Trollhunters by Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus Page B

fans.”
    “Yes, I think so,” Mrs. Dunton replied. She tilted her head a little. “If we can make him taller, that is.”
    The wardrobe lady approached, unspooling her measuring tape and running it from foot to inseam and waist to armpit, making disappointed
tsk
s at every step. I had learned in math class
just how much taller Claire was than me, but Claire herself didn’t seem to care. She crossed her arms over her frayed jacket and a dozen bracelets slid down her wrists. Her dark hair blew and
caught on her lips, and she spoke just loudly enough to be heard over the gridiron warriors and the roaring mower.
    “Very interesting, Mr. Sturges.”

“I’ll never figure out how that nut sack made a living writing,” Tub said.
    “Flames,” I groaned. “I’m going to go down in big fiery flames of fire.”
    “I’ll show Mr. Shakespeare a renaissance. A renaissance of my
fist
.”
    “Nobody can say those sentences without sounding like a jerk. Right?”
    “Generally you’re right,” Tub said. “It’s definitely an elite club of superstars who can wrap their tongues around that baroque bullcrap. Sir Lawrence Olivier, Sir
Kenneth Branagh. We’d be remiss, of course, to leave out that legend of stage and screen, that matinee idol of the ages, Sir Jim Sturges Jr.”
    Tub slapped me on the back. He had a big hand; I stumbled. I heard chuckles from the direction of the football field. I kept my head down and picked up the pace. We were heading home, but the
talk of the audition would not die. I looked at the
RoJu
script in my hand. Only forty-five pages, but it felt a whole lot heavier.
    “How am I going to memorize all this?” I asked.
    “Here’s a tip,” Tub said. “You forget a line, just shout ‘Saint B. Battle Beasts rule!’ and those morons in the stands will go crazy.” He winked at me.
“That one’s a freebie. Next one costs.”
    By now we were passing the San Bernardino Historical Society Museum, a lure too great for Tub not to bite at. He gave me his usual impish grin.
    “Not today,” I pleaded. “I don’t have the required speed.”
    “Speed? You? You’re not the one schlepping this bag, Sir Jim.”
    What could I say to that? He was doing me a favor. So we made our way down the walkway, passing beneath a new vinyl banner. It didn’t make a lot of sense, though the heavy block letters
were nonetheless imposing.
    KILLAHEED
THE COMPLETE STRUCTURE
    WESTERN HEMISPHERE DEBUT
    It snapped in the breeze as if preparing to swoop down on bat wings.
    Neither of us was encouraged by what we found inside. Carol was absent from the ticket booth. We peeked around the corner. No one was manning the coat check. We perked up our ears. There were
sounds, dim vibrations of voices, but there was no telling from which direction they came. Tub shrugged, hitched up his duffel, and pushed his bulk through the turnstiles. I followed and we
proceeded, more carefully than usual, up the stairs and beneath the bison. Tub didn’t touch the chin hairs this time.
    The Sal K. Silverman Atrium looked no different from the outside. But when we pushed through the smoked-glass doors we were greeted by a hive of activity. Museum staff, everyone from Carol to
docents to board members, were buzzing about with frowns, while men with hardhats and work gloves called back and forth to one another from behind packing crates and the seats of small forklifts.
Tub and I were dumbstruck. When we approached not a single person paid us notice.
    Spanning the entire length of the room was a stone walking bridge. Had it been stretched across a country stream somewhere, it might have looked harmless enough. But indoors it pushed against
the room’s paltry boundaries with a formidable, primordial force. It was ancient, its every notch and outcropping scoured with the nicks and discolorations of centuries. Fiberglass cushioning
hid much of the detail work, though a dozen workers were preparing to remove it. Clearly the bridge had