Bewildered and aimless, the troll wanders through the world…

Brick’s head really gonged. He didn’t want to be doing dis, but he’d fallen into bad company. He often fell into bad company, he reflected, although sometimes he had to look all day to find it, ’cos Brick was a loser’s loser. A troll without a clan or a gang, and who is considered thick even by other trolls, has to take any bad company he can find. In this case, he’d met Totally Slag an’ Hardcore an’ Big Marble, an’ it had been easier to fall in wi’ dem dan decide not to, an’ dey’d met up wi’ more trolls an’ now…

Look at it like dis, he thought as he trudged along, singin’ gang songs a bit behind the beat, because he didn’t know the words…all right, being in der middle of dis mob o’ trolls ain’t “lyin’ low,” dat is a fact. But Totally Slag had said the word wuz dat der Watch wuz also after der troll who’d been down dat mine, right? An,’ if you fink about it, der best place to hide a troll, right, is a big bunch of trolls. ’Cos the Watch’d be pokin’ around in der cellars where der real mean trollz hung out, dey wouldn’t be lookin’ here. An’ if dey did, an’ were puttin’ der finger on him, den all dese brother trolls would help him out.

He wasn’t too certain about that last bit, in his heart of hearts. His possibly negative IQ, complete absence of street cred, and, above all, his permanent inclination to snort, suck, swallow, or bite anything that promised to make his brain sparkle, meant that he had been turned down even by the Tenth Egg Street Can’t-Fink-Of-A-Name Gang, rumored to be so dense that one of their members was a lump of concrete on a piece of string. No, it would be hard to imagine any troll caring much what happened to Brick. But right now dey were brothers, and der only game in town.

He nudged the skull-necklaced, graffiti-ornamented, lichen-covered, huge club–dragging troll marching stoically alongside him.

“Resplect, bro!” he said, clenching a scabby fist.

“Whyn’t you go and ghuhg yerself, Brick, you little piece of coprolite…” the troll muttered.

“Right off!” said Brick cheerfully.