<h4><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk39059558"><span style="line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: purple;">Max Downstairs: Episode 1</span></span></a></h4>

"Whose turn is it to feed Max?" Mom asked when Arty and Keisha walked in from the backyard.

They pointed at each other. Nobody liked feeding Max, because of the disgusto factor.

“Both of you do it,” Mom said. “It’ll go faster. Don’t be down there chatting with him all night—I’ve got a special supper cooking.”

Keisha fetched the mop and a pail of soapy water.

Arty went outside to fill a feed bucket with special-order Extra Fine Troll Slop. It smelled like super-bad breath, but Max liked it. Arty and Keisha tried not to think about what was in it.

They headed down the long, long cellar stairs—longer than in most houses. Max had to stay deep and dark during sunlit hours.

He was awake and all dressed in his leather vest and pants when they got down there. As tall as two Dads and a Dad-and-a-half wide, he was green and hairy and ferocious-looking, his voice as big as he was. But his blue eyes were kind.

“Good evening, my dears.” Max bowed as if they were royalty and he was too. He was older than any living human, and his manners were old-fashioned.

“Good evening.” Arty put the bucket down on the cement slab in the corner—the rest of the floor was dirt— and joined Keisha on the stairs, out of splatter-range.

Max knelt on the slab and sang his grateful song, then dipped his hands into the slop and started shoveling it into his huge mouth.  Pretty soon the slab was covered in yuck.

Arty and Keisha closed their eyes. But they could still hear the squishing and sploshing, and there was that bad-breath smell.

“Ahhhhh,” Max said when he was done. “That was marvelous. Thank you, dears.”

He lumbered over to wash up in the huge sink by his bed.

“We can’t stay and talk tonight,” Keisha said, “There’s a special supper.”

“That’s fine, dear. I have plans myself.” He often went out at night—he’d dug himself a tunnel out of the subdivision and into the woods—but his family fed him so well he didn’t need to hunt much.

Arty took the Extra Fine Slop bucket upstairs to hose it out. Keisha washed down the concrete slab with her mop, then said good night to Max and trudged upstairs.

She’d just put the mop away when Dad slammed in the back door, panting and waving a big, ivory-colored letter, with official-looking print.

“Oh, no,” Mom said.

“Oh, yes.” Dad threw the letter down on the kitchen table. “They found out about Max.”

--Ellen 

Ingredients needed for the next scene: Who sent the letter? Why is it a problem that they found out about Max? Why does this family have a troll living in the cellar?

The Recipe: In the comments, give us your best ideas to answer our questions. We’ll collect your answers Tuesday at 11 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time), and will use as many as we can to write the next scene. If you want to, sign your first name to your idea so we can give you credit.

Come back Thursday to see what we wrote!

If we don’t take your suggestion this time, be sure to keep playing—we need your help to cook up a good story!