The Coal Troll

My house, like most houses in the town I grew up in, had a cellar with a coal shoot. My father worked down the coal mines prior to the strikes, later requalifying as a care assistant and working in council-run homes for the elderly. Coal - and more broadly, mining - was a huge part of my childhood. My father had tiny pieces of the stuff buried in his skin. The large landscape of his back, juxtaposed against my tiny frame, was littered with their stubborn presence, like tiny meteorites in a wide expanse of a whitewashed sky. I would panic when I saw them. I rubbed my hand over his back and I felt the rough surface left by their unwanted blemishing of his perfect skin. I worried that perhaps they would make my dad sick. I worried he'd get so many of them that, eventually, he'd turn into a large piece of coal with eyes. I worried.

One dark, blustery night, the wind flew through the streets of our little suburb, blowing so fiercely that it uprooted several trees, deroofed a couple of garden sheds, and whistled through lead-framed windows, billowing under curtains and causing a chill. I lay in my bed, just as I had every other night, squashed between every soft toy that I owned. Raggy Rabbit had to be the closest to me, of course, since I'd owned him the longest, and it made sense that he'd be the most loyal in the event that I required defensive action from my collection of cotton-filled critters. Charlie sat at the foot of my bed, since he was the largest. He stood the best chance of fending off any would-be attacker, I reasoned, and so it seemed like the cleverest option to station him there. I remembered to give him a goodnight kiss, of course; I figured it must've been lonely at the foot of my bed. Once settled, I pulled the duvet up over my nose. By the time I was ready to sleep, all that could be seen of me were a pair of glaring eyeballs, widened out of fear of the noise travelling up through the house.

Bang. Bang. Scrape. Bang.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard the familiar sound of my father's whistle as he traipsed up the stairs. A second set of footsteps offered further reassurance: my mother would shortly be running herself a bath. The immersion heater lived inside a cupboard in my bedroom. Its soothing sounds never failed to send me off to sleep, even on the most insomnia-plagued of nights. That is, until that night. My father poked his head around my door and, seeing the whites of my eyes standing out amongst the dull fur of my well-loved comrades, ventured in to sit on the side of my bed. He spoke to me whilst stroking the sweat-soaked hair out of my face. He sang to me for a while; his favoured choice was Melanie's Christopher Robin (is Saying His Prayers). When my dad saw that I was still visibly distressed, he asked me what on earth the matter was.

"The noise, of course."

"Oh, that? Don't worry about that. That's just The Coal Troll."

The Coal Troll

How my father imagined for even one moment that this story would console an anxious child is beyond my comprehension, but what follows is exactly as my father told it on that cold, November night.

The Coal Troll travels from village to village, depositing coal down the shoots in the cellars. He is very big (as he ought to be) since he needs to travel many miles every night for the purpose of delivering coal across the country. Large trolls take large steps, you see.

At this point, my father imitated the stride of The Coal Troll. For effect.

The Coal Troll only delivers coal to homes where there are good children. If there are bad children within, he leaves ice as a warning to them to behave if they wish to stay warm- and in their beds, of course. If The Coal Troll visits a second time and the children have once again misbehaved, he takes them away from their families and homes.

I was, as you can probably imagine, quite full of questions by this point.

"Daddy, how does The Coal Troll know which children have been bad?"

He pointed, of course, at the billowing curtains. "You see those, sparrow? When they move like that, it means The Coal Troll is smelling out naughty children. When he breathes out, the curtains float up."

He sniffed deeply in imitation.

"What if he thinks I'm being bad because I can't sleep?"

"Best if you're very quiet, and very still, Sparrow."

Go ahead and guess how many times I moved that night.

"Where does he take the children, and how does he get them if he's so large?"

"The Coal Troll decides on the best method of removal. He decides this based on the severity of your crime. If you've been bad - but only slightly bad - he eats a piece of coal and shrinks to the size of a poodle. Once inside the house, he lures children out by making pieces of coal look (and smell) like chocolate cake. The children go willingly with The Coal Troll. If, however, you are very bad - very, very bad - The Coal Troll remains in giant form, pushes his hand through the window, and pulls out the child by his (or her) toes. He takes the children to his lair in the snowy mountains, and he feeds them to his troll children. The very, very bad ones, anyway. The good ones, he makes clean the toilets. Troll poos are very smelly, you know. Wouldn't want to end up cleaning those, Sparrow."

"Where do Coal Trolls come from, Daddy?"

"Ah, I'm glad you asked that because this is very important. Coal Trolls aren't born, Sparrow. They are made. When very old men have worked for a very long time in the mines, they get very tired. Every miner knows that he must work until he retires, or he can eat a piece of coal and dedicate his life to the service of the Coal Trolls. In essence, he becomes one, Sparrow.

"But Daddy, you have coal in your skin. What if you accidentally ate some of it? Might you become a Coal Troll, too?"

"Ah, well, you see, this is why it's a very good idea to always brush our teeth very carefully. Myself, I brush them once after my breakfast, again after my lunch, and another time before I go to bed. If there are any pieces of coal stuck in there, I'll brush them right out."

I remained unconvinced (and now moderately concerned) that my father was, in fact, an actual Coal Troll.

"Why do they take the children, Daddy?"

"Well, somebody has to, don't they? How else will they learn to be better?"

"They can't learn anything if they're eaten by Coal Trolls!"

I was astute, if neurotic.

"Well, that's for the baddest of children, Poppet. The ones that can't ever get better at being good because they're so naughty."

"Like what?"

I want examples. Give me a list. It's your duty as my parent to caution me against being eaten by trolls. In fact, I might actually just feed you to the troll if you don't prepare me properly.

"Very bad things, Poppet. Setting fires and hurting people. Those kinds of things."

"Why does he keep banging the coal shoot door? Doesn't he deliver the coal all at once?"

"Well, this is where I think The Coal Troll is actually very fair. He delivers the coal one piece at a time, to give all children the chance to be good, even when they've been bad."

"So if I did a bad thing, but then I was very good, The Coal Troll would smell the goodness on me and not make me clean his troll poo?"

"Absolutely. See? Fair."

I'm still not sure I think that's fair.

My father kissed me on my head, as it seems I had run out of questions, and whistled his way into the adjacent bedroom. I waited until I heard the voices coming from his television before I took preventative action. I set aside Raggy Rabbit, crept out from underneath my duvet, and tiptoed to the windowsill, whereupon I whispered to The Coal Troll presently smelling me for badness.

"I think you would have a fuller meal if you ate my brother. And you ought to know that he slammed my foot in the door today, so you can definitely eat him. If you want."

To this day, my brother remains wary of coal shoots.