of beauty
And nature is to blame.

The dreadful curse of beauty -
You don’t know what it’s like
To have the men run after you
Or chase you on a bike.
If only I were ugly,
My face an utter fright
I wouldn’t have these naughty men
Pursue me every night.

I have the curse of beauty
I got it from my mother
Whose gentle eyes would often stare
Directly at each other.
The slimy hair all down her back
The pimples on her brow
Have made me the angelic thing
You see before you now.

The rotten curse of beauty -
It’s awful to be blighted,
I’ve tried to wear a paper bag
But men are still excited.
And even when I’m in my grave
As dead as dead can be
I’m sure some wicked skeleton.
Will try to smooch with me.