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January 19, 2002. It was wintertime in John’s neck of the woods, but this year had brought unseasonably warm weather. It was the kind of weather of which John planned to take full advantage, and in the best way he knew how. Days like this needed to be spent frolicking outside, and so it would be, but not by doing his usual antics. He would not resort himself to that homicidal slime pogo ride today. Oh no, not today. A much sweeter mission was ingrained in his mind.
Today, John was going to venture to the big kids’ playground. All by himself.
Armed with a light jacket and a sunny disposition, John trekked the three blocks around the corner to the neighborhood playground, a place that he had previously only visited with the accompaniment of his father. Those supervised days were over now. He was big enough to take care of himself and any little problems he might (unlikely) run into. Oh man, this was going to be so much fun.
He already knew what he wanted to play with first: the tire swing, a crowd favorite among the neighborhood children. If the tire swing was the only piece of playground equipment there, John thought he would be just fine with that. Fortunately, he had quite the wide array of choices. There was the monkey bars and the curly slide and…oh.
Oh man, this was trouble.
Standing about fifty feet away, John could see four of them. He’d run into them before; they were each at least six years older than him, and he was no stranger to their to-bully list if they felt so inclined. The thing was, they weren’t always in the mood for bullying. Sometimes they just ignored him. Sometimes they were even friendly. It was nigh impossible to tell what he was dealing with preemptively, though. John decided that it didn’t matter. He had gotten this far, and no way in the world was he turning back now to grab hold of Dad’s hand. Today was the day he would become a man.
The plan was simple: just walk past them to the tire swing. Don’t make eye contact, don’t say a word unless spoken to, only walk on by like everything was cool. Okay, he could do this. Taking a deep breath and assuming all of the spy-like precision of Tom Cruise he could muster, he began to walk.
The first ten feet went about as smoothly as possible. He was sure that the group hadn’t noticed him at all at this point. Getting a small boost of confidence from this, John continued with the master sneak plan, feeling a lot less apprehensive about it than he did thirty seconds ago. Be cool, he kept thinking to himself, Just stay out of their way and they’ll leave me alone. He was quickly approaching the halfway point. The promised land was right in front of him, as was his silent victory. Just a little closer…he could do this, he could—
“Hey, let’s go to the park!”
Oh man. The jig was up.
That short, piercingly loud sentence let John know two things. First, he had been discovered. Secondly (and most importantly), he was their target for today. Time to abandon the sneak plan and run like there’s no tomorrow. John took off in a heartbeat, sprinting as fast as his short legs would carry him. The older kids were ultimately faster. They swarmed the tire swing, two of them sitting on it and the other two standing between it and John. One of them, a stockier boy, looked at John triumphantly and smirked.
“I’m sorry, were you planning on using this?” the boy asked in a high-pitched, condescending voice.
“…Yes,” John answered cautiously, shuffling his feet.
“Well, we were here first!” The boy leaned back and put most of his weight on one of the chains. ”Guess you’ll just have to wait your turn.”
They were doing this just to antagonize him. John knew this, but he couldn’t help but fuel the fire with his own anger. ”Do you guys even like playing on the tire swing?” he retorted. The four older kids laughed boisterously. John frowned as he tried to will away the reddening of his face.
“Course we do, kid!” the boy (who was clearly the spokesperson of the group) chimed. ”We’ve been waitin’ to use this swing all day! And now that we’re on it…” There was an awful glint in his eye. ”…We might stay all day. All day and all night.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Life ain’t fair!” The boy’s fake politeness was all but completely faded away now. ”Why don’t you go cry about it to someone who ca—”
“HEY!”
The older kids found the source of that new voice immediately. John had to turn around to see who it was. Standing right at the playground entrance was a little troll girl. She looked to be about John’s age, with long thick hair and aviator-shaped glasses. Her glare went straight past John and to the older kids, while her chin was in the air as if she knew she was better than everyone.
“Whadda you want?” one of the girls sitting in the swing yelled to the troll. The response was the troll’s swift movement to the swing, much faster than John would have ever considered a girl her age to move. Within mere moments, the troll was in the boys face…or she would be, if she stood that tall. In actuality she reached to about his hip, but she glared into his eyes nonetheless.
“Stop hogging the fucking swing!” she barked. A couple of the kids recoiled. John clapped his hands over his mouth. She’d cursed in front of older people! Wasn’t she afraid of getting in trouble? Maybe trolls didn’t get in trouble for stuff like that. He watched the rest of the altercation in silence.
“Buzz off, troll kid!” the boy replied, crossing his arms. The girl mimicked the action, crossing her arms and scowling.
“You buzz off!” she retorted, the intensity of her voice never wavering.
“Or else what?” another older boy said. Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, the girl was marching over to the swing. Without so much as a second thought, she flipped the tire over, hardly struggling over the weight. The two inhabitants of the tire flailed and hit the ground, their ankles still awkwardly caught in the tipped swing. Not missing a beat, she spun to face the spokesperson boy and kick him hard in the shin.
“OW! God damn it!” the boy let out a string of more curses as he hopped up and down, cradling his new injury. The girl’s scowl was giving way to a smug smile. She rounded on the only one left standing, the boy who’d challenged her in the first place. His face betrayed a mixture of annoyance and fear.
“Scram. I won’t ask you again,” the girl said between grit, sharp teeth.
“Okay alright, jeez. This was getting boring anyway.” This was coming from the spokesperson boy, who was just now tenderly putting weight back on his other leg. ”Let’s roll.” The other three got up and joined him, grumbling under their breath.
Soon, John was alone with the mysterious troll girl. The tire swing was long pushed out of his mind; he wanted to know more about this rad new person. Cautiously, he approached her. She was still staring at the swing, her back to him. ”Wow, that was really—” he started.
She rounded on him in almost exactly the same way she’d rounded on the other kids. John flinched a little, but relaxed when he noticed that she didn’t look nearly as angry as before. Whoa, were there seven pupils in one of her eyes?
“The next time they try to mess with you, you tell them to fuck off!!!!!!!!” the troll commanded. She pointed to the swing for emphasis.
“They never listen to me!” John tried to explain.
“Then you tell them that Vriska said to fuck off!”
“Is that your name?” John asked, his voice filled with awe. This had to be the coolest girl he’d ever met in his whole life, though admittedly he didn’t run into trolls very often.
The girl, Vriska, paused, as if she didn’t want to affirm what John had already clearly figured out. That seemed to apparently be the case. ”I have to go,” she said quickly, and turned to sprint out of the playground.
“Hey wait!” John didn’t even bother trying to chase her; she would be too fast. Luckily, she was in a listening mood, because she stopped at the sound of his voice. She looked over her shoulder at him expectantly.
“Will I see you around, maybe?” John thought he’d be pretty bummed if he never saw her again, especially after she helped him out like this.
Vriska smiled, showing her still-growing fangs. ”Maaaaaaaaybe!” she called back, and continued her sprint out. John watched her until she was completely out of sight, and then started to run home himself. Tire swing? What tire swing? He had a story to tell!
The first person he told was his Dad, who listened intently with his silent fatherly demeanor. For his sixth birthday, John would find his very own tire swing in the front yard.