A story I wrote in 2015 to convince my children to put their things away…
… it didn’t work…
but the lore of Sock Trolls now lives on in our lives forever. 🙂 Enjoy!
There once was a house.
A higgledy piggledy house, all in shambles.
With toys on the floor, under the couch, thrown ‘round the room and left this way and that.
In walks the mother, who sees the mess and says, “You had better clean up this mess or the Sock Trolls Three will come. Just wait and see!”
The boy asks, “The Sock Trolls Three? What’s that?”
“Not what, but who,” She replies, “and they live here. They came with the house. They live somewhere beneath the floor, behind the door, inside a crack, or under the deck. At least so I suspect.”
“What are their names?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did, for if the Sock Trolls Three come, they won’t return what they take without being asked very politely, and by name.”
The boy thought this over and decided it must be another silly story. Just like all the other stories.
That night when all was quiet and dark, out crept the littlest little troll you ever could imagine.
He had a large nose on a little round face and snapping black eyes that looked a little like laughing. He wore a green pea coat with bright red trousers made from bits of laundry he’d stolen over the years. He muttered and mumbled to himself as he crept, peeking this way and that. When convinced all was quiet, he turned back to the wall and beckoned the other two trolls out from hiding.
“I needs me a hat, I do I do I do” he said to his friends (who were also his family), “and I think you needs ones too!” Off they went, inspecting the jumble of toys and clutter that littered the house.
“Oh me, oh my” the second little troll said excitedly pointing to the jumble of toys on the floor.
“Yes Yes Yes! The perfect house for us! Just look at all this stuff!” replied the third little troll hopping over a toy car.
Following their noses they found the way to the dirty laundry basket. Hopping in, they happily wallowed amongst the muddy pants, food covered shirts, and found some soiled socks. Sniffing deeply the three trolls happily sighed at the smell of fresh toe jam.
“Oh hohoho! Perfect new hatses! All broken in and ready to wear!” With that, the first sock troll happily stuffed the sock over his head and covered his ears. The other two dug around and popped on socks for their own bare heads and then quickly scampered back to the crack in the wall and disappeared.
The next day, the higgledy piggledy house was still all in shambles.
The mother came to the boy and showed him the clean, folded laundry with three lonely socks missing their pairs. She asked the boy to help look for the missing socks.
The boy looked this way and that. Up and down. In and out. He looked under the cat, and behind his bat. He checked under the rug, inside the closet, and only found a bug. He pushed his toys to one side of the room and then the other. There were no socks to be found.
His mother cried. She wailed. She pulled at her hair. “The Sock Trolls Three have been and gone again. They’ll be back again and again and again until we learn their names!”
Then she did a little dance. First one foot. Then the other. Then switched them back once more. She turned around once, twice, and once again. She called out, “Sock Trolls Three hear me clap three times three.” And she raised her arms and clapped her hands loudly three times, and three times, and three times again. “Return the things you have taken from me!” And she threw the three lonely socks high in the air and swiftly grabbed them before they hit the floor.
The mother looked at her son and said, you’d better go check your toys and get them picked up. The Sock Trolls Three will be back for more tonight.
The boy smirked and said, “Mom. You’re so silly! There’s no such thing. It’s just another story.” And he went back to his toys.
That night when all was still, a red tipped nose appeared through the crack, followed by a whole face topped with a hat made from a dapper red and white striped sock. Carefully he looked, this way, that way, and round once again. His large ears strained to hear any noise other than snores. He tip-toed into the room wearing red corduroy overalls he had taken from a doll some months before. When certain the people were asleep he motioned the other two sock trolls into the room.
The largest of the three trolls wanted a few blocks to make a new table and chairs and headed straight to the jumble of blocks in the corner. Of course the block box was empty and the blocks were scattered all about, higgledy piggledy. “These people don’t care for these blocks at all. No no no. They won’t mind if I help myself to a few, and they have so many too!” With that, he happily found a toy dump truck to borrow and loaded its hopper full of blocks and drove back to the secret crack in the wall.
The second sock troll really wanted to a jacket to wear with his best pair of pointy shoes. He went straight for the bin of dolls and stuffed animals. Finding them scattered all over mostly on the floor, he muttered and mumbled, “No one cares for these dolls. They don’ts they don’ts they don’ts. No one will notice a few missing thingsies.” With that, he found a lovely blue jacket with red piping that would fit perfectly and had a matching hat, perfect for the next troll yowling event (You ever hear a cat yowl? No? Well you can imagine! Where do you think cats got the idea in the first place?). Quickly the second troll scurried to escape into the secret crack.
The third troll, the oldest and the smallest, was hungry and followed his nose to the kitchen, hoping for a tasty morsel of cheese or two. (It’s a great injustice that we blame mice for all the cheese stolen in the kitchens of the world. Sock trolls are very fond of the smelliest of cheeses, along with smelly pickled herring and really smelly anchovies.) Along his foraging foray he spied a small skateboard, perfect for transporting his midnight snack; he loaded it up with the smelliest bleu cheese and stole half a jar of anchovies! Truthfully he felt a bit guilty here, for the people definitely cared about their kitchen. It was quite clean and tidy. So, in exchange, he left his new sock hat on the counter. Feeling the trade was fair, he quickly jumped aboard his new skateboard loaded with foods and raced for the crack just as the sun rose in the sky.
At 8am on the button, the son popped into the kitchen for breakfast and found a sock sitting on his plate instead of toast and milk. The boy asked, “Mom, why did you give me a sock for breakfast?”
The mother replied, “The Sock Trolls Three were here again. They took my best bleu cheese and the anchovies for tonight’s dinner and left me that sock in payment.”
The boy thought that his Mom was silly and playing a joke on him said so. The mother brought him breakfast and said, “You’d better clean up your toys today for the Sock Trolls Three will be back again soon.”
After breakfast, the boy tried to clean up. A toy here, a doll there, he puttered about putting the blocks in the block bin, the dolls in the doll bin, and discovered the missing toys.
“Mom!!!!” He yelled. “Where is my skateboard? Where are all the blocks? Where’re the jacket and hat for this doll?”
The mother looked at the messy room. “I told you they would be back, and they’ll be back again. The Sock Trolls Three won’t return the things they have taken except in exchange or if you ask very politely and call them by name.”
Then the mother did her dance to ask the sock trolls to return the items. First one foot. Then the other foot, and back again. She turned round, once, twice, and three times. Then she called out, “Sock Trolls Three hear me clap three times three.” Then she clapped her hands three times, and then three times again and finally three times once more. “Return the things you have taken from me!”
The boy decided his mother must be playing a trick on him. “Mom – you’re silly” he said again, “Can you please just give me my toys back?”
That night the sock trolls jumped into the play area ready to find new things to play with. Right away the first sock troll saw an art case full of buttons and ribbons and glue and crayons and markers and papers and stickers. “Oh ho ho ho, it’s going to be a great nightses!”
He clapped his hands three times with glee and the three raced over. The largest sock troll found the bluest crayon and tested it out on the white paper sitting on the floor. Finding it good, he tucked it into his jacket and headed back to the crack in the wall pulling the white paper behind him.
The middle sock troll found some amazing googly-eyed buttons that would be fun to stick on the wall in their home. He stacked the buttons high as he could and headed back to his home.
The smallest sock troll, but really the wisest, felt that the feathers would keep him warm and quickly gathered all he could carry and raced for the crack in the wall.
“Mom!” the boy cried, “Mom! Mom!”
The mother rushed into the messy room where the boy stood in misery. “Mom where are my art supplies? I was working on a new painting! Where is my blue crayon? Where are the buttons? Where are all the feathers?”
“Did you leave them scattered about? All in a jumble and mumble like all the rest of this room?” The mother asked, pointing to the higgledy piggledy room.
Slowly the boy nodded. “Sock trolls only take things they think you don’t want, that you don’t care about” the mother explained.
“Like the sock on the counter yesterday morning?”
“Yes, exactly like that.”
“How do we get our things back?”
“We must learn their names and then we must find them and ask them very politely to return what they have taken.”
Together the mother and son did their silly dance. First one foot. Then the other foot. Then once more they switched their toes. They spun round and round and round once more. They called out to the trolls “Sock Trolls Three, hear me, hear me, hear me clap three times three.” Together they clapped their hands three times, and three times again, and once more three times. “Return the things you have taken from me!” And the little boy threw one feather, one crayon, and the last of the googly eyed buttons in the air and quickly the mother snatched them back before they touched the ground.
“Now clean up this room so the Sock Trolls Three know you care for your things.”
The little boy spent the rest of that day cleaning carefully.
That night, he decided to wait up and see the sock trolls for himself.
Late that night, after the house was quiet and still, out popped one nose, and then another and another from the crack in the corner.
“Let’s play marbles” said the first sock troll.
“I want to race cars tonight!” said the second troll.
The third troll, the smallest and wisest said “We’ve been here three nights already, let’s take a few toys home and play there.”
Dashing over to the marbles, they stuffed one into each pocket when suddenly they heard shuffling footsteps. The sock trolls hid behind a teddy bear just as the boy poked his head around the corner.
He noticed the missing marbles right away, having been playing with them at dinnertime. The boy tiptoed into the room and looked under the couch, and into a cabinet, and around the cat (who blinked at him and then looked at the teddy bear who was hiding the trolls). When he didn’t find the marbles, the boy became angry. “I know I need to pick up my toys,” he said, “but Sock Trolls shouldn’t take them from me! I like my toys a lot!!” Then the little boy started to cry. He cried and cried and finally fell asleep on the floor in the middle of all his messy toys.
The sock trolls felt very sorry for taking the marbles and placed all the marbles right by his nose where he was sure to find them in the morning.
Then, the oldest and smallest of the sock trolls said to the others “The boy and his mother sang and clapped for us. Let’s whisper our names to them so that we might become friends.”
The three sock trolls shuffled up to the sleeping boy and each in turn whispered his name into the boy’s ear. Then they dashed away to the crack as fast as possible.
“Momma look!” The boy shouted. “Look and Look! My marbles!”
The mother stood in the door way and looked at the carefully arranged marbles and then at her son.
“I stayed up late to find the sock trolls,” he explained, “I didn’t see them, but they must have seen me for my marbles were gone and look they are back.”
“And did you learn their names?” The mother asked.
“I…I…I think so.” The boy said.
“Then sing the song, do the dance, and say their names. Ask nicely for your things to be returned.”
The boy stood in the room, and shuffled his feet. First one, then then the other, and then back again. He whirled round and round and round once more. “Sock Trolls Three, hear me, hear me, hear me!” He called out loudly. “Amos! Asa! Oscar! Please please please return the things you have taken from me!” Then he clapped three times, and three times, and three times again.
That night, before tucking the boy into bed, the boy and his mother placed a plate with three tiny cookies and three thimbles of milk and one small smelly anchovy in the middle of the very clean playroom floor. Then the boy whispered “Amos, Asa, Oscar – these are for you!” And he went with his mother off to bed.
When all was quiet and still, three little noses peeked out from the crack in the wall and sniff, sniff, sniffed the tasty cookies. Slowly three little pairs of eyes peeked out and looked around. When they were sure all was still, they quietly tip-toed out, pulling and pushing several toys. A skateboard, a dump truck, some blocks, feathers, and googly-eyed buttons. Carefully they arranged their treasures back into the playroom and then scampered over to the cookies and milk and fish.
Eagerly they gobbled down the treats. Then looking up, they waved to the cat who was watching all the fun and ran, and jumped, and skipped their way back to their crack in the wall and winked out of sight.