None of my fellow warriors needed to comment upon the change in me. We all felt it, none more so than the Gumm-Gumms, whose softies we pierced and whose gallbladders we harvested for burning. Our first conquest that evening was with a quartet of Wormbeards: hulking, bulbous creatures whose objectives were to whisper demoralizing insults to children while they slept so that the children would be compelled to run away from home, sad little sojourns that always ended while passing beneath a bridge.

Wormbeards were so fat around the middle they could roll themselves at you like runaway boulders. They achieved impressive speeds that way, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget dashing down Jefferson Street with Jack, Blinky, and ARRRGH!!! at my heels, chasing a rolling gray blob as it bulldozed mailboxes and road signs and a single fire hydrant. I burst through the jetting water and threw Claireblade like a javelin. It sunk into the Wormbeard’s spine and he unballed, denting two cars with his outstretched paws. The next morning the damage would be blamed on a hit-and-run driver. Only we hunters knew the truth.

We tried to intimidate the Wormbeards into revealing Gunmar’s location. They used their dying breaths to laugh at us. Using ARRRGH!!!’s nose and Jack’s astrolabe, we raced from bridge to bridge trying to divine the secret opening to the Gumm-Gumm lair. Every door we took led us through sewer pipes and long-forgotten caverns, but sooner or later we’d find ourselves back in a bland Saint B. suburb under assault from another troll lowlife.

Tuesday morning came fast enough to make me want to vomit. I plodded through hallways decked out in red-and-white crepe paper and in gym class flat-out refused to climb the rope because of my sore muscles. Tub didn’t say a word in my defense while Coach Lawrence wrote me a detention slip. I carried that worthless slip of paper all the way to play rehearsal, where I was unintelligible with exhaustion. Mrs. Leach had no choice but to call in Steve, and I was sure Claire preferred him anyway. With a mixture of relief and remorse I sunk into an auditorium chair, sedated by the knowledge that my skills were the kind that had to stay hidden. Just a few hours more and I’d prove it.

The Yarbloods were the smallest trolls in the known universe. Complained about in everything from Sumerian pictographs to Egyptian hieroglyphs, these legendary nuisances were no larger than mosquitos and fed upon children who played outside too late. The Yarbloods attached themselves to hair like lice and burrowed into a child’s skull to cause illness. We followed Jack’s astrolabe to their latest hunting ground: a local orphanage.