Free Pepper

Chapter 1

This has got to be the strangest town I've ever seen. A tall looming hill with all kinds of little houses all stacked on each other. Odd, if you ask me. Then again, no one asks me about much anyway, but maybe things will be different here. 'Cheesebridge', they call it. 'A Gouda Place to Live', I would later read on a nearby poster. New town, new people, new life, and I'm nervous, yet a little excited. The first thing I saw coming into town wasn't really the poster. It was the town itself, piled up on a hill, and then a river; a cold, blue one that surrounded the town and stretched far off into the surrounding hills. They all looked nice though. Far different from the dingy slums and docks by the River Thames, and I should know. As I walked closer and closer into the town, I noticed the largest factory I'd ever seen. A behemoth topped with a gigantically tall red hat touched the river's shore and led me to the first street in the town: Curd's Way. Curds? As in 'Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey'? So is there a Spider Lane in this town too?

I didn't stop to find out. I started up the long cobblestone path that would take me into the town itself. The houses and businesses all looked situation next to each other and connected. Each building looked empty and closed for the night. The only lights around me came from the streetlights, the moon way up above, and the stars I could barely see. I followed a long winding sidewalk up towards the very top of the hill, curious to know what would be there.

"It's quiet," I thought to myself. Except for the occasional dog bark, it was hard to hear anything. Not because of my ears but because there was literally nothing. A little breeze perhaps, but other than that, the town was still and quiet. Soon enough, I did indeed find the poster promoting Cheesebridge. I stopped and stared at it for awhile. I knew literally nothing about this town, but I rose an eyebrow. "They must really like cheese," I whispered. As I followed the wall the poster was attached to, I noticed a couple more posters.

When the Curfew's Alive, Stay Inside

Red Hats: Boxtroll Exterminators

Beware the Sewers, for...

"'Here Be Monsters'..." I finished reading. I then looked all around and warily stepped. "If there's a curfew, I oughta find someplace to go," I whispered. Surely there must be some sort of inn. I reached into my satchel and pulled out a few coins and several pound notes. Some of them were 10 pound notes, others were 15, even 20. I stuffed them back in and kept my eyes open for anything resembling a place to stay.

A blinking streetlight sat beside a building that made me stop and look at a two story building labeled, 'The Four Cheese Sons Hotel' in great big letters on top. I just had to smile. I looked both ways of the street and quickly walked across. I practically ran to it because of my long journey to find a new place. However, as I neared it, my smile faded and my pace slowed considerably. The door I found to the building had a nailed in sign that stopped her in her tracks.

CLOSED.

"Drat, even the inn? This curfew doesn't like me," I whispered. The building was as dark and empty looking as all the others. I turned back around and looked left, then right. Where am I going to sleep? What am I going to eat? I looked at my face in a nearby puddle. My long, deep red hair was all matted and my brown eyes were sagging with bags. I was so young, yet I knew what I was doing. "I'll find somewhere else and stay there, and then I'll come back in the morning." The breeze made me shiver, so I wrapped my arms around me, and rubbed as fast as I could. "Maybe there's a box I can sleep in somewhere...f-for now."

I walked towards the first alley I saw, past a florist shop, and heard something. I jumped and squeaked as I drew closer to that little slot between building where I could hide for now. The rustling sound I heard come with a couple of gargles and gurgles, as if two creatures who knew no English, were speaking and arguing. I found an entrance to my target, hid by the wall, and simple stared.

The alley was infested with even more unusual images; little creatures with pointed ears, blue-green, sometimes purple skin, bandaged feet, stubby fingers, and a box to cover everything else. All they seemed to be doing was searching through trash cans, looking for garbage. Why would they want to though? If it's in the trash, then obviously it can't be needed anymore, right? Even at my then young age of six, I just knew these had to be the Boxtrolls! The posters suggested that they were monsters, yet they didn't appear that way. "They don't seem monstrous."

I did see a couple of them fighting though. A tall Boxtroll with a fish on its box was being attacked (not violently though) by another one with a shoe on its own. They looked as if they were fighting over a thrown out clock. Again, what's so special about a thrown out clock? As I watched, I had found a large empty box turned on its front side to hide under, figuring that if they were mean, at least they won't see me. Wondering, who would win the fight, it was all suddenly cut short by yet another strange sound.

I remember back in London I used to hear the sounds of engines revving from real life motor cars. I heard they were going to be the next big thing, and it seemed as if Cheesebridge had them too. The creatures didn't seem to like them though because all too quickly they jumped in place and hid inside their boxes. I found it odd that as they hid, their boxes looked absolutely empty and normal. But even I knew better than to stay out in the open during troubling situations. I hid underneath my box but only peeked out so that I could see if it truly was one of those brand new motor cars. I peeped at it and was awfully confused. The car that pulled up into the alley way was enormous and box shaped. On one side of it, I saw a painting of a creature just like the ones I'd seen but with a big red cross running through it. One by one, men came down from the box car.

"Wow, men, real ones," I thought.

The first man was tall and skinny (like me only I'm quite short). Even though his clothes were something of a chocolate brown, it was mismatched by a tall red top hat, and in his hands, he carried a net. He had a kindly face though. He wasn't super handsome, but it was soft in a nice way. The second man I saw was exactly the opposite of me; a big bulky man, yet with the tiniest bowler hat I'd ever seen. To me, he seemed like the sort of man who could beat a person up, but much like the first man, his face suggested a calm, gentle demeanor that wouldn't do so unless absolutely necessary. The third man on the other hand, was short like me, but his face seemed...what's a nice word for it...manic; as if anything was enough to set this man off into doing something one would find questionable. His eyes were really light, I realized; a very bright blue color that hid behind black round framed spectacles. His clothes were a dark bluish green, but much like the first two, he also had a tall red hat; not as tall as the first man's, and his even had a hole in it. Before I could question the hole in the third man's hat, a loud voice interrupted my thoughts.

"GENTLEMEN!"

I dropped my box over my body once I heard it. The call sounded deep and threatening; almost as if the voice was coming from a place different from the source's throat. I tipped my box open ever so slightly and found the fourth man.

It was hard to look away.

"Look at all these boxes left lying abouuuut. How curious, how peculiar. I do believe evil is afoot."

The hiss in his voice and the stressing of certain syllables made me shudder. The last of these red topped men filled me with an unfamiliar air of dread. While I know it's not right to judge someone by appearance alone, and I'm sorry if I sound judgmental, I have to be honest. I didn't have to look at him for very long to know that his appearance alone bothered me.

As the first three men searched through the other boxes, empty and otherwise, I started at this fourth man's feet and my eyes traveled up from there. His shoes were a brownish orange with a one (maybe two) centimeter heel and a pointed toe. Its gold stitching reminded me of hoity-toity business men from London. However, the first thing that separated the man from them was his trousers. They didn't even reach all the way to his ankles, like I thought they were suppose to. His ankles were bare and gray with soot (at least it looked like a sooty kind of gray). Three or four centimeters above his ankle was where his trousers began. His legs were thin, not as thin as mine, and they were covered with pants that almost looked like they were peeling. As I kept looking up, I realized why his trousers seemed a bit short on him: right above his thighs was a round, bulging stomach that, if anything, made him appear hunched over. Looking at his frame, I finally noticed that though he wore brown like the first two men, his hat was complimented by his red, velvet coat with a chestnut brown fur collar and more gold stitching that formed curved patterns. His ovular face was pretty pale, with crooked teeth, a pointed nose, long greasy strands of dark brown hair (most of which was pulled back by its ends with a hair tie), and a pair of gray eyes that suggested that he had probably seen a great deal of grown up things that I had never known. This mountain of a man was topped off by the tallest red hat I'd ever seen. He must have been very important. Where I came from, only important leaders would typically have velvet coats with fur and gold stitching, not to mention the tallest hat in his company. His voice, gestures, cold gaze towards the empty boxes, and reptilian appearance frightened me, and I didn't even know his name. "Are all men like this?" I thought.

I ignored the conversation the first two of his men were having as I observed everything (something about feet, a bunion, and a grandma), but I did notice the short imp with the spectacles smack a few boxes with his rope gun. A couple even had those creatures in them. I watched the bulky man in the bowler hat take one while the first man with the net slammed down on it with his net. They're taking these trolls, I realized. And they all wear red hats? That's when it hit me.

The Boxtroll Exterminators.

"MR. GRISTLE, ACQUIRE THEM!" The creepy man pointed in her opposite direction and off went the man with the hole in his hat.

"Acquire...acquire! Ahaha! COME BACK AND LET ME HIT YOU!"

We both watched the manic Gristle run off after a couple of moving boxes the Leader must have noticed before I did. The latter turned his head and watched until the laughing man was out of sight and after the little monsters. With the leading Red Hat's head turned, now was probably the best time to find a better hiding place. I could hear the footsteps of the other men in the red hats. Two sets of taps and a set of clacking rang in my ears as I slowly but quietly crawled through the garbage, with one hand clutching my bag to keep it from making a noise from dragging along the ground. I just had to get away from those first two men, (the friendly looking ones), and their intimidating Leader.