Chapter 1 - The Baby Unicorn and Trolls

Trolls are prolific expellers of methane gas. The lighter trolls buzzed around like untied balloons. But unlike balloons, trolls never run out of gas. They just spiraled higher and higher until they splatted into the moon. More on trolls later.

Starfire, the cutest baby unicorn you ever did see, was frolicking among the tussocks, columns of tightly packed grass about one foot high and ten inches across. The sky above was endless. And there was a green blanket of tussocks as far as the eye could see. There were 186,000 mosquitos per cubic meter.

Starfire would leap into the air and the mosquitoes would fly underneath her and carry her about. All four legs were thrashing -- it looked like she was charging into the sky. Starfire so much loved to fly.

Starfire seemed an odd name for a unicorn especially her. She was tiny, no more than fifty pounds. There seemed little fire in her, and seemed not destined to be a star. Unicorns are lovely creatures in all respects, well almost. Unicorns smell like a skunk that just got run over. If you ever smell a skunk and can't find one dead in the middle of the road, you can be certain that a unicorn is nearby.

Unicorns appear much like horses. But the horn gives them away. Many unicorns have taken to camouflaging their horns to avoid detection. But they need to roll in the deskunkifyer bushes. The real name of this bush is a tightly held secret. If the trolls knew what it was they could easily destroy all the bushes. This would make it much easier for them to catch and exploit these lovely creatures -- mainly by eating them.

Starfire looked and smelled like all the other baby unicorns, but she was different. And nobody knew why. Unicorns are the most accepting creatures on earth, but even to them Starfire was odd. And Starfire felt odd. She so much wanted to be like everyone else.

Tussocks were generally safe for baby unicorns because trolls seldom go there. Trolls are so heavy that each step smashes two to three tussocks flat to the ground. If you see a trail of smashed tussocks about four feet apart, you are certain that a troll has passed that way. That makes them easy to track.

Trolls are indestructible so they don't fear for their lives. They just fear being found out. When they are it's a big pain for them to get somewhere where they are no longer noticed. If they dove underwater you could just follow the bubbles and when it gets dark you throw a match at the bubbles and follow the flames. The bubbles are usually lit right away to eliminate the smell. It is a little-known fact that trolls often hide in bathrooms.

There are many ways trolls escape when seen. The easiest is to find any manner of charging foods, beans, some health foods, and a variety of special potions This amplifies the methane flow so when they light it there is sufficient thrust to launch them over the horizon. They need to be very careful not to splat into the moon as there is no known way back. Nobody has gone back to the moon yet for fear that a troll might try to hitch a ride home.

No charging foods exist in the tundra. The rate of decomposition for anything there is just too slow because the ground is frozen -- or so it seemed. What is decomposition you might ask? It is what Beethoven is doing lying in his grave. There are only two indisputable facts, water is wet and a troll's favorite food are unicorns. And to add injury to insult, the horn makes for an excellent after meal tooth pick.