The Not So Very Scary Monster Under The Bed
“Night Night Mommy,” I said, smiling at her.
“Goodnight my sweet girl,” she said as the hallway lighting decreased, causing those lines around her smile to disappear as she pulled the door softly shut.
I laid under my covers with Moosey tucked tightly under my right arm and the blankets pulled up to my mouth. I stared at the starlights circling on the ceiling and thought about what outfit I wanna wear tomorrow. I hope it’s bright and sunny. Those are my favorite kinds of days. I know a lot of people say that but I really mean it, more than they do. I like the way it makes me feel. I get so full of energy. I like that all I can feel is happy as long as the suns out. Maybe I’ll wear my white tank top with The Very Hungry Caterpillar that Mom stitched onto it with colored buttons. I’m so loved. It’s so nice she did that for me. Yeah, I’m definitely going to wear that. Oh, and my overalls that have paint splattered on them. Mom likes it when I wear fun colors mixed together, she is probably going to want to take a picture. I don’t blame her, I look fabulous in my colorful outfits. I think I’ll also put on my daisy sunnies because maybe if I bring them with me, Mother Nature will see how bad I want there to be sun so she will be kind enough to do that for me. I can only hope.
Something creaked. But it wasn’t me. I didn’t move. That was weird. I wonder what Elijah is going to wear tomorrow. Oh boy, I hope he doesn’t wear those pants that are so big they look like they are going to fall down. Gosh, he’s such a stupid dum-dum boy. He looks so stupid when he wears them. Like, hellooo, isn’t he embarras- I heard another creak. But again, it wasn’t me. My eyes scattered across the room like how a fruit fly does in the summer when it slips into the house whenever Mom is cutting up watermelon. They landed on the sketchy looking figure by my closet. My coat was hanging from the hook on the closet with my hat on top of it. I had always kinda thought it looked like a person at night but Mom told me I was just “paranoid”—whatever that means. I think it means that sometimes when I think something I’m afraid is true, it’s not. I wanted to investigate if it really was a person but I was too scared. Not just scared but way too comfortable with my Moosey and the way my head was resting on my pillow to get up. I yawned and my thoughts started to fade away. The spinning lights on the ceiling got smaller and smaller as my eyes fluttered shut like butterflies slowly flapping their wings.
Someone or something coughed. My body shot up on my bed so fast I accidentally flung Moosey across the room. No Mom. I’m not paranoid. I heard something. Something is in here. I’m not alone. Cheese and crackers. Even if I ignore whatever is in here I won’t be able to fall asleep without Moosey. Son-of-a-gun. Okay, okay, okay. Tatum on the count of three you are running and grabbing that stuffed animal.
“One… two… two and a half… two and three quarters… shoot. Three!” I ripped the blankets off me and bolted towards Moosey. After I picked him up I slipped and knocked my noggin on the hardwood floor.
“aaaoooOWWW. AWHH what the hey man,” I whined. I’m gonna have such a fat lump on my head that all the kids are gonna laugh at me.
“What the- wwaAHHHHHHHH”
“AHHHH-”
“AHHHH-”
“AHHHHH- yeooowch-”
It hit its big fat head against the underneath of my bed.
“Who- who are you?! And why are you in my room?!”
The thing under my bed let out a groan that sounded just like when Dad tries to get off the couch after a long day of watching the Patriots play football on a Sunday. It rubbed its head where it hit the underneath of my bed and I could see its big clawy fingers through the darkness under there.
“I—am HAROLD THE PUNISHER,” he said, but it came out kinda grouchy because he was still holding his head.
“FEAR ME, MORTAL CHILD.”
I tilted my head, squinting, and scrunching my lips to touch my nose. It was dark under there but I could see two googly eyes glowing right at me that were not pointing in the same direction and a bunch of fur that looked like my Noni’s rug.
“You sound like you have a cold,” I said.
Harold stopped rubbing his head.
“I do NOT have a cold. I have a SCARY VOICE. It’s DEEP. AND IT IS TERRIFYING.”
“It sounds like you need a cough drop,” I told him. “My mom gives me cherry cough drops when I talk like that.”
“I do not need a cough drop,” he responded in annoyance. “I’m suppos-”
I cut him off because another thought popped into my head, “Oooouu and honey. Yeah, my Noni gives me honey when I talk like that. It’s wicked yummy. You should try it, you’ll thank me later.”
“N-”
“Also your eyes are weird,” I said, squinting my eyes at him again.
“EEENOUGH CHILD. SILENCE. My eyes are SUPPOSED to be weird! They’re for staring at you while you sleep!”
“Well right now they’re staring in two different directions… sooo if you’re staring at me, then one of them isn’t.”
Harold was quiet for a second. Then both of his weird eyes kinda crossed as he tried to look at his own face.
“They. Are. Not.”
“Are too.”
“Are NOT.”
“Uh… yeah-huh”
“NAH-HUH”
I inched a little closer. Not too close though, because even though he was bad at being scary he was still big and had a lot of teeth that were all pointy and stuff.
“Can you come out from under there? It’s weird talking to a shadow.”
Harold huffed. It sounded like our dog that one time when I put him in a Celtics jersey.
“I don’t ‘come out.’ I LURK.”
“Well you’re ‘lurking’ so hard you hit your head.”
“That was a tactical error…”
“You sound like my brother when he misses a free throw.”
Harold tried to push himself out from under the bed but got stuck. His shoulders were too big. He made a grunty noise and pushed harder. The bed lifted up on one side that made all my stuffed animals slide off and land on his head.
“Oh no…” I said throwing my hands over my mouth, holding back my giggles because that was actually kinda funny. “Well, I bet you didn’t mean to do that. Anyways, Moosey says hi!”
“I am NOT saying hi to a stuffed moose! I am the NIGHT TERROR! I am the DARKNESS IN THE CORNER OF YOUR EYE! I am the- Is that an elephant wearing a tutu?”
I picked up Lacy from where she landed on the floor.
“Yeah. She’s so pretty and whimsy. Mom got her at the fair. You can squeeze her foot and it lights up.”
I squeezed Lacy’s foot and her tutu started blinking pink. Harold stared at her. One of his eyes followed the light. The other one stared at my bookshelf.
“That’s… that’s not scary…” he said, but he sounded like he was lying.
“Do you want to squeeze it?”
“NO. I am a MONSTER. I do not squeeze TWINKLING STUFFED ANIMALS.”
Harold made a grumbly sound and tried to wiggle out again. This time he got his shoulders free but his big butt was still stuck and he just kinda laid there with his top half on my floor and his bottom half under my bed, kicking his legs.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I am PERFECTLY FINE. This is how I always enter a room. It’s INTIMIDATING.”
“You look like a rug.”
“EXCUSE ME? I look like a RUG?”
“Yeah. A rug with legs.”
Harold stopped kicking. He turned his head to look at me and his weird eyes got all watery.
“I have been doing this for four hundred years and I have NEVER been called a rug,” he whined, covering his face with his big hands if you could even call them that.
I felt a little bad. Mom says I need to work on my “inside voice” and also my “inside thoughts”. I’d never admit this to her but… she might be right.
“I’m sorry. You don’t look like a rug. You look like… a very scary monster who is stuck.”
“I am not. Stuck.”
“But you can’t move your legs.”
Harold tried to move his legs. They wiggled a little but his butt was definitely still stuck under my bed. He let out a sigh that smelled like old cheese and sadness.
“The bed shifted when I hit my head, therefore I am… temporarily detained… that’s all.”
“Do you want me to help you?”
“I want you to SCREAM IN TERROR.”
“Okay. But after that, do you want me to help you?”
Harold looked at me. He blinked his eyes that were still looking in different directions.
“You’re not scared of me at all, are you?”
I lifted my head to the ceiling and scratched my head to give him the impression that I had to think about it.
“Not really. You’re kind of like a big cat. A big smelly cat. A big smelly cat with too many teeth-” this time he cut me off. Pfft, the nerve on this guy.
“I have the EXACT right amount of teeth.”
“How many do you have?”
“I think about fif-.”
“Woah, woah, woah mister ‘Punisher’. Let me stop you right there. If you are about to say anything above 26 then that’s just too many. Do you know how big elephants are? Yeah. A whole lot bigger than you. And they only have 26 teeth. You’re tiny compared to them, you shouldn’t be able to fit any more teeth in your mouth than them.”
“Well, I- I suppose you have a point there kid.”
I sat criss-cross-applesauce on the floor, tucking Moosey back under my arm. This was already way more interesting than falling asleep.
“How many teeth do you have then?” I asked.
“I- I don’t know exactly,” he said looking down at the floor, then back at me.
“You don’t KNOW? They’re YOUR teeth!”
“I never counted them! Four hundred years, I just assumed I had the right amount!”
“Count them right now. I’ll wait.”
“One… two… three…” he paused for a moment, hesitating to use his clawy things that looked like fingers.
“Take your time,” I added. “Counting is hard. I’m only in third grade and I still have to use my fingers sometimes.”
Harold’s face scrunched up as he poked around in his mouth with his tongue. I watched his lips move. Every time he got to a new tooth, his nose twitched. It was silly.
“Twenty-four… twenty-five… twenty-six…”
I burst out laughing. “AHHHAHAHA THAT’S ALREADY AS MANY AS AN ELEPHANT AND YOU’RE NOT EVEN DONE!”
“Twenty-seven… twenty-eight…”
“TWENTY-EIGHT?! You’re SMALLER than an elephant! How do you fit all those in there?!”
Harold stopped counting. His face got all droopy. “I have- I have fifty-seven…”
I laughed so hard I fell over sideways and Moosey flew out of my arm again and hit him smack in the face.
“FIFTY-SEVEN!” I screamed, kicking my feet. “THAT’S THE FUNNIEST NUMBER I’VE EVER HEARD!”
“It is NOT funny!” He tried to cross his arms but couldn’t because his butt was stuck. “It’s DISTINGUISHED!”
His stomach made a funny sound.
“Whoa,” I said. “You hungry?”
“I haven’t eaten in three days, it’s hard staying under that tiny bed of yours for so long,” he said with his eyes tearing up.
“Alright, alright crybaby, stay here.”
I stood up and tiptoed to my door to get to the kitchen. I tried to quietly drag the kitchen table chair over to the pantry but it was too heavy. I climbed up on a chair and opened the pantry. Applesauce packets. Perfect. I grabbed two and tiptoed back. When I came in he was still stuck, still grumpy, but he stopped crying at least.
“I brought you a snack,” I whispered, holding out a cinnamon applesauce packet.
He sniffed it carefully. His eyes got big. Both of them. At the same time.
“What IS this magic?”
“Cinnamon applesauce. Try it.”
He squeezed the packet into his mouth and his whole face lit up, making his eyes cross back into place so that he was now finally looking at me with both eyes.
“THIS IS AMAZING!”
“SHHH! You’ll wake my mom!”
“Sorry, sorry,” he whispered. “Where has this been all my life???”
“In the pantry, silly goose, duhh.”
We sat there for a bit in a comfortable silence enjoying our past-bedtime snack.
“Hey Harry?” I asked. “Can I call you that? Harry? I’m gonna call you that. Tomorrow night, can you teach me how to do armpit farts? There’s this kid Elijah at school and he thinks he’s so great because he can do it.”
Harry grinned, all fifty-seven teeth smiling in the dark. “It would be an HONOR.”
I yawned. A big one.
“You should sleep,” he said.
“Will you be here tomorrow?”
“You know it kiddo. Same place, same time. Right under the bed. That’s my job.”
“Okay. Night night, Harry.”
I crawled into my now crooked bed and before Harry slipped back under my bed he gently placed Moosey between my arms and the blankets over me.
“Night night, Tatum.”
