A crowd of fifty angry parents faced him. For over an hour, he listened to their concerns.
Finally, the last person in line to speak stepped up and took the microphone.
“My name is Karen Johnson. My grandfather served in World War II. I’m from a long line of Christian patriots, and today, I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed that our school allows Irsa Huldren to stay enrolled.”
Applause erupted.
“She’s an abomination, I tell you!” someone in the back shouted.
“Not a she,” Karen corrected them, “the Huldren kid is an it. A transexual, and I don’t want it around my girls. I don’t want it on any of the girls’ sports teams. I definitely don’t want it in the girls’ bathrooms!”
“Please,” Bellingham begged, “Please calm down. The Huldrens are from Iceland, so they don’t know how things are done here. I have a meeting with them tomorrow, but there’s only so much I can do. I can ban the child from playing sports and using the girls’ lockers or bathrooms, but I can’t kick her—uh, it, from school.”
“You’re a coward!” Karen screamed back at him.
“You’re bowing to the liberal agenda!” Karen’s husband, Charles Johnson, shouted.
“It’s against God and the Bible!” a white-haired grandmother yelled.
“Please!” Bellingham’s voice raised another octave. “I promise the child won’t be involved in girls’ sports or use the wrong facilities, but that is all I can do. Please understand!”
As more parents yelled, Bellingham dashed toward the exit. He dropped his papers and a pen and didn’t bother picking them up. Even after the double doors shut behind him, he could still hear the roar of discontent.
~~~
A strange couple walked into the school office.
“Hallo. We are Mr. and Mrs. Huldren,” the tall, broad-shouldered woman stated in a bold, sing-song accent. Next to her stood a much shorter, broad-shouldered man. Loose brown pants and rough-spun tunics covered their stout frames. The woman’s tunic was forest-green, and the man’s tunic was sky-blue.
The secretary, Mrs. Calloway, was struck by how ugly and similar they were. Low foreheads protruded above crooked noses covered in boils and bumps. Their mouths stretched wide across their faces. Both wore their sandy-blonde hair shorn in a jagged cut below the jawline. Blonde facial hair, like peach fuzz, covered their jaws, chins, and necks.
Freaking hippy-dippy foreigners, she thought.
“Please go ahead, Mr. Bellingham is waiting for you in his office.”
Mr. Huldren moved to the door and held it open for his wife. After she passed through, he stepped inside and closed it.
J. D. Bellingham looked up from his desk. His eyes widened.
“P—please have a seat.”
“I am Gryla,” the woman sat and motioned for her husband to sit. “His name is Leppaludi. Let’s get to the point, shall we? This is about Irsa, no?”
“Y—yes. I’m afraid it is.”
“Has she hurt someone?”
“No, not at all, but there are concerns.”
“About her hurting someone?”
“No, about the nature of, well—” Mr. Bellingham’s face burned bright red. He cleared his voice. “The other parents and I are concerned about her, uh—that she isn’t what she appears to be.”
“Get to the point. Explain.”
“We’re not sure she’s a girl, I mean—is she?”
The couple looked at each other. Then Mrs. Huldren looked back at Mr. Bellingham.
“She is female, but she is neither girl nor boy, and neither are we. We are something different.”
Mr. Bellingham glanced at Mrs. Huldren’s crotch. A slight bulge pushed up from her lap. A coughing fit overtook him. He hacked into his handkerchief.
“Are you okay?” Mrs. Huldren finally asked.
“Y—yes. The decision is final. Irsa may not use any of the girls’ facilities, and she may no longer play on any girls’ sports teams.”
“I suppose nothing can be done,” Mrs. Huldren stood. Her composure remained calm. Mr. Huldren walked to the door and held it open for his wife.
They left.
Mr. Bellingham sank into his chair and sighed.
Goddamn, people from Iceland are fucking weird.
~~~
Despite her parents breaking the news to her in the morning, Irsa Huldren remained in good spirits. She didn’t like soccer anyway and she’d always been curious about what the boys’ bathroom looked like. Once her parents dropped her off at school, she skipped across the lawn with her favorite sun-yellow tunic swinging around her. The crowd of children standing near the front doors stopped speaking when she neared.
Hunter Johnson snickered.
“What’s between your legs, Irsa? Did you stuff a sausage down there?”
A wide frown spread over Irsa’s flat face. Could they know?
“It’s not a sausage!” She stepped up to Hunter. “And you’re a bully!”
Hunter puffed his chest out the way he’d seen his dad do. He bellowed and shoved Irsa with both hands. She stumbled backward a few feet but didn’t fall.
Her fists balled up.
The homeroom bell rang.
Hunter’s friends grabbed his arm and pulled him inside.
“Come on,” Bo Maphet said. “We can deal with it later!”
The boys and girls broke out in derisive laughter as they pushed past Irsa.
“My mom says you’re an abomination!” Laura Johnson said as she passed.
Irsa waited until the other children were inside before she entered. Instead of going to her homeroom, she went to the bathrooms. She almost pushed through the door marked Girls, but then remembered what her parents had told her. Instead, she pushed through the door marked Boys.
The green-tiled room was empty. She peeked inside each urinal. A little blue disc sat on each drain’s center. She sniffed and recoiled at the sharp stench. She picked a disc up and took a bite anyway. It tasted like it smelled. She spat it out.
She went into the last stall and shut it. She perched on the toilet with her feet up. Her plan consisted of hiding until the school day ended then meeting her parents at the pick-up spot as if nothing had happened.
Everything went as planned for the first part of the day. She read several graphic novels in her backpack, and only a few boys entered the bathroom. After they peed or pooped, none of them washed their hands. When they pooped, she could smell what they’d eaten for breakfast. One boy had eaten fried eggs over toast, another had eaten sugary cereal and milk.
At lunch, a larger crowd entered. From the footsteps, it sounded like nine boys.
“Oh, Irsa! Are you in there!” Hunter Johnson called.
“We’ve missed you in class today,” Bo Maphet added, “Davey said a kid is hiding in here. It wouldn’t be you, would it?”
Someone banged on the door on the end stall. They banged on the next one and the next one. Finally, they banged on her stall door.
“Open the door,” Bo said. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
The boys gathered around the door. A few scattered giggles broke out.
“We just want you to lift your skirt,” Hunter said. More giggles spread through the group. “We promise we won’t tell anyone.”
Irsa remained still.
They kicked the door.
It didn’t open.
They kicked again and again. Other boys joined in. After thirty kicks, the lock broke and clattered to the floor as the door flew open.
The boys rushed forward, their faces burning with anger, malice, and hatred. Bo held one arm, and Derek Peats held the other. They pulled her out of the stall.
“Please, just stop!” Irsa begged.
Hunter grabbed her tunic and yanked as hard as he could. The fabric ripped at the seams and pulled off. Irsa was too stunned to move. A warm, red humming had begun in her ears. Her head vibrated. A tingling sensation washed over her limbs, and a grumbling began in her stomach.
“She’s as hairy as my grandpa!” Hunter exclaimed.
“And check out the grandma underwear!” Derek added. “It’s like something from a museum.”
The boys’ laughter ceased. A bulge pushed out from between Irsa’s legs against the fabric of the knickers. Derek and Bo released her arms and stepped back. Their eyes widened as the bulge straightened to a foot in length.
“Holy crap,” Bo said. “It’s true, let’s take a good look just to make sure.”
Hunter grabbed at Irsa’s waist. The grumbling in her stomach morphed into a ravenous hunger. The humming in her ears had transformed into a blaring roar. Her vision reddened, driving out all other colors. The walls and floor were red, the boys’ faces and clothes were red. Even the shadows were red.
Hunter’s fingers found the top of the knickers.
He yanked down.
A tail flopped out, long and blonde with a tuft of darker brown hair at the end.
A boy in the back screamed and fainted.
“What the fuck?” Hunter shouted.
Troll rage overtook Irsa, and her actions were no longer her own. Her hand shot out and grabbed Hunter’s neck. She squeezed. The boys grabbed her arm, but it seemed made of steel to them.
With a sickening crunch, her fingers closed. Hunter vomited a stream of slick gore. Blood spurted from his nose. His eyes burst from their sockets. With a single hand, Irsa tossed him against the wall. He slid down into an unmoving heap, leaving a red smear behind.
Screams like pigs in a slaughterhouse echoed as boys ran for the door. But Irsa moved faster. In a blur, she blocked the exit.
Bo punched her in the face. His actions seemed slow and clumsy, and Irsa easily turned and opened her mouth wide. She bit down hard and swallowed his fist to the wrist. He yanked the stump away, his radial artery spraying.
Irsa masticated and swallowed.
Another boy fainted while others ran into the stalls. One boy cowered and mumbled a feverish prayer in the corner. One boy kneeled under a sink with his head between his legs. “I want my mom,” he whimpered.
Bo sank to his knees, clutching his stump to his chest.
Irsa grabbed his head. She twisted and pulled. It ripped off like a toy doll’s head, spouting more gore into the air from his neck.
Blood rained in an arc over the room.
Irsa opened her mouth and looked up. The droplets fell on her long, extended tongue. It reminded her of winter in her homeland of Jötunheimr and how she’d let the snowflakes drift into her mouth. Except this tasted much better.
She glanced around the room.
She hungered still, and there were so many boys left. She began her feast.
~~~
Adults and children ran from the school’s exits. An emergency alarm wailed high and low, drowning out the screams. After the building emptied, Irsa walked out. She was naked and covered in blood, but her berserker fever had dissipated.
Her mother and father approached from the curb to greet her. Leppaludi knelt and took his daughter in his arms.
“My beloved,” he stroked her hair. “I’m so sorry this happened.”
“We must not tarry,” Gryla stated. She lifted a hazel wand and pointed it at a nearby oak tree. A blazing, azure portal opened down the bole’s length.
“Do we have to leave?” Irsa asked.
“Yes,” Gryla answered. “As you can see, Manna-Heim is not yet ready for our kind. We must go home. Perhaps in another age, we will return.”
Hand in hand, the family approached the glow. One at a time, they stepped through. The portal closed behind them.