Monster vs. Boy, page 8
He didn’t want to, but he remembered the small apartment in the big city that he and Jayla had once shared with Mom. The time Mom left Dawz alone with his sister for two forever-long days. How Jayla wouldn’t stop crying to get out of her crib. How he knocked it over to free her. How her tears stopped as she crawled out. How he fed her cereal from the low cupboard he could reach and distracted her with the pictures in books, since he couldn’t read the words yet. How she fell asleep in his lap, but he stayed awake, watching the shadows chase the sunlight across the floor and out of the sky. How Mom had finally come home but in a sour mood that kept him awake at night, listening to her call out in her sleep. How relieved he’d been to visit Pop with Jayla.
“Until someone catches this monster, we need to be careful. No walking or biking to school alone, or anywhere else. No playing outside without me. If you see anything strange, tell me.” Pop focused on Dawz. “I lost my sister. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
It already has, thought Dawz. The monster in his closet wasn’t a fluke. It was here for a reason. It was here because of him.
Chapter 16
Mim didn’t know she’d slept through the night and into the next morning. She didn’t know her body had grown so much that it had pushed her out of her garden nest. She didn’t know that a few purple scales on the back of her neck had peeled off, revealing new scales underneath like oversized teeth.
Now her head, horns and all, rested on her open book. Her furry snout lay turned to the side, exposed to the first rays of morning sun.
Now peeled-off scales lay scattered beside the white flowers who were her only friends—other than Raar-Sparkle, who was too far away to help.
Luckily, Mim was still hidden behind the mound of dirt she’d dug up.
Unluckily, Mim had nested in a schoolyard, where kids were now gathering to play tag or soccer or talk about the first monster sighting in years. Even worse, the horrible boy and his large friend were both students at the school.
Mim slept on. The shock of the wide world, of finding and leaving her first-ever friend, of running more than ever before, had exhausted her.
She didn’t hear the kids playing in the schoolyard. She didn’t notice the ache of her insides wanting to be filled up. She didn’t wake when the horrible boy and the girl locked their bikes to a chain-link fence as their grown-up cycled away.
Mim woke to a harsh and piercing sound, ringing and ringing until her ears ached. She lifted her head, and sunlight blinded her. How had she been pushed out of her earthy nest?
She glanced around for a way to silence the ringing, to find the shadows again. She was horrified to see her freshly severed scales resting on the dirt. Horrified to realize she’d grown even though she’d dug a tight nest. Horrified at the voices of kids shouting to one another, spreading out across the field and in the garden. Horrified that her insides craved the fragrant food sacks each kid carried. Horrified by the scent of the horrible boy, who had met up with his large friend.
* * *
—
Mim got to her feet, her tail twitching. Too many small humans, crowding her garden nest and tempting her with food sacks. She crouched behind her dirt mound, which was hardly enough to cover her now. The white flowers still smelled thunderously fresh, but they no longer filled her with hope. Great deceivers! She would never trust white flowers again.
The ringing stopped as suddenly as it had started, and Mim could only wonder where it had come from, why, and when it might happen again.
Meanwhile, the scent of the horrible boy drifted nearer, filling her snout with his sweet but nasty tang, so like the scents that had lured her to her cupboard and garden nests, and she felt the urge to gag. She’d been drawn to the horrible boy’s scent without realizing it. How could he smell like home?
The horrible boy and his friend walked toward the building, closer and closer. Mim stood, not caring if he saw her, scanning for a safe getaway.
The door into the building stood open. Escape! Mim scuttled sideways, stepping on the white flowers in her hurry, then burst through the doorway.
“Monster!” shouted the horrible boy. “Monster!”
* * *
—
Voices in the yard echoed the boy’s. She spurted into a blindingly sunny room, desperate for a hiding spot, sprinting across a narrow space and slamming snout first into a shelf that appeared out of nowhere, knocking herself flat.
Books tumbled around her. Books!
As Mim scrambled to her hooves, her snout throbbing, she couldn’t believe what she saw. So many shelves filled with books. She’d never imagined such glory. Maybe her old story friends were hiding within these books. Or she could meet new story friends, if she could make a book work.
This room had the perfect ingredients for building a nest. If only it weren’t in such a dangerous spot.
But her very own book! She realized she’d left it outside with her pillow and sock filled with scales. They tugged at her, asking her to come back for them, but the doorway was already swarming with kids and a loud grown-up.
“Everyone back,” the grown-up yelled. “Get in your lines! Your lines! Now!” Then she blew a whistle that drilled into Mim’s brain.
Mim covered her ears. Lines? Were they preparing to attack, like in stories when the human armies formed lines to battle their enemies?
She raced down one aisle of books, away from the whistle and the crowd. When the aisle ended, she turned down the next one. Then another. The shelves were packed tightly, and she was getting nowhere.
Kids yelled from outside. Voices and footsteps trailed her.
Mim pulled books off shelves to slow any followers. She hated how the books clunked to the floor and sprawled open. She hoped they were happy to help her flee the humans.
* * *
—
Mim paused in a nook with a round table surrounded by walls of more and more books. She was panting hard and unsure where to go. This nook, this small nook, would be a good place to build a nest. If only she could…
She inhaled deeply.
Boy. She smelled the residue of the horrible boy and his friend. Not a new scent, but days old.
Here! She backed away from two chairs. They had sat here! With these lovely books! Had the books revealed their secrets to him?
She glanced at the covers as if they’d betrayed her.
Why was she drawn to places where the horrible boy had been? Why was her most hated human—her curse—always showing up?
The loud woman with the whistle appeared at the end of an aisle of books. “It must be here somewhere.” She peered toward Mim, who froze, hoping this grown-up couldn’t see her.
Two other grown-ups appeared. A bulky man in a cap started down the aisle, waving a terrifyingly thick bat back and forth in front of him, coming closer with each step. It reminded her of the horrible boy with his glowing stick, only the bat looked much heavier, and it didn’t glow.
Mim wailed. It was a new sound for her, but it wanted to be heard and she couldn’t stop it. Part moan, part magnificent howl.
The grown-ups didn’t seem to notice her wail. They edged closer. The man swung the bat.
“We need to keep the monster here until the police arrive,” he said.
“How are we going to do that when we can’t see it?” asked the loud woman.
Mim bolted down a nearby aisle in the opposite direction.
She wouldn’t be cornered. She couldn’t be.
* * *
—
She wove in and around the shelves. When she glimpsed sunlight between the books on yet another shelf, she thought about outside. Maybe she could escape all these humans in the outside.
But Mim didn’t know how to get through all these shelves to reach the outside. They reminded her of a maze in a story she’d heard. A maze where a monster had been trapped by tricky humans. That wasn’t going to happen to her!
She pushed the sunlit shelf. When it rocked slightly, she pushed more. Soon, it was teetering and then…CRASH!
Books scattered. Someone in the room yelled. Mim crawled over the pile of books, hating how she bent their pages, to find the door, then the outside.
She shaded her eyes. Her nest. The crushed white flowers. The yard clear of kids. Except two.
The larger boy crouched beside her nest, peering into it like he could unravel her secrets. Beside him stood the horrible boy, clutching her book to his chest. Her book!
Mim’s scales rippled. How dare he touch it! She wailed her new sound, puffing out smoke and ash, then dove for her book.
* * *
—
The horrible boy’s face twisted. His eyes bulged.
As Mim reached for her book, she grazed the horrible boy’s cheek with a nail-claw before she—Bam!—smacked into his shoulder. A jolt shot through her and ignited her insides. It ricocheted between her two hearts. It kindled a spark of memory: the horrible boy only younger, in bed, crying in his sleep, screaming at her, “Go away, go away!” Then the spark exploded into every cell in her body.
Pain ripped through Mim. She could feel herself growing. She could see it too—in her arms, her nail-claws.
She flailed. She fell to the ground and rolled into a ball, desperate to stay small.
But Mim grew and grew.
“Dawz!” shouted the larger boy. “Are you okay?”
The horrible boy—she guessed he’d named himself Dawz—lay a short distance from her. On his side. His cheek bleeding red, disgusting red. Gripping his shoulder with a dazed look on his face. Her book lay between them. He had dropped her book.
“The monster’s growing!” Dawz the Horrible said. “Can you see it?”
“No! Where?”
Mim got to her feet, groaning. Her everything hurt. Her nail-claws were twice as long. Hunger howled through her insides, more demanding than ever.
Dawz the Horrible stood too. She’d grown as big as him. In only a moment, Mim had expanded to the size of this boy.
She was ghastly. Vast. More of her too-small scales lay at her feet. Severed.
* * *
—
Mim snatched her book up. The larger boy pointed and gasped.
“The book moved,” he yelled.
“Give that back,” called Dawz the Horrible. But he didn’t reach for it.
Mim’s pillowcase and sock sat behind him, and she didn’t want to touch him again to get them back. Goodbye, pillowcase. Goodbye, sock full of scales, she mourned. Then her hunger made her grab the food sack that the larger boy had dropped.
“It’s got my lunch!” The larger boy lunged for it.
“Don’t!” Dawz the Horrible pulled him back.
Mim stepped away, stumbling over her too-big hooves. She held the food sack by the strap and hugged her book. She could hear the grown-ups shouting from inside the room of books.
“It’s out here!” Dawz the Horrible called. “The monster is here!”
Mim turned and ran, her giant hooves tearing up the spring grass.
Chapter 17
Dawz sat on a bed at the town medical clinic with his arms crossed. He was wearing his favorite T-shirt—the one that read Demi-God in Training—but right now it felt like the biggest lie ever. His cheek ached where the monster had sliced him. Even though it had stopped bleeding, it throbbed so much his teeth hurt.
“I don’t want to do the tests,” he said through the mask Dr. Lin had told him to wear. If only it would cover the gash on his cheek, but that was near his eye and oozing slightly.
“Look, Dawz. We really need to listen to Dr. Lin,” Pop said.
Everyone else who’d gathered around Dawz’s bed had to wear a mask too, as if he might infect them. Dr. Lin, Pop, and Officer Rashmi all had the same worried eyes above their masks, while Jayla was cornering an imaginary monster between his bed and a table, waving a stick that she’d brought from the schoolyard.
She knocked over a cup of water. It splashed onto Dawz’s bed and pooled under his butt. In seconds, he was sitting on a soggy sheet in soaked jeans with Jayla flourishing her stick close to his head.
He grabbed it and snapped it in half.
“You broke my sword!” she yelled.
“Stop waving it in my face!” he yelled back.
“Dawz! Jayla! Please!” Pop took the broken stick and held it up high. “What were you saying, doctor?”
Jayla began karate-chopping the air where her imaginary monster stood. Monsters aren’t a game, Dawz wanted to say. But Dr. Lin stood next to the bed, waiting to usher him away to be tested and prodded. He already knew he was connected to the monster in some terrible way. He didn’t need proof that there was something wrong with him.
“We need to learn what we can about this creature.” Dr. Lin frowned down at him. “We’ll just need a blood test and a tissue sample from where it scratched your cheek.”
“Where it sliced me with its claw, you mean,” Dawz said.
No one understood what had happened. When the monster dove at him, a shadow descended too, and it still hovered over him. He didn’t want to be the boy who’d made the monster grow. He didn’t want to be examined. He wanted to hide under a blanket, but he was too old for that, and the bed only had the thin, soggy sheet.
“That wound from the claw is why you need to do the tests,” Pop said. “Please, Dawz.”
Dr. Lin nodded. “I’m hoping they’ll tell us more about the toxin on the claws and why the creature grew bigger when you touched it.”
“I didn’t touch it!” Dawz exploded. “Like I told you, it attacked me!” He wished Atlas was here. He wished someone understood him.
“Yes, we know.” Officer Rashmi exchanged a meaningful look with Pop, and Dawz wondered what that meant.
“You have the scales. Can’t you test those?” At least everyone could see them. Purple, rough, thick as armor. He wondered why they were visible now. Was it because they were severed from the monster?
“I have a plan to get them tested in the city,” said Officer Rashmi. “I’m doing my job. Now it’s time to let Dr. Lin do his.”
Dawz glared at a disgusting yellow stain on the ceiling. Tests wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know. The monster’s claw had infected him like it had infected Thea—and her wounds were getting worse, even though Dr. Lin was trying. And it was Dawz’s fault.
His fault.
His cheek throbbed more than ever. This monster was here for him, or because of him. He might be the only one who could do anything about it. Was that why Mom had hunted her monster? Not that he wanted to be anything like her, but how could Ronny or Officer Rashmi catch the monster when they couldn’t see it or sense where it was?
“Dawz?” Dr. Lin hovered over him.
“Fine. Whatever.” Dawz knew he was being a jerk, but he didn’t know how to stop.
“Do you think monsters have best friends?” Jayla appeared from behind Pop, clasping his hand and swinging it. “Do you think they like to play fight?”
“Do you have to interrupt every conversation?” Dawz blurted out.
“Do you have to be so mean?” Jayla snapped back.
“Just go with Dr. Lin, Dawz.” Pop shot him a warning look.
“But she always—”
“Go!” Pop raised his voice.
Dawz and Jayla stared. That was new.
“Please.” Pop shook like a tree in a breeze. “I need you to do this.”
Dawz let Dr. Lin lead him away.
* * *
—
In a lab room, Dr. Lin directed Dawz to a chair. Then he put on gloves before coming anywhere near Dawz.
“I’m not toxic,” Dawz grumbled. But he wasn’t so sure.
“Gloves are just a precaution.” Dr. Lin’s voice was muffled by his mask.
He poked a needle into Dawz’s arm, and it hurt. Meanwhile, Pop hovered in the hallway, watching through the small window as if Dawz was a little kid who might misbehave. At least Pop had made Jayla stay in the waiting room with the receptionist.
When his blood flowed into the test tube—red, thick, and normal—Dawz felt relieved. But the tissue sample from his cheek oozed hideous greenish-purple goo, just like with Thea. It reminded him that he was sick and wrong. Even when Dr. Lin was bandaging the aching cut on his cheek, he could feel disgusting goo oozing into the gauze.
Dawz slouched in the chair, trying not to think about how much his cheek hurt. He wished he knew some way to stop the monster without hunting it. Maybe he could find its latest hiding spot. Then he could lead Ronny and Officer Rashmi to it. He didn’t want to touch it ever again in case he made it grow even bigger, but shouldn’t he try to help?
After the bandaging, Dr. Lin told him to wait while he got Dawz some pills and a special cream he made himself.
“I’ve been experimenting with recipes from the old days,” he said. “Maybe they knew something we forgot.”
Dawz sat straighter. “Like what?” The stories from the old days could have some clues about monsters—where they came from and where they liked to hide.
“I don’t know. I’ll tell you when I figure it out.” Dr. Lin’s eyes crinkled above the mask. A cautious look, not friendly.
* * *
—
Dawz hopped up as soon as Dr. Lin left him alone, feeling worse than ever. Outside the window, clouds were gathering, and he felt like they were gathering inside too. He paced the room, wishing he could talk to Atlas, wishing his only care was still about how to win the Bakers’ Brawl.
