Monster vs. Boy, page 4
Mim missed her nest more than ever. To comfort herself, she curled into a ball on the hard floor—a bigger ball than ever—and tried to remember if she’d grown before.
She couldn’t.
If only her memories stretched back further.
She touched her too-big horns. She examined herself all over. Her hooves looked bulbous. The gray fur on her legs and haunches had thickened. The purple scales on her upper body had lengthened. Her arms stretched on forever, ending with wider, longer hands. Her fingernails had grown too, narrowing into sort-of claws. Even her gray furry snout felt longer. What if she never stopped growing? She might grow bigger than her closet. She might grow into a human!
Anything could happen.
Her world had cracked open, and Mim didn’t know how to fix it.
* * *
—
Mim worried and fussed until a hopeful thought crept into her brain and made a nest. Perhaps she was growing to fit the extra space in her closet. If that was true, she could never leave her closet for the wide world. No, she didn’t want to grow bigger than big! But maybe, if she filled the space in her closet, she would stop growing.
She needed her ribbons and wrap back. And her books. And her boxes, barrel, and everything inside them. Mim needed her closet to be like it used to be. Then she’d build a barricade to keep the boy out. Then she’d stop growing, or maybe even shrink back to her own size.
Yes. It had to work. It must.
* * *
—
Mim listened at the door to check if the boy was asleep. She’d heard a lot of thumping and scraping, but the room beyond the door was silent now. She put her hand on the doorknob. Her scales rippled. Mim had never, ever ventured beyond her closet. It would be dangerous. She’d have to face the horrible boy. If only she knew how to use a book to tame him.
Please, please be asleep, she thought.
She turned the knob. It whined.
The door didn’t budge.
She pushed at it. She twisted the knob this way and that. The door still didn’t move.
Mim’s closet had one way in and one way out. It had no windows. No loose roof boards to squeeze between. No vents to tunnel away. Her home had become a trap.
Mim leaned her horns against the door. The horrible boy had thrown books. He’d invaded her closet. He’d destroyed her nest. Now he’d locked her door.
That boy had no limits to his horribleness.
Mim could hardly bear to nest so close to him.
Once again, she wondered about seeking a new nest. But she needed her closet and her things to become small again. She had no choice.
* * *
—
Mim stuck her longest fingernail in the keyhole, using the new, sharp point. She had to work fast.
She had to refill her nest before she grew more.
Mim knew about keyholes from watching the boy. She’d seen him use a key to lock the door to his room. She’d heard the girl on the other side of that door, yelling to get in. She’d seen the boy laughing.
She wiggled her nail-claw around and around in the keyhole. She didn’t know what she was reaching for—it was just what the boy did with a key. She poked anything she could touch. She twisted and turned her nail-claw. She tried not to rattle the door.
Then she heard a satisfying click.
Something in the lock had shifted. Mim tested the door. The knob turned and…the door creaked open.
* * *
—
But only a smidge before it thudded into something.
More noise that might wake the boy. Mim listened, hoping he was still asleep. This one time, she didn’t want to scare him awake.
Silence. Then gentle snores.
She knew that sound. The larger boy was in the room. Sometimes, he slept on the floor in a tube-shaped blanket nest. When that happened, the horrible boy and the larger boy talked late into the night. Then the larger boy snored just like that.
* * *
—
Mim pushed at her closet door. Beyond it, the something that blocked it from opening slid along the floor. The something was heavy and hard to push out of the way. Mim shoved.
Clatter, crash, BANG!
Oh no! The something had fallen. She must have woken the boys.
Mim tried to find the spark deep inside her. The one that made her feel strong enough to face two boys. Then she pressed her whole body against the door, forcing it open and shoving the something out of the way with a too-loud scraping sound.
She couldn’t see her ribbons and wrap or any boxes or barrel. But in front of her lay an empty bookcase toppled on its back. To her right was a tumble of books. Books full of story friends! Maybe jumbies and wendigos. A giant yew tree that could talk.
“Get ready!” she heard the horrible boy yell.
He stood on the bed. Her horrible, horrible boy. He waved a horrible glowing stick that made her squint.
Mim shielded her body with her nail-claws.
“Can you see it?” he said.
“Where? Tell me where to aim!” The larger boy stood near Mim’s closet in his blanket nest, holding another glowing stick and gazing above her head as if he still couldn’t see her.
Mim shoved her closet door all the way open to prove she wasn’t a shadow. The larger boy gasped in a satisfying way.
“It’s in the doorway,” the horrible boy shouted. “We need to force it back!”
Mim slid sideways toward the pile of books, hoping to scoop up an armful to take back to her closet. She ducked around the larger boy easily, keeping her horns aimed at the horrible one. The larger boy had his back to her now, stupidly swinging his glowing stick in the wrong direction, and for a moment, Mim was grateful to be invisible to him.
As she neared the books, the horrible boy jumped toward her, waving the glowing stick so it hurt her eyes. Foul thing!
She faced him across the pile and puffed smoke at him. He couldn’t stop her from refilling her closet.
He coughed. She reached for a book, and he swiped at her hand with his glowing stick. She snatched her hand back, and he stepped onto the books like he didn’t care if he hurt them. Fiend!
She ducked sideways.
He blocked her.
She tried another way.
He was in her way again.
Mim’s spark faded, and her hearts fluttered. She couldn’t rebuild her nest with him in the way.
Across the room, she glimpsed an open window, the curtain rustling in the cool night air, those scents of flowers, cars, and worms filling her again. She had a straight line to it, past the end of the bed.
Outside. Those mysterious scents. Calling her. Tempting her.
She jumped for it. Around the horrible boy with his surprised face. Onto the bouncer that the horrible boy called a trampoline. Bouncing from it into the larger boy’s blanket nest, where she collected a pillow and a sock to fill a new nest. Climbing over the bed, where she picked up a random book from the end of it.
She was a rebel! A triumph! She was terrified.
“It’s at the window,” the horrible boy screamed.
Mim leaped over the ledge. She hit the screen with her too-big horns and busted through. She sailed into the air under a starry sky, falling, falling down, landing with her haunches thumping onto the pillow, rolling onto the cool grass, light spilling from the high-up window.
Outside! She was outside.
The breeze tickled her scales and ruffled her fur, hurling more scents her way. One of her hearts rejoiced to be free, while her other one tugged to be back in her closet.
She might grow as big as the world now. Would she grow to grotesque heights?
Oh, the world was huge. It stretched out forever in all directions. It was dizzying.
“Is it hurt?” the larger boy called from inside.
The horrible boy appeared at the window. “Too dark to see!”
In a lower window, a light blasted on.
Mim gathered her pillow, sock, and book. Then she ran into the wide world.
Chapter 9
Dawz stood with the others in a pool of streetlight on his front lawn. He’d forgotten his coat, but that wasn’t why he was shivering. Shadows loomed beyond their circle. Anything could be hiding there, ready to attack.
Seconds after the monster crashed through the window screen, Pop had burst into Dawz’s room. He had made sure Dawz and Atlas were okay, then started making calls. He phoned his friend Officer Rashmi. A pest-control guy. And Atlas’s mom Thea. Next, he’d woken Jayla, who could sleep through a jackhammer busting through their sidewalk, and rushed them all outside. “No one goes back in for anything,” he’d said. “Not until we know it’s safe.”
Safe. Dawz doubted he’d ever feel safe again.
It took him a moment to realize that Pop hadn’t asked what had broken through the window screen.
Like he didn’t need to ask.
Now they were gathered outside, under the streetlight, all in their pajamas, with Atlas wide-eyed, Pop tight-lipped and corralling them into a knot, and Jayla talking and talking. “What happened? Why are we outside? Who broke Dawz’s screen?”
But Dawz didn’t answer her, and Pop still didn’t ask.
Officer Rashmi arrived in her police car first. She was a frequent visitor to Pop’s kitchen, and not only to sample Pop’s food. Dawz had often walked in on them whispering across the kitchen island, and he’d wondered how they’d become friends and why Officer Rashmi always came in uniform. Maybe she was just formal?
Next to arrive was a white guy in a pest-control van and, finally, Thea on her electric bike. Soon, everyone was talking at once. When the pest-control guy disappeared into the house with Officer Rashmi, Dawz knew they wouldn’t find anything. The prickle at the edge of his left eye told him the danger was outside, somewhere in the shadows, not inside.
“A monster!” The words burst out of him. “It was a monster.”
Everyone went silent, even Jayla, and it unnerved Dawz. Of course, Atlas already knew about the monster, and he spoke first.
“I couldn’t see it.” Atlas was breathless. “But something unlocked the closet door and busted through the screen. It even stole my sock and Dawz’s pillow and book. I could see the things it took.”
Dawz had never been so grateful for his friend. His words made Dawz feel less alone. Someone else had witnessed evidence of this monster. But then, Dawz saw Pop’s eyes, blue and sad, as if he’d known Dawz was going to say it was a monster and wished he hadn’t.
A sinking feeling took over Dawz like dishwater disappearing down a drain, and all he could think was, If only I’d had a stronger lock. If only I hadn’t let the monster escape.
If only he could turn back time like a character in a book and force it to stay in the closet.
“Cool!” Jayla said. “What did this monster look like?”
Thea made a tsk sound. “This town has monsters on the brain. It could have been a raccoon who got in through the eaves.”
Before Dawz could argue with her—explain the danger they were in—Officer Rashmi emerged from the house with the pest-control guy, both of them hurrying toward the pool of light.
“All clear.” Officer Rashmi nodded to Pop, who nodded back like they’d done this before.
All clear. Suddenly, Dawz remembered a conversation he’d overheard between them. Late one night, when Dawz had come downstairs for a glass of water, Officer Rashmi and Pop had been sipping chai and sampling samosas in the kitchen.
“And that’s all you know? No one’s seen her?” Pop had whispered.
“It was all clear,” Officer Rashmi whispered back. Then her brown eyes locked onto Dawz in the doorway and her voice got louder. “These samosas are as good as the ones my mother used to make in Mumbai. Now, that’s hard to do.”
Dawz’s insides bubbled into lava. Had Pop been secretly searching for Mom? Did he want her to come back? What would happen to Dawz and Jayla if she did?
“Yep, nothing in that closet anymore,” the pest-control guy said. “Didn’t even see any scat.” His name badge on his jacket read Ronny. His logo read Hug-a-Bug Pest Control.
“What’s scat?” Jayla had brought a flashlight outside with her, which she was beaming into the shadows.
“It’s poop,” Atlas told her.
“And the rest of the place? You checked it all?” Pop glanced nervously at the house.
“Nothing nowhere, except what should be inside there. What did you see, lads?” Ronny turned to Dawz and Atlas.
“My brother saw a real, live monster, and now she’s on the loose,” Jayla said. “We should hunt for her. We should learn everything about her.” She brandished her flashlight.
The adults exchanged a look that Dawz couldn’t read because Jayla had chosen that moment to blind him with light.
He grabbed the flashlight. “How would you know it’s a she?” Jayla had a habit of calling everything a she, which was fine for toys, but now she was making him wonder if the monster might be a she, and he didn’t want to—he couldn’t—think about the monster as anything but an it.
“Hey!” Jayla snatched the light back.
“No one is hunting anything.” Pop took the light and turned it off. When Jayla reached for it, he shoved it deep in his pocket.
“That’s for sure.” Thea nodded.
“Except me.” Officer Rashmi flipped open the notepad she’d been carrying. Her belt had a scary amount of equipment on it, including handcuffs and a baton. “If a monster is out there, we’ll find it.”
“What did this monster look like?” Ronny asked.
“Why does everyone keep calling it a monster?” Thea said. “It could have been a—”
“Mom!” Atlas frowned.
“If you’d grown up here, you wouldn’t say that.” Dawz raised his voice. Who could ignore the howls that echoed across the forest and marsh at night? Or the feeling of being watched from a closet?
An awkward silence grew, and Pop shot Dawz a disappointed look.
“Sorry, Thea,” Dawz muttered. “I didn’t mean to yell.”
“You’ve been through a lot.” Her voice softened. “Just try to keep an open mind. The monster stories in this town may be good for tourism, but that’s about it.”
Dawz bit his lip to stop himself from talking back.
“What did you see? I’ll need a thorough description.” Officer Rashmi held her pen above her pad.
Dawz’s running shoes sank deeper into the rain-soaked grass. He was the only one who could describe the monster. The only one. “It was shorter than Jayla, but with horns—”
“Cool!” Jayla bounced on her toes.
“How many? What shape?” Ronny asked, like he believed Dawz.
Dawz didn’t want to say because Pop had paled and turned away, but Ronny was waiting for an answer. “Two. Curved and pointed. And a gray, furry head like a musk ox.”
“Musk ox! We don’t get them this far south. Are you sure?”
Dawz nodded. He wasn’t sure of much, but he knew what he’d seen. Even though he’d been terrified, he’d memorized everything, like a good cryptozoologist. “It had hands with claws, arms, and a chest like a person, but they were covered in purple scales like a snake. Then its legs were like a musk ox again, but with sharp hooves. The worst part was those creepy glowing eyes on either side of its head.”
Officer Rashmi recorded every detail as if it might mean something. Pop crossed his arms over his skinny chest, his eyes locked onto Dawz’s bedroom window.
“It’s best if you keep as close to the truth as possible,” Thea interrupted.
Atlas let out a grunt, followed by a headshake.
“But I am!” Dawz shot his friend a frustrated look, and he shot one right back. He turned to Pop, wanting to break his intense stare. “You believe me, right?” He wished Pop would say something to stop Thea from interrupting.
Pop ruffled Dawz’s hair. “No reason not to.” His forced smile left Dawz feeling hollow.
“Listen, lad,” Ronny began. “I once got a call from a guy who claimed to see a cross between a wasp and a rat. By the time I got there, it was gone. Same with the time I got a call to rid a yard of fairies. Can you believe it? Fairies!” He snorted.
“This was nothing like that.” Dawz frowned. Was this man making fun of him?
“But I’ve also seen things I never thought possible. One family had a colony of bats roosting in their attic. The bat droppings were over two feet high in spots. One bat was as big as a mini-pterodactyl!”
“Wow!” Jayla said. “I’d like to see that.”
“Yup, it was impressive. Another time, I treated a house with hundreds of garter snakes crawling in the walls. But the worst was a call to a cabin where a guy claimed he saw a wolf that was bigger than a human.”
“I’ve heard about wolves like that,” Atlas said.
Thea frowned. “Those are just stories.”
“Are they, ma’am?” Ronny stared her down, even though she was as wide as Atlas, and Dawz began to like this man. “Now, gray wolves can grow bigger than six feet, but this laddie was over seven or my name isn’t Ronny McCoy. That beast turned toward me, and there was a man’s face where his snout should’ve been! I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.”
“I want to be a pest controller when I grow up,” Jayla announced.
“I don’t.” The words popped out before Dawz could stop them.
“So you’ll be patrolling for this thing?” Pop asked Officer Rashmi.
She nodded. “We’ll have cars sweeping the area.” She began explaining her plan to Pop and Thea, turning to gesture at the town.
Only in Morsh, thought Dawz. In the city, most people would think like Thea, and no cops would search for a monster reported by a boy.
