I had my arms around the troll and he had his arms and legs around me and his mouth so close to my ear I felt his hot breath moisten my skin when I heard Kayla scream, "Mother!" in a tone of absolute shock.

It had been a long time since I'd startled that tone out of her.

The troll pressed his broad mouth against mine and licked my lips. The taste was not at all unpleasant. He hugged me one last time, then rolled off me and vanished down a narrow tunnel into the darkness.

I sighed. He was gone, yet his spicy taste lingered on my lips and his strong scent filled the cave like a pleasant memory. I wondered if I could work up a scent based on the troll's b.o. for the company. Would I name it "Attract" or "Repel"?

"Mother, how could you?" Kayla demanded.

I sat up. "I didn't kill it. I didn't even hurt it much."

"You terrified him!"

"I don't think so." I patted kinks out of my mail. The troll had really strong fingers. "Roll up that sleeping bag and get back where you belong, young lady."

"It's not fair," she said, and sniffled. She shoved ineffectually at her sleeping bag.

"Life's not fair. Actions have consequences. Your actions in particular are going to have some big consequences. Deal with it." I had a worry I didn't even want to bring into the light. After fighting with the troll, I knew he was male, horny, and well-equipped. What if Kayla's actions had the consequence of making me a grandmother to a half-troll child?

I blinked at her-my innocent baby. Hah! She was no more innocent than I was at that age. I remembered my mother's vague warnings when Ned and I were fooling around in the back seat of his Chevy. At the time I thought she didn't know what we were really doing.

Now I saw that she must have known, she just didn't know how to effectively deal with it. But Kayla and I had gone through counseling, so I knew better. At least, that was the theory. I decided to pretend nothing had happened, just like my mother.

I wanted to ground Kayla for letting that troll loose and sneaking off with it. She knew the camp's rules. Nobody stole someone else's catch.

Grounding, however, did not work on Kayla. Obedience to authority, mine in particular, was one of her issues.

I was tired of flashing my knife and my teeth to get her to do what I told her.

Maybe I should just lock her up in a troll cage.

She glanced up and caught me staring at her. "Mom," she whimpered, and my heart melted.

My head was still solid, though. "You're grounded," I said. It never worked, but what else could I do? "You're so grounded we're leaving for home at first light. No shopping or malls for a month! No TV for a week!" Any longer without TV and she would drive me crazy.

"Mom," she said again. I guess she realized I was serious. She snapped the sleeping bag over, flicked it so it rolled up, and stuffed it into a stuff sack. She did remember everything I'd taught her on our first camp-out.

Then she glared at me. "I hope you know, this is war. I challenge you!" She shook her head and looked down at me. "I'll never forgive you," she whispered.

"For what?"

"Stealing my boyfriend." She turned and crawled out of the cave, never glancing back.

When I woke up the next morning, I had the most beautiful collection of bruises I'd ever acquired, even in a lifetime of mock and real battles. Troll-pinching-mail-pinching-skin equaled bruises shaped like purple-black roses, mostly concentrated on my butt. I dressed in my everyday warrior woman wear, mail hauberk, stainless steel cuirass, and chausses, my mail stockings, which covered all my troll marks but the three hickeys on my neck.

Despite the already stifling heat, I unpacked my coif-de-mailles and put it on my head. It covered my head and shoulders, leaving only my face bare. My hair instantly dampened with sweat. It was going to be one of those days. I swallowed a salt tablet and chugged some water.

I pulled on my boots and loaded up on armaments. I really wanted to kill something. Preferably something big.

I stepped out of the teepee into the heat of the sun, and flashing light temporarily blinded me. Shading my eyes, I took another look.

A tall woman stood there in mail so shiny I knew it had never been fought in. She wore a helmet with a gray whale rampant for a crest.

I sniffled. Her birthday suit, the one I gave her when she turned fifteen. My daughter had finally put it on.

She raised her visor. The look in her eyes chilled me.

"Well," she said. "I hope you're happy now."

By all rights I should have been. She was armed and ready to fight. It was everything I had hoped for when we began this trip. Her upper lip curled into a snarl and her nostrils flared as she sniffed at the air. My daughter the warrior was ready to assert her final challenge to my authority.

The girls from the Teen Warrior program danced around screaming, "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Cookie bent down to draw a circle in the dirt with her cooking spoon. Gladys Badger Woman, who was our warrior parliamentarian, cautioned, "No holds barred. Just remember our two rules."

I wanted to say, Stop. It's just a troll! He's not worth fighting over. But I couldn't bring myself to say the words. I tried to hold my head up. I faltered, just for a split-second, but probably long enough for her to see me show weakness. I gathered my thoughts and prayed to the Goddess for guidance. My strength returned. "Prepare to lick my boots," I said to Kayla.

"In your dreams," Kayla said. She started toward me, a full-fledged warrior.

In her cold expression, I saw enough of myself to be afraid.

Teenagers. What are you going to do?

The Thief and the Roller Derby Queen: An essay on the importance of formal education by Eric Flint

The problem, in a nutshell, was that he had a lousy formal education. It didn't help, of course, that he suffered from delusions of grandeur. But if he'd stayed in school, he would have taken enough tests to realize that he was a dunce.

Being a dunce is okay, but you have to know your limitations. If you choose thieving as a profession, shoot for hubcaps instead of the Crown Jewels. For sure, don't try to steal from Satan. But that's exactly what he did.

Why did he do it? Well, partly because he was an egomaniacal dunce. But, mostly, he did it because of his girlfriend.

So it's time to introduce her: Loretta Minisci. Twenty-two years old; five feet, ten inches tall; raven-black hair; brown eyes; beautiful; shapely; and possessed of an all-consuming passion to become the greatest witch who ever lived. Her problem, in a nutshell, is that while she was incredibly bright she didn't have any higher education either. And despite what you may have heard, it really takes a lot of book learning to be a great witch-much less the greatest witch who ever lived.

So, she was frustrated. Her spells never seemed to work quite the way they should (when they worked at all). And she couldn't use a lot of spells, because the really good spells are written in arcane languages, bizarre runes, and the like. You really need a Ph.D. to work through that kind of stuff, and she was a high-school dropout.

The worst of it, from Loretta's point of view, was that she wasn't able to summon demons. She tried, once, but the affair went badly. She followed all the instructions in the grimmoire, including the part about being naked while you do the incantation. That last was a piece of cake, for her, because she made her living as an exotic dancer in between roller derby matches. But because her education wasn't up to snuff, she didn't quite understand what a pentacle is. Stumbling through the words in the grimmoire, Loretta made the word out to be tentacle.