The Ickles® Second Helping: 20 short stories including Tropickle and the Home Swap Getaway

By A.J. Eccles

Spellbinding short stories that capture the imagination

Do you like stories that sweep you along with the plot, breathlessly wondering how things will turn out? Then you will love The Ickles!

Their stories include action, drama, sci-fi themes, comedy, fantasy and pure imagination. T

• Language: English
• Publisher: IckleThingz
• Release date: Sep 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9780648686026

A.J. Eccles

A.J. Eccles is the author of The Ickles Second Helping, a collection of short stories about a group of unique individuals with names that perfectly describe their personality, occupation or behavior. Their adventures are fanciful tales about ordinary individuals who do extraordinary things. They live in the real world, but their journeys often take them to far-off places, or fantasy lands where they live out their dreams.A.J. Eccles first turned his hand to writing fictional stories after a career as a video producer, writer and senior global marketing executive.He loves writing for strong characters and developing unusual stories with unexpected plot twists. The stories range from comedy to adventure to sci-fi drama. The Ickles® gives the author the opportunity to develop storylines based on the roles and personalities suggested by the names of each character. A.J. lives on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia.When he's not writing you can usually find him playing music, walking his two dogs on the beach, doodling cartoon characters, watching sci-fi or researching all manner of interesting topics online.

Book preview

TROPICKLE

…and the Home Swap Getaway

Tropickle in board shorts at the North Pole

The sun burned down relentlessly, ripening the coconuts and drying the fishing nets strung along the sandy shore. A passenger boat arrived from the mainland, bringing supplies and an unexpected visitor with a strange offer for the island’s only inhabitant.

Tropickle lives in a hot steamy climate, on a small desert island right on the equator. The equator is the imaginary line that runs around the middle of the Earth. It is as tropical as you can get.

Tropickle has a warm, sunny disposition and an easygoing attitude towards life.

He lives in a grass hut under tropical palm trees.

And swims in a clear blue coral lagoon filled with every variety of tropical fish.

His constant companion is a giant sea turtle named Toby, that crawls ashore at night and sits at sentry duty outside Tropickle’s grass hut.

Tropickle feeds Toby fish heads and tails and sings tuneful tropical songs to him in the evening, to the accompaniment of his sea-shell ukulele.

By day he rides on Toby’s back, far out beyond the reef. Then surfs back, riding the turtle like a surfboard.

This idyllic life continues for many years until a travel agent selling global swap tours visits the island. He explains his tourist exchange program to Tropickle.

I can bring a family of four here to live in your grass hut, says the agent. You can have a pleasant vacation in their round igloo at the North Pole.

Sounds like a square deal to me, replies Tropickle. On one condition. They must feed Toby and let him sleep outside the hut at night.

The swap is agreed and Tropickle ships out to spend a balmy two or three weeks in the Arctic Circle.

Getting off the tiny seaplane onto the ice, the dramatic change in temperature strikes him. The weather is 30 degrees below freezing. At these temperatures, icicles form on your eyelashes and your nose freezes solid.

Tropickle has only packed his board shorts and sunscreen. This is the first time Tropickle experiences temperatures that are not in the mild tropical range.

A friendly local lends him a thick coat and a warm pair of trousers. Tropickle sets off in search of the igloo that will be his home for the next two weeks.

An igloo is a dome-shaped building, built from blocks of compressed snow. It has a small hole in the top for ventilation.

This also acts as a chimney when cooking or heating the interior. A short tunnel in front of the dome provides a door opening. You crawl on hands and knees to enter. The igloo is surprisingly warm inside, insulated by the solid snow blocks. A thick curtain hangs over the door to exclude drafts.

Tropickle finds the igloo by following the GPS destination on his phone. He marvels at the way this structure has been built using no mortar.

He learns that the heat from the humans living inside melts the bricks and fuses them together.

Outside, a blizzard turns everything to a white fog, and the freezing wind whistles over its smooth, round surface. Inside, the igloo is warm and cozy. Tropickle cooks a fish over the small stove, then goes to bed.

In the weak morning sun, Tropickle ventures out and makes his way to the water’s edge.

He misses his friend Toby, the turtle and hopes that the exchange family is taking good care of him.

As he peers into the water, a dark face peers back at him.

It is a friendly face with a welcoming smile and sparkling eyes. Tropickle is sure that one of them winked at him.

Suddenly a seal (for that is what it is) breaks the surface of the water and clambers up onto the ice beside him. Nice doggie, Tropickle begins. What’s your name? The seal barks at him hoarsely, flaps its flippers, and waddles away quickly from the water’s edge.

Seconds later a giant white polar bear clambers out of the water onto the ice.

The bear is starving. It shakes its thick fur and growls menacingly. What’s your name, asks Tropickle.

The bear bats him out of the way with one hairy paw and chases the seal across the ice. The seal is slower, but it finds a round hole someone cut in the ice and dives into it, back into the sea for safety.

This does not please the bear, as the hole is too small for him to follow the seal into the water. It dances around the hole, growling loudly.

In frustration, the bear turns, and chases Tropickle all the way back to the igloo.

The access tunnel which serves as a door is too small for the bear to follow. This does nothing for his bad temper, and he lollops away grumbling.

A barking noise wakes Tropickle the next morning. It is the seal that the bear chased yesterday. He names the seal Stan because it has a funny waddle. It reminds him of an old-time silent movie star of the same name.

Stan now sleeps at the entrance of the igloo, just like Toby, the turtle, back home.

Next day, the locals show Tropickle how to fish through a hole in the ice. In the evening, they sing songs around a bonfire, built to keep the bears away.

If you face the fire, your front gets roasted, but your back is freezing. If you turn the other way your face freezes. The trick is to rotate slowly, front and back to warm both sides evenly.

Nights are long in the Arctic Circle, and the winter sun hardly shines at all during the day. So, they do a lot of singing and rotating.

The neighbors teach Tropickle how to paddle a kayak and drive a dog sled pulled by huskies and wolves.

One day, Tropickle borrows the sled and dog team and sets off the find the true North Pole. His compass tells him he is close.

The North Magnetic Pole is not the same as the geographic North Pole. Magnetic North is a wandering point on the surface of Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. At the pole a magnetic compass needle will try to point straight down.

The day is clear and cloudy, and the dogs are