Tank pulled me through her front door.

“You’re just in time.”

Her home was small and crowded. That’s what you get when you put ten trolls into one cave. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and grandparents, and all the noise and love that comes with them. Going over to Tank’s place was like going to a party. There was always food cooking, music playing and laughter bouncing off the walls. It made my little apartment with just me and my mom seem so quiet and small. But quiet and small has its good parts too. I’m not complaining.

Two tiny trolls, barely out of diapers, burst from behind the couch. They danced around us in the narrow corridor.

“Fizz is here! Fizz is here!”

“Away with you, girls!” Tank said, waving her arms. She snarled playfully at the girls. They screamed and ran into the crowded kitchen, giggling.

“Dreena and Draana are getting big,” I said.

“Big pain in the butt.” Tank opened a small door carved into the stone wall at the end of the hallway. “Come on, let’s get downstairs before my mom sees you.”

“Fizz Marlow!” a voice thundered from the kitchen. “Is my favorite little goblin here?”

Tank sighed. “Too late.”

Mrs. Wrenchlin came into the hall, wiping her glasses on her shirt. She put them on her large warty face and peered down at me.

“Why yes, it is Fizz!” She smiled. “Girls, you were right! We have a guest.”

Dreena and Draana popped their heads out from behind Mrs. Wrenchlin’s legs. They stuck their tongues out at Tank and disappeared again, still giggling.

“We were just going to the workshop, Mom,” Tank said wearily. “We’re working on a case. No time to talk or eat.”

Tank pulled me down the stairs and into the workshop. The scent of home-cooked beetle brisket lingered in my snout.

The shop was an explosion of tools, wires and gadgetry. But it was an organized explosion. Shelves ran along the stone walls, lined with boxes and bins. Each box and bin had a neatly printed label that said circuit boards, diodes, heat sinks, transformers or some other tool of technology I did not understand. Tank did, and so did her mom.

This was their workshop. They had built it together and now spent many evenings tinkering, building and creating. Tank’s mom was a tugboat captain, working the waters of Fang Harbor, so she normally worked with much bigger gears and circuits than these. This workshop was a place for her to pass on the love of engineering to her daughter. And it worked.

Tank picked something small off the workbench and held it out to me. It was a brass ball the size of a cave apple.

“Check this out!” she said. Her eyes gleamed with pride. “I call it the Ticklebot 1.0!”

I stepped away from the ball. “What does it do?” Getting too close to one of Tank’s inventions was a great way to get covered in grime, toasted in flames or electrocuted. I had learned the hard way. Having a tinkering troll as a friend comes with some risks.

“A good question.” She grinned. “Let’s test it out on my sisters.”

I looked around. “But they’re upstairs.”

“No, they’re not,” she said.

Tank marched out of the workshop and to a corner of the basement where a washing machine stood. She reached into a pile of laundry and pulled out two giggling trolls. Dreena and Draana.

“How’d they get down here?”

“With these two, it’s always best to just assume they’re spying on you.” Tank carried the twins back into the workshop. She dropped them on the floor. They stood looking at us with wide eyes.

“We weren’t spying!” Dreena screeched.

“Mom sent us down here!” Draana added.

“Whatever. Stand there,” Tank ordered.

We stepped back from the girls.

Tank ran to the Ticklebot. “Those arms were meant to tickle Dreena and Draana! Not you, Fizz. I’m sorry.”

“Apologies later!” I wailed. “Make it stop!”

The arms had me pinned to the ground with their tickling. I couldn’t move. All I could do was laugh. Having someone tickle you can be fun, but not if they don’t stop when you ask them to. Tank’s Ticklebot was definitely not stopping.

Tank pressed the Ticklebot. Inside the little ball, metal clicked against metal. The arms stopped their tickling. They zipped back into the tiny ball and disappeared. It was like they’d never been there.

I stumbled to my feet. My head swam from all that tickling. Dreena and Draana giggled like the Ticklebot had attacked them.

Tank carried the Ticklebot back to her workbench. “I have to work on the bot’s targeting mechanisms.”

“You have the whole tickling side of things perfected,” I said. “I don’t want to see another feather for as long as I live!”

“I wonder what went wrong,” Tank mumbled. She put the bot back on her workbench. She opened a small hatch on the little bot’s side and poked at the colored wires with a narrow screwdriver. “I have to get to the bottom of this. Won’t take long.”

When Tank is working on one of her creations, “won’t take long” means “get comfortable—this is going to be awhile.”

I switched on the TV on the wall above the workbench. I immediately wished I hadn’t.

“Mr. Trellik!” I said.

“What’s he doing talking to Trina Trallastar on TV?”

Onscreen, the owner of the antiques store was talking excitedly to the SlickTV news reporter. It looked like he had a worm in his ear. I turned up the volume.

“Tell us more about Firebane’s Hoard, Mr. Trellik,” Trina said in her sweetest TV voice.

Mr. Trellik smiled nervously. “Firebane’s Hoard is a collection of the finest treasures from the vaults of the master of the Dark Depths himself, Firebane Drakeclaw. The treasures are touring Rockfall Mountain and will be on display at Trellik’s Treasures all this week.”

“Sounds exciting!” Trina gushed. “Back to you in the newsroom!”

The camera jumped back to the anchor at her desk. She started talking about the weather.

“No wonder old Trellik freaked out about the slimes on his steps!” Tank said.

“Firebane’s Hoard will bring a lot of visitors to his shop this week,” I said. “That dragon is ancient! He’s been hoarding treasure since Rockfall Mountain was a hill. I bet he’s got some cool stuff.”