The Funny, Grotesque, Excitingly Scary Adventures of Freya and Lola

by Fogtreadder

A delightfully horrid bedtime story of blood, gore, poison, and torture; fun for all! That is if all are insane, cruel, diseased monstrosities. Contains scenes that may be inappropriate for children.

The Funny, Grotesque, Excitingly Scary Adventures of Freya and Lola on Balloon Island

Freya was a little troll. She was this many fingers old! She didn't know how to count those fingers, but her mother said that one day, she would be old enough to hold up all her fingers to show how old she was. When that day came, Freya would have to start growing another hand so she could keep counting. My, that would be a sight to see, because Freya had very big hands with long, knuckley fingers. Her feet were growing big too. Soon she might be able to hop about like a rabbit instead of having to walk; that would be very fun!

Freya's best friend was Lola. She had long, gray hair, four, long legs, and a collar with lots of hearts. You guessed it; Lola was Freya's dog. Lola was a very smart dog. She could run really fast, she could take her skin off like a coat and dance with her ribs like a spider or a crab, and she could even sing, "Nyuu, nyuu, nyuu!"

Freya and Lola liked to play all day in the deep shadowy places where no one expected to find them. They would hide for hours sometimes, just waiting for someone to walk by so they could jump out and scare them out of their skin. "Bleargh! Bleargh!" Freya would shout, and Lola would howl, "Nyuu! Nyuu!" Sure enough, that could scare anyone, and they would jump straight up, right out of their skin, and leave it behind as they ran away.

"I wish I could jump out of my skin like that," Freya said. "Then we could both dance around out of our skins, just like skeletons do."

"Oh, you're much too brave to be scared out of your skin," Lola said.

Freya had to agree, "Yeah, that's true. There must be some way I could jump out of my skin without being scared. We just need to think about it."

"I'm much too hungry to think about it," Lola said, "I may be a very smart dog, but not when my stomach can growl louder than me."

"Lets get some waffles then," Freya said. "You like waffles don't you?"

"I do, I do like waffles. They taste like squirrels!" Lola barked happily.

Freya had never heard that before. "Why would waffles taste like squirrels?"

Lola, ever a very smart dog, answered, "Because squirrels are made out of waffles."

"I thought squirrels were made out of cookies," Freya said.

Lola thought about that for a moment, "Well, you can make cookies out of squirrels. So that would be a waffle squirrel cookie."

"I like the sound of cookies and waffles," Freya said, "You can have my squirrels though. Ooh! What if you put a waffle between two cookies? Then that would be…"

Freya and Lola shouted together, "A cookie-waffle-wich!"

Lola's ears perked up and she wagged her tail as she got another idea. "That's it! I figured out how you can jump out of your skin! You could become a witch and just magic yourself out!"

"That's a great idea Lola! How did you figure that out?" asked Freya.

Lola said proudly, "Well, that's what comes of having a very smart dog for a best friend."

"So how am I going to become a witch?" Freya wondered.

Lola was about to say something but she stopped as she realized, "I don't actually know, but I bet I know who might, Moose Hanson."

"The Handy Moose?" Freya asked.

"Of course! He has squirrel cookies, and he can make waffles. That means he can make a cookie-waffle-wich. If he can do that, then it would be a snap to make a Freya Witch!"

"You are so smart, Lola!" Freya said. "I'm glad you're my best friend."

Freya and Lola went to where Moose Hanson, the "Handy Moose" lived. He was not called the "Handy Moose" because he was good at fixing things and was a moose, but because he was a moose and had a lot of hands, which is a very odd thing for a moose to have even one of. He had hands instead of antlers, and a hand instead of a tail, and hands instead of hooves, and hands instead of fur. Moose was a very strange beast, but then Freya was a troll, so things like that didn't bother her.

Moose Hanson was setting up his cart where he sold all kinds of good things to eat. He had muffins, and cookies, and waffles, but he also had tree bark, and thistles, and worms too. Anything you would ever want to snack on, Moose provided it all. Moose waved hello to Freya and Lola as they ran up to his cart, he was really good at waving hello.

"Hellooo tooo yooou!" said Moose as they ran up. "If it isn't Freya and Looola! What can I dooo fooor yooou toooday?"

Lola got her front paws up on Moose's cart and panted over all the things there were to eat. Her tail wagged so fast that it smacked against her sides, WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! "Oh, I want cookies!" she yipped, "With extra squirrel sauce please!"

Freya asked, "Can you make a cookie-waffle-wich?"

Moose's eyes bulged till they popped right out with astonishment, "A coookie-waff-ah-what?"

"A cookie with a waffle on it with another cookie on top of that. A cookie-waffle-wich!" Freya said eagerly. "Can you make one?"

Moose thought about it for a moment. "Hmm, yes I cooould make that."

Freya then added eagerly, "Then can you make me a witch too?"

Moose was just putting his eyes back in when Freya asked this, and he was so surprised, that his eyes popped out again, squishing between his fingers. "What's that? Make a Freya-wich?" he asked as he fumbled with five hands to get his eyes back in place again.

"No no," Freya corrected, "Make Freya a witch."

"Oooh nooo!" Moose said, "I cooouldn't dooo that! I wooouldn't dooo that, ever! Witches can dooo magic! That's nooot at all goood."

"Why isn't it?" Lola asked. "I thought it was a good idea, and I am a very smart dog."

"Yooou are smart Looola, but yooou dooo nooot knooow what happens tooo witches." Moose began to nervously wring all of his fingers together. "It's the magic that gets them first. They dooo a little bit. Then they dooo a little mooore. Sooon they see ghooosts, and befooore yooou knooow it they have cat spirits fooolooowing them everywhere. They are like cats; they might as well be cats! Oooh nooo!"

"Cats?" Lola barked. "Oh nyooo! That's no good at all. Freya can't become a witch. Oh it's hopeless now!"

"Why dooo yooou want tooo becooome a witch Freya?" Moose asked.

With a sad, little sigh Freya told him, "I wanted to do magic so I could jump out of my skin and dance about like a skeleton with Lola. She can take off her skin like a coat, but I can't."

Moose busied his hands with making their cookies and cookie-waffle-wich while saying, "There is still a way yooou cooould dance abooout like a skeletooon, Freya. Yooou need tooo gooo tooo Ballooon Island too dooo it."

"Really? How?" Freya and Lola asked excitedly.

Moose lowered his voice to a whisper. "Yooou cooould use acid tooo melt the flesh oooff yooour booones. Then you really wooould be a skeletooon."

"I can find some acid on Balloon Island?" Freya asked hopefully.

"Mooore than that, yooou can find acid rainbooows, but yooou have tooo catch ooone in a chase. They run very fast."

Freya was excited by the thought of going on a merry chase with Lola by her side. "How can I be fast enough to catch an acid rainbow?"

"Yooou cooould ride a rabid unicooorn," Moose suggested. Yooou'll have tooo trap ooone first thooough. I'll give yooou a free bag ooof Crusty Rusty Rooofing Nails. That will help yooou trap a rabid unicooorn. Dooon't eat tooo many ooof them yooourself thooough. They are very tasty!"

So Moose Hanson finished making their snacks, a sack of cookies dripping with lots of extra squirrel sauce for Lola, and a cookie-waffle-wich with maggot syrup and spleen-nut butter for Freya. Then he gave them a bleeding handful of Crusty Rusty Roofing Nails for them to trap a rabid unicorn with and sent them on their way.

It was a long way to Balloon Island, but Freya and Lola did not hurry. As they went along, they played games like "Trip the Splamp," and "Hide and Creep." They munched on the Crusty Rusty Roofing Nails until Lola warned that if they kept eating them, then they would have none left to trap a rabid unicorn with.

"It's awfully tiring to carry them in my hands," Freya said. "What can I do so I won't have to carry them and won't eat them either?"

"That's easy," Lola answered, "Just stick them in your ears, or in your nose. That was how your aunt and uncle carried their nails around."

Freya laughed as she thought about how silly her aunt and uncle looked when they wore all those nails and pins in their ears and noses. "I won't be able to fit all of them in my ears and nose like they did. There are much too many. I can probably stick all the rest in my skin here and there."

Freya stuck the nails into her skin everywhere she could find a place. Soon she was bristling with nails all over and that made her come up with a new game she called, "Hunt the Hedgehog." Freya played the hedgehog of course, and Lola had to chase her, dashing and howling all the way to Balloon Island. "Nyuu, nyuu, nyuu!"

When they arrived, they were stumped about what to do, for the island was way out in the water, and Freya, being a little troll, had not learned how to swim. They walked along the shore for a bit until they found some long vines growing from the shore to the island. "Here we are! We can walk across these vines to get to the island." Freya said.

As they began to walk across however, the vines began to twitch, bubbles came to the surface all around the island, and it rose up high out of the water, looking every bit like a giant balloon. Just above the water, a pair of mean, angry eyes opened and stared at Freya and Lola. Balloon Island was really the head of an enormous troll. The water frothed and it blubbed loudly, "What are you doing?! Why are you stepping on my hair?!" It shook the long vines trying to throw Freya and Lola off into the water.

"Please stop shaking!" Freya cried, "I can't swim!"

"Not my problem, nope, nope! Off, off!"

"We just want to get to the island to catch an acid rainbow!" Lola barked. "Please let us on. We won't be any trouble."

"Nope, nope, a whole lotta nope!" the island declared. "Acid rainbows are too runny to catch."

"That's why I need to trap a rabid unicorn," Explained Freya. "They can run more than any rainbow. Moose Hanson told us that I can find one on Balloon Island."

"Not here, nope. Wish there were, but nope."

"No unicorns?" Lola asked in disbelief.

"Unicorns, yes," the island answered. "Rabid ones, no. Wish there were some. They would run, and snarl, and scream all day. Nope, just got regular unicorns and all they do is, run, and laugh, and sing. Oh, those silly unicorns."

"Of course!" Lola said, "That's why Moose gave us some Crusty Rusty Roofing Nails. We need to make a unicorn rabid. So we can stick it with the nails, or I could bite it on the leg. That ought to do the trick!"

"Yup, yup, that would work, whole lotta yup," the island agreed. "If you make just one rabid, then it could bite the other unicorns and make them rabid too, or just eat them, yup, yup."

"Will you let us on to trap one then?" Freya asked.

The troll island made a lot of bubbles in the water that released lots of black smoke. "Yup, yup. Get 'em unicorns, yup. Uh, but can I have some Crusty Rusty Roofing Nails? They are tasty yup."

"They sure are, aren't they?" Freya said and gave the island some of her Crusty Rusty Roofing Nails. Then they climbed up onto its back and began to search for a unicorn to turn rabid.

Balloon Island was a wondrous place. Freya and Lola found Poison Toffee Apple Trees that grew cyanide, strychnine, and arsenic flavors all on one. They took one of each with them, and then they found smoldering pools of Boiling Burnt Baking Chocolate to dip the apples in and made them even more tasty.

They were just thinking about how to trap a unicorn, when lo-and-behold, one came running by them, as happy as can be. Freya could not resist the chance to scare a unicorn and she jumped up shouting, "Bleargh! Bleargh!" and Lola joined in howling, "Nyuu! Nyuu!"

The unicorn jumped clear out of its skin with fright. For a second it looked like two terrified unicorns; one standing on the ground, fuzzy and white, and the other leaping straight into the air, slick with blood. The unicorn's skin flopped on the ground and the creature ran off without it, screaming and crying, "They're going to eat me! Oh no! Oh no!" It tried to dash behind trees that were too skinny to hide behind. It scrambled on top of rocks that were too small to stand on. Finally it leapt into a big bush of stinging nettles and hunkered down in hopes it could not be seen.

Freya and Lola laughed and laughed until they were nearly exhausted. "I think we have our unicorn properly trapped!" Freya said. "Now we just need to make it rabid." She picked up the unicorn's skin where it lay on the ground and walked up to the big bush of stinging nettles. Freya and Lola were not fooled of course. They knew the unicorn was hiding in there for the blood soaked leaves rustled as the unicorn trembled inside and they could hear it crying, "Boo, hoo, hoo! I'm going to get eaten alive! Ow! These nettles sting! I'm going to swell up and itch, and then get eaten alive! Boo, hoo, hoo!"

"Come out of there, unicorn," Freya called. "Come out and put your skin back on."

"No!" moaned the unicorn. "If I come out, you'll eat me! I don't wanna die!"

"Come out. Those nettles sting don't they?" Lola asked.

"Ow! Yes they sting, and me without my skin makes it even worse, Oh, Ouch!"

"I'll bet they itch something awful too," Freya added.

The unicorn wailed, "Yes, they itch so much I can't stop scratching. I'd scratch myself till I bleed if I still had my skin on, but now I just itch, and scratch, and bleed all the time! I still won't come out. You just want to eat me!"

"We won't eat you," Freya said.

"Do you promise?" asked the unicorn.

"We promise," the two agreed.

"Cross your heart and hope to die?"

"Cross our hearts," Freya and Lola said then gave each other a secret wink, "And hope to die."

The unicorn in the nettles sniffled and said, "Okay, I'm coming out." The big bush of stinging nettles shook and the unicorn yelped and cried as it pushed its way through. Finally it crawled all the way out and stood before Freya and Lola, all four legs shaking in fear and oozing blood from many tears in its bare muscles.

Freya held up the skin and said, "Okay, let's get you dressed!" She and Lola grabbed onto the unicorn and began to stuff it back in its skin in every way possible.

"Ow! Ouch! It doesn't go on like that!" The unicorn howled as they tried to stuff its head down a leg hole. "Oh no! I'm so swollen from the nettles that I can't possibly fit back in my skin. It hurts! Please stop!"

"Don't you worry about a thing. We'll make it fit on you one way or another," Freya assured and pulled this way and that on the skin.

"This will be easier if you lie down," Lola told the unicorn.

"But the ground is all muddy. If I lie down, I will get dirt and mud and stinking mush all over me and inside my skin too," the unicorn complained.

Lola bared her teeth and leapt up, biting the unicorn on the back of the neck and dragged it down to the ground. "I said lie down! Now stay there and hold still!" she growled.

The unicorn wailed in pain, "Nooo! Please stop biting me! I don't want to get sick!"

"It's okay," Freya laughed, "Lola bit me not long ago, and now I'm sick too! Once you're rabid you'll run faster than an acid rainbow. Now hold still while I nail this skin on you to keep it in place!" Freya took one of the Crusty Rusty Roofing Nails from her nose and pounded it into the unicorn's flesh with a rock. She stretched the skin and tore it here and there to get it to cover the unicorn's bloated body. She laughed as every nail she pounded in made a jet of blood burst forth. Lola made a game of trying to catch the blood streams in her mouth.

The unicorn screamed as Freya roughly tacked each nail through its skin, on its chest, its back, its legs and head. It squirmed and rolled as it tried to get away, but every time it struggled to its feet, Lola bit it again to pull it back down and hold it still. Finally after much struggling and squirming in the mud, Freya pounded the last of her Crusty Rusty Roofing Nails into the unicorn. Although it no longer fit, and was torn and soiled by mud and slimy moss, she got the skin on as well as possible. The unicorn just lay there panting, spit flowing from its mouth, and its eyes spinning like tops. "You're just like the nurse," Freya scolded. "You cry just because you got blood on your clothes."

"I'm hungry," the unicorn rasped.

"I still have another poison toffee apple," Freya offered.

"Nooooo," the unicorn hissed and snarled in anger. "I want blood!"

Lola wagged her tail and declared, "Unless I am mistaken, I think this unicorn has become rabid."

"You're right, Lola," Freya said. "And just in time too, look!" She pointed to the distance and they saw streaks of yellow, green, violet, and orange; an acid rainbow was descending from the black, smoky clouds. She grabbed the rabid unicorn's head and made it look at the acid rainbow. "See that? If we can catch it and get to the end, then there will be all you ever want to eat!"

"Blood?" asked the rabid unicorn as it scrambled to its feet. "Hot flesh too?"

Freya jumped onto its back. "Every acid rainbow has a pot of blood at the end of it, but we have to run fast to catch it!"

The rabid unicorn shrieked with furious hunger and broke into a gallop, straight towards the end of the acid rainbow. Freya hollered with delight and hung onto its mane while Lola chased after, barking and nipping at the back of its hooves. It bounded to the left and right, around trees and stones and high over gorges. Freya nearly flew off its back with every sudden turn and burst of speed. She flipped end over end above the crazed beast and came back down just bearly holding on. The unicorn's frothy, rabid spit flew in her face and Freya relished every moment of the mad dash. She stood up on the creture's back, grabbing at some of the sticking out Crusty Rusty Roofing Nails with her toes, spread her arms wide, and yalped along to the unicorn's shrieks of fury.

The acid rainbow ran ahead of them drenching the ground and leaving a soggy trail of putrified grass. It's sharp odor burned the air, and a slight mist tingled on Freya's skin. It did it's best to stay ahead, but the rabid unicorn was so fast that soon they were nearly upon it. Freya could wait no longer, she jumped off the unicorn's back, her feet flinging her quick and far; long, knuckley fingers reaching out for the acid rainbow. She brought her hands together and SLAP! She caught it quick, tumbling to the ground with a cheer.

The acid rainbow was a slippery thing, harder to hold onto than a slimy live eel. It rushed through her hands and between her fingers as it tried to get away. Freya could already feel it dissolving the skin off her fingers, and her knuckle bones were starting to show through. She pulled it over her head and let it wash over her, holding the rushing flow to her mouth as she drank it like water from a garden hose. Its sour, stinging burn poured stright down her throat and turned her insides into soup before swishing all the way down inside her legs, making them swell up like two, blistering, water ballons. Soon you could see the swirls of booger green, old blood red, and bug guts yellow through her skin and then, KABOOM! Her legs burst, skin rolling back like wilting flower petals, bits of meat flying out, rinsing clear from her bones like mud off a stick when you swish it in a pond. Freya laughed as she let go of the acid rainbow, letting it run wherever it wished, for now she was not but bare bones!

"Look at me Lola! It worked! Just like the Handy Moose said!" Freya squealed, overjoyed.

Lola barked and ran about her friend, "That's amazing Freya, you're even scarier than before! If there is anything more frightening than a troll, it's a skeleton troll!"

"I've got to try scaring something!" Freya said. She looked at the rabid unicorn, but it was too maddened with sickness and hunger to be scared by anything. Not but a little farther away, she saw another unicorn, still happy and white. She hollered at it to get it's attention. When the unicorn turned to look, Freya jumped up, shouting, "Bleargh! Bleargh!" and Lola howled, "Nyuu! Nyuu!" The unicorn didn't just jump right out of its skin in fear, but tried to run away in mid air too, kicking its legs so fast you'd think they would get wound into a knot. It landed flat on the ground, all feet spread outward. It jumped up and tried to run while getting dressed back in its skin at the same time. The rabid unicorn roared in fury and rushed headlong at it, goring it in the belly, and stomping on its head before starting to eat it alive.

"That worked great!" Freya exclaimed, "Being a skeleton troll is much better than being a regular troll."

"Look at your ribs though," Lola said, "They are pretty firmly connected. I don't think you can dance on them like I can."

Freya agreed, feeling a little saddened by that. She tapped one of her bare ribs and it made a noise like plunk! Lola tapped another of her ribs and it made a noise like plink!They tapped a few more and they went, plink, plank, plunk! Freya laughed, "I may not be able to dance on them, but I can play them like a zylophone and we can both dance to the tune!"

"Yayy!" Lola cheered and she took off her skin like a coat, spread her ribs out like the legs of a spider and they both began to dance and sing while Freya played her ribs.

Dem bones, Dem bones, Dem… dry bones!

Dem bones, Dem bones, Dem… dry bones!

Dem bones, Dem bones, Dem… dry bones!

Now Freya's a skeleton!

Lola showed her how to dance on rocks to make her bony feet go tap-tappa-tap in time to the song and the rabid unicorn bit into the one it was eating alive to make it scream in tune.

They thought up a bunch of new games to play like "Skeleton in the Closet." Freya, of course, was the skeleton, and the unicorn being eaten alive was the closet. Then they played "Necromancer," with Lola as the necromancer and Freya was her undead, abominable creation. After that it was "Death of a Salesman," and Freya got to be the salesman.

Pretty soon they decided to have a snack. Freya took a bite of the poison toffee apple she still had. The mouthful dropped right out the bottom of her jaw and fell on the ground. "Oh no!" She cried, "I can't taste anything now that I don't have a tongue! What am I going to do?"

"You should take the tongue from the unicorn being eaten," Lola suggested. "Maybe that will quiet it down. Its screaming is starting to hurt my ears."

Freya agreed and reached her long, bony fingers into the unicorn's mouth and tore out its tongue. It still wasn't quite dead, but it did quiet down from that. Then she took some hairs from its tail and used them like string to tie the tongue into her mouth. Once the tongue was in place she took another bite of her poison toffee apple. "Eww! It tastes awful now! Maybe it got too much acid rainbow on it." Freya walked over to a tree where more of the poison toffee apples grew and plucked a new one. That one tasted just the same. Lola offered Freya one of her cookies with extra squirrel sauce but even that tasted horrible. "With this unicorn tongue, everything tastes like honey! Yuck!" She untied the tongue form her mouth. "Oh well, it was much too big for me anyway."

"We should find you a person tongue. I bet that would make everything taste the way it should," Lola suggested.

Freya nodded. "Sure, and I know where to get one that will fit. The girl with the bed next to mine, Erika, is the same age as me. And I bet if I take her tongue, then she won't snore so much."

"Maybe if I bite her, she will snore even less," Lola suggested.

Freya laughed, "You bit her once already. Don't you remember that time you followed me to school?"

"That's right," Lola said. "I keep wondering when you'll go back to school again. I keep looking, but no one shows up anymore."

"I don't need to go to school anymore," Freya told her. "Let's go. Once I get a new tongue, we can have something to eat. I'm so hungry that I feel all empty inside."

"You are all empty inside," Lola pointed out.

"And that makes me even hungrier!" Freya declared.

So Freya and Lola began to walk back to the shore of Balloon Island. Freya would have liked to ride the rabid unicorn back, but it was too busy chasing and biting all the other unicorns on the island. As they walked, Freya tossed one of her long, arm bones for Lola to fetch. It was fun until Lola came back without the bone.

"Where is my arm bone?" Freya asked.

"Oh, I buried it," Lola answered, "So I can eat it later."

Freya said to her doggie friend, "Silly, you're not supposed to eat my bones. Oh well, come on and let's go dig it up."

"Oh, I have an idea!" Lola barked, "We can play 'Archeologist.' I'll bury all your bones, and then we can dig them up and put them back together in a museum!"

"I don't know," Freya said. "It might be hard to find all my bones once they are buried."

"Oh come on! It will be fun!" Lola said as she snapped up one of Freya's leg bones in her mouth and ran off to bury it.

"Wait, Lola," Freya called out, "I can't follow you with only one leg."

"Not a problem," Lola called back. "I'll get the rest in a moment!" When she came back, she took Freya's other leg and buried it. Then her arm, hips, and ribs. Soon there was nothing left of Freya but her skull.

"This isn't right," Freya said, "How am I supposed to be an archeologist if I can't dig anything up?"

"It's okay," Lola told her, "I'll dig you up and then I'll eat you."

"But you're not supposed to eat me, you're supposed to put me back together in a museum!" Freya cried.

"Can't be helped," Lola said as she dropped Freya's skull in a hole and began to cover her with dirt. "I'm a dog and you're a bone. It's just how it works."

Freya tried to tell Lola to stop, but soon she was alone in the dark, cold quiet. She wanted to cry, but of course, she didn't have eyes anymore, so that was useless. There was nothing to see but the dark. She could feel her bony, knuckley fingers somewhere, and she made them move a bit. Perhaps she could still dig herself up. She dug slowly, one small handful at a time, feeling very weak. Finally, she got a hold of something thin and soft. She pulled until it drew low enough to see the room in the dim glow from behind the curtains.

Everyone was still asleep; even Erika in the bed next to her who snored really loud, but this time was thankfully quiet. Freya hoped that they would serve breakfast soon. She was so hungry; she might just turn into a troll and eat Erika. She thought about getting up for a cup of water. The nurses didn't like it if she left her bed when they were not around; but if they were not here, then who would tell on her? Freya slowly slid her feet out from beneath the covers and set them on the icy floor. Her toes were looking like her hands, bony, knuckley, like a skeleton.

Just like the last time she got up, she didn't wake anyone as she tip-toed past the rows of beds, so no one got mad; Freya had become very good at not waking people up. One of the previous times she got up for a drink of water, she found a note in the room where the grown-ups slept. She didn't know how to read most of the words but she figured out that whoever wrote it would be back soon with food. When grown-ups said, "soon," they really meant, "too long."

In the dark, Freya found the water cooler and took one of the paper, cone cups from the sleeve to fill it. She imagined it was a sno-cone with strawberry and blueberry syrup. Maybe when whoever went to the store for food got back, they could have waffles with strawberry and blueberry syrup for breakfast. She drank the cold water and it burned her stomach inside, which did not help her feel any less hungry. She tried to place the empty cone in the wastebasket but it was so full that the cup just tumbled to the floor.

With a tired sigh, Freya scuffled back to the children's room and crawled into bed. Erika was still quiet, so at least she could fall asleep again. Freya wished she really could turn into a troll, because when you were sick, even the dreams were no fun.