Monster vs. Boy, page 10
Dawz leaned his bike against the bench and took off his helmet. Maybe Luiza would come soon. Maybe he should try to find Ronny first. He’d taken Ronny’s card off Pop’s pile of papers in the kitchen. It had an address and a phone number.
The couple began taking pictures with the Bear Beast, posing with smiling faces right under its raised claws. He muttered under his breath, “Stupid tourists.”
“Stupid for coming north during blackfly season?”
Dawz spun around to see Luiza with a steaming cup from Thea’s Café. Coffee. It smelled sweet, rich, and bitter, like the coffee Pop had taught him to make. Atlas had told him that Thea wasn’t back to work yet, and Mandi wasn’t scheduled to come home from her tour of duty until July, so Thea had hired someone else to run the café until she could get back to it. Dawz felt guilty about Thea all over again.
“That looks nasty.” Luiza studied his bandages before taking a seat on the bench near the Bear Beast.
“It is.” He didn’t like how she pointed it out, but at least she didn’t treat him like an infection to be avoided. “I want to talk to you.”
“You already are.” She sipped her coffee. “I heard about your run-in with the monster in the schoolyard. You okay?”
He wasn’t okay, but he nodded anyway. He knew she’d ask questions until she was satisfied, so he recapped, leaving out the part about the monster growing when he touched it.
“Are you ready to set up that sketch artist now?” she asked him.
“I…uh…made you a sketch.” Dawz sat sideways at the far end of the bench, keeping the Bear Beast in sight, as if it might come to life. He rummaged in his backpack for the drawing. Although he still didn’t understand how a sketch could help to find the monster when no one else could see it, he was glad he’d brought her this offering. “Sorry it’s a bit crumpled.” He handed it over.
“Huh.” Luiza examined his sketch, and Dawz could see how inaccurate it was. He was a decent artist, but still. “You say it’s about your height?”
“Yes.” Dawz flushed. He didn’t like being compared to the monster. “At least it was. It could be even bigger now.”
“In two days?” Luiza raised her eyebrows.
Oops. He’d forgotten she didn’t know how it grew when it touched him.
“Maybe. Who knows what it can do?” he shot back at her a little too forcefully. “Why do you want a sketch of it, anyway?”
“For my collection.” She folded the paper. “I can keep it?”
“I guess.” He knew Luiza had been researching monsters forever, which is how the town got information for the tourist map of monster sightings. He hoped she wouldn’t add his closet to the map. “What do you know about where monsters like to hide?”
She crossed her arms. “Why do you want to know about that?”
Couldn’t she just help him? “I’m the only one who can see it, so maybe I can help Ronny—the pest-control guy—and Officer Rashmi catch it.”
“That’s best left to them, don’t you think?”
He bit his cheek, realizing he shouldn’t have revealed his plan. He tried another question. “Why are there monsters in this town? In my closet?”
“I suspect there’ve always been monsters here.” Luiza studied him. “There’s a story I don’t often tell because it can be disturbing.” She raised one eyebrow. “But maybe you need to hear it?”
He clenched his jaw. A new story. One that might offer answers and fresh terrors. “Yes.” He tried to sound brave. “Please, tell me.”
“Okay,” she said in her familiar story voice. “They say that, at one point, the early townsfolk built a maze of hedges and wooden slats where the park now stands. That when a monster appeared, they lured it into the maze, trapped it there, and then sent a hero in alone to defeat it.”
She gazed intensely at the swaying trees and beds of spring flowers in the park, and Dawz did too, imagining something like the Minotaur myth—the solitary hero entering the maze with their head up and shoulders back even though they were terrified, the monster roaring and raging from within the hedges, a crowd jeering and cheering outside.
Dawz hugged his arms to his chest. “Why did the hero have to defeat it?”
Her eyes drilled into his. “The rumor was that they were meant for each other, bonded somehow. In the end, one had to absorb the other. Only one ever walked out of the maze.”
A shiver took over Dawz and didn’t let go. Had Mom’s monster absorbed her? Could it happen to him? “How did they pick the hero?”
“The monster chose the person.”
Dawz didn’t want to hear that. Heroes shouldn’t be chosen by monsters. “Was the hero the only one who could see it?”
“I…” Luiza’s tone softened. “The story doesn’t say.”
Dawz sighed. Of course a story couldn’t explain what was happening to him. “Does the story say where the monsters came from?”
“No. It just happens around here sometimes.” She paused. “Like now.”
Like now. “Ronny said this town is closer to the crust of the spirit world, where different types of creatures can get tangled together on the way into life.” It sounded stupid when he said it.
“Could be. Maybe when a spirit gets fed enough, it becomes solid.”
“Fed enough what?” He couldn’t imagine what a spirit ate.
“Whatever it needs to live in our world. What I wonder is…how do we deal with a monster once it appears? This is the first one in my lifetime, and yours.”
So she hadn’t heard about his mom? “We lock it up where it can’t hurt anyone.” Dawz watched the flowers bob where the maze had once stood. It was all so impossible. But so was a monster in his closet. “Have you ever heard of a monster with a scorpion’s tail? And yellow feathers?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar. Why? Do you have something else to tell me?”
He shook his head quickly. If she didn’t know about Mom, he wasn’t going to explain.
She watched him until he squirmed. “Listen, Dawz, people believe the strangest things, especially when they’re scared or upset. I think the stories people share are part truth and part not-truth. The hard part is figuring out which is which.”
Chapter 20
Mim lay in a narrow cave, face up and panting. Her limbs were dead weights on the rock beneath her. She didn’t know whether it was day or night. She didn’t know how long she’d lain there.
She’d continued to run away from Dawz the Horrible, peeling and growing. And she’d continued to try to satisfy her insides—first with a meal of leaves and twigs, later with a gray mouse. But her hunger still raged; the things she ate lumped and jiggled inside her; her body still grew; and her scales still peeled.
Mim had cleared the tricky marsh and entered a forest with ragged mounds of rock that forced her to climb over them. She had run from more mysterious growls and yelps, avoiding whatever creatures might be lurking nearby. She had run until she couldn’t anymore, until she had to walk, and finally crawl. Until she couldn’t lift one hand in front of the other.
Now she was weaker than weak. Her left heart beat even faster, and her right one had slowed to a faint pulse. Mim squeezed her eyes shut and tried to catch her breath. Could this be dying? Like when a spider in her closet nest stopped weaving webs, stopped catching prey, and just sat still until it turned brittle and broke apart?
This couldn’t be happening. Not to her.
* * *
—
She had to get up. She had to try harder. Mim forced herself to her hands and knees. She dragged herself out of the cave, pulling her book with her.
Thankfully, it was cloudy outside. She liked how the clouds hung low enough to touch the treetops and settle in hollows. It made the sky seem less colossal.
Mim struggled to her hooves, wobbling. She aimed away from Dawz the Horrible along the same route she’d been traveling. It had become easier to sense where to go by resisting what her instincts told her to do, yet it felt harder to take each step.
Why was she so weak?
* * *
—
Mim sank to her knees and held her snout in her hands. She could hardly think straight, but she forced herself to reason it out. Her hunger was devouring her. It was stealing her strength. She had to figure out what would satisfy her insides. Restore her strength.
But how? She’d tried human food and drink. She’d tried things she’d found in the forest and marsh.
Now she was farther from Dawz the Horrible than she’d ever been. She’d eaten more than she ever had, yet she was hungrier than she’d ever been.
If she couldn’t run farther away from him, what else could she do?
Mim gulped in a breath as a terrible idea crept into her head.
Maybe she needed to go back to Dawz the Horrible.
Maybe she needed to eat him.
* * *
—
A shudder shook Mim’s insides. Disgusting! But she also recalled a book she’d heard the grown-up share one night as she listened from her closet nest. The story had been about a giant, which was a kind of monster. He had yelled fee-fi-fo-fum, then tried to eat a boy.
Maybe monsters were supposed to eat boys.
Even if they didn’t want to.
* * *
—
Mim turned in the direction of Dawz the Horrible. The journey would be impossible, but she would find a way. She managed to take one step. And another.
But as Mim took more steps, a new thought grew. These steps were easier than she’d expected. Her legs felt less strained, even though her hearts were still beating off-time to one another.
Mim hugged her book. No. It couldn’t be true!
She tested more and more steps.
It couldn’t be easier to walk toward Dawz the Horrible.
But it was.
* * *
—
Mim walked on, resenting each step. She wove between evergreens and splashed through a stream. As her hoof slipped on a slimy rock, she slid sideways. Her book dropped into the water.
Mim yelped and dove for it. They both emerged, streaming water.
Mim tried to wring out her book, but it had already swollen.
She rocked her book.
It swelled more.
Mim wailed. It didn’t help her book.
* * *
—
Ever since she’d left her closet, everything had gone wrong, and Mim didn’t see how it was going to get better.
Not if she needed to find that horrible boy again.
Not if she needed to eat him.
Chapter 21
Dawz didn’t mean to stay out so long, but Ronny wasn’t an easy guy to track down. The Hug-a-Bug shop was on the far side of town, and Dawz went the wrong way more than once, mostly because Luiza’s story had disturbed him. Which parts of it were true? He thought about stories he’d read that felt real. Tales of people who’d been tricked by jinns. The slimy qallupilluit who hid under the Arctic sea ice, luring kids away from their homes. Could a monster absorb a human like Luiza had said? Did the hero really need to battle the monster alone?
He didn’t want to find out.
When he finally found the Hug-a-Bug storefront squeezed between an auto shop and the train tracks, a sign taped to the door read Back in 1 Hour.
Dawz rattled the door. He paced the parking lot.
No Ronny.
He mounted his bike and clenched his grips. Now he’d have to try to come back tomorrow. Or maybe he could call Ronny without Pop listening in.
He aimed his bike toward home, hoping Pop hadn’t discovered he was gone.
* * *
—
On the way home, Dawz biked by his school. He knew he shouldn’t detour, but maybe he’d catch Atlas riding home.
A police car sat out front, and two officers he didn’t know were patrolling the yard on foot. Dawz didn’t feel the prickle that usually told him the monster was nearby, so he guessed the police were still investigating the last sighting or maybe guarding the school. Caution tape blocked off the garden and the library door. Kids were streaming out the school doors. Dawz cruised to a stop near the corner of the yard—away from the officers and the door where Pop would be picking up Jayla. If he got caught, he’d be in big trouble.
He looked for Atlas by the chain-link fence where they usually locked their bikes.
His bike wasn’t there.
Why was no one where they were supposed to be?
Dawz pushed off the curb.
That’s when he noticed the Hug-a-Bug van tucked against the side of the building with the back doors open.
Ronny must be here. He was probably investigating the monster sighting too.
Dawz should have thought of that. He’d wasted so much time biking back and forth.
* * *
—
Dawz rode his bike across the grass, even though it wasn’t allowed. He had to talk to Ronny, then beat Pop home. As he neared the van, he could hear Ronny speaking to someone. He’d better not be busy. Dawz had waited long enough. He rounded the corner of the van to see Jayla and Ronny sitting on the bumper. Jayla was swinging her legs and writing in a notebook.
He froze, hoping she wouldn’t tell Pop that he’d been here.
“Dawz! Good to see you, lad!” Ronny grinned, although his eyes flickered to the bandages on Dawz’s cheek, then away. He was holding a rectangular mesh trap in both hands. Behind him, folded-up traps in different sizes lined the sides of the van.
Dawz straddled his bike. “What are you doing here?” He knew he sounded rude, but he didn’t care.
“Your sister and I were talking about how she wants to be a pest controller when she grows up. I was just showing her how this here trap works.” Ronny opened and shut the spring-loaded door.
“I’ve learned lots!” Jayla didn’t seem to notice that Dawz was at school when he shouldn’t be. “Like how the trap needs to fit the creature. A small trap for a small creature, and a medium trap for a medium creature. I know how to set the latch and where to put the bait.”
“You’re a fast learner.” Ronny smiled.
“Jayla should be waiting where Pop told her to wait.” Dawz’s temples throbbed. Should he ask her not to tell Pop he was here? Would she listen?
“But I’m doing a school report.” Jayla held up her notebook.
Dawz could see a little-kid drawing of a cage trap that had already caught a pretend creature. She’d also drawn a mangled foot caught in a snare trap.
“Did you know you need to remove a creature from a trap as soon as possible?” she said. “And you should never use a snare trap, because they hurt.”
Ronny nodded sagely. “Every creature should be treated with care and respect—”
“—no matter how pesky they are to humans,” Jayla finished.
Ronny laughed and his belly shook. “And what did you learn about bait, lass?”
It bothered Dawz that Ronny sounded so proud of Jayla. Dawz should be the one learning how to trap a monster. Anyway, monsters shouldn’t be cared for like pets.
“The bait needs to match the creature,” Jayla said. “A good pest controller asks, ‘What kind of bait would lure the creature into the trap?’ ”
Ronny slapped his knee. “Exactly!”
“Dawz? Jayla!”
Dawz was already cringing when he spun around to see Pop. Pop’s hair was out of its ponytail and messed up, and his eyes had a frantic look.
“I didn’t mean to—” The words fell out of Dawz’s mouth as if they had a life of their own.
“You didn’t mean to sneak out?” Pop’s voice was pitched high. “Or come to the school when Dr. Lin told you not to? And I hear you were hanging around Four Corners with Luiza!”
Everyone in Morsh was a spy. Pop was frowning at him in that way that usually made Dawz want to make up for it somehow. But today was different. Today, Dawz was tired of Pop’s judgmental looks. He didn’t understand how monstrous Dawz felt. How hard he was trying to fix this mess.
“And you,” Pop said to Jayla. “I said we’d drive to Ronny’s shop so you could interview him.”
“But I saw his van, and I already had my notebook—”
“We’re going home. Now.”
Dawz didn’t like this new, stricter Pop who treated him like a little kid. He wasn’t. What was wrong with getting information from Luiza and Ronny, anyway? Especially when Pop was keeping secrets about Mom.
“Uh, sorry about that.” Ronny took off his Hug-a-Bug cap and swiped his forehead with it. “I thought she’d cleared it with you.”
“This isn’t your fault.” Pop put a firm hand on Dawz’s shoulder. “Come on. You really need to change those bandages.”
Dawz twisted his shoulder free. He’d forgotten about the bandages. He touched them and felt disgusting pus on his fingertips. As he wiped greenish-purple ooze on his jeans, Pop paled.
“I’ll meet you at home.” Dawz wheeled his bike around. He didn’t want to replace his bandages in front of everyone. How many people had seen him like this?
“We’ll go together,” Pop insisted. “I’ll put your bike in the truck.”
“Whatever.” Dawz pedaled over the grass toward the parking lot, breaking the rule again. But when he neared Pop’s pickup truck, he noticed a few kids he knew, and he veered toward home, pedaling hard.
Pop couldn’t tell him what to do. He had no clue what Dawz was facing. No one did.
