Daddy and mommy can’t see the monster in the closet. Only me.
I was afraid of it at first. It’s a thing that looks like it will eat you all up. Teeth like the long knives mommy uses when she cooks dinner. Long and sharp and shiny and dangerous the way mommy says to never ever touch because it will bite and bleed… just like that. It bit the dog with those teeth and they made a bad grinding sound when it bit, like the car did the time it broke and went cree-creech-cree-creech. Daddy said it was a bad sound, and I believe him, because now the doggie is gone. Mommy found the collar in the corner of her garden all torn up and bloody. She said a coyote must have gotten him, but I’ve never seen a real coyote, only the one on the cartoon, and he doesn’t eat doggies.
Not like the monster.
It has claws too. They look like the ladies at the salon except they’re blackened and sharp and a bunch of them are broken. It reaches out and grabs and scratches and leaves marks like the kitty when it’s playing too mean. But it’s only ever grabbed at mommy. She ends up with all these scratch marks and bruises she says she can’t remember how on earth she got them, then laughs a funny little laugh. I don’t like that laugh. Daddy doesn’t either. He says it sounds un-injed. I asked Daddy what that meant and he said it meant mommy had gone off the deep end, whatever that means.
I’ve seen the way it looks at me, and it’s different than the way it stares at Daddy like it’s mad at him for something. When it looks at me, it’s like… like the way everyone looked at Auntie Grace when Uncle Sammy died. Like not knowing what to say to make things all better and to make her smile and be happy again like she used to. She used to play all the time, and bring treats, and now she’s just sad all the time when she comes over and mommy said it’s depreshing to be around her. Like that. It’s scary when it stares at Daddy. Like it stared at the doggie before it went missing. Daddy hasn’t gone missing.
Not yet.
I made a mistake when I told Daddy about the monster. I wanted him to be ready when it came, to not be surprised the way he was when mommy threw him a surprise party and he was mad because he didn’t want a party. When the monster comes, it won’t be a party, and Daddy will be upset. He told me I had an over active ‘magination and that there were no such things as monsters. But mommy made a bottle of water and lemon juice and said it was ‘monster be gone.’ She even wrote it on the label except she spelled it with just a letter B. ‘Monster B Gone’ juice. She sprayed it on the floor under the closet door after she read me a story and now the monster is mad because it thinks it can’t get out.
I think it blames me for telling.
I wasn’t always afraid of it.
But I am now.
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