Monsterville

by Sarah S. Reida

  I wrapped my arms around my waist. “Guess so.”

  “So …” Adam said, not taking his eyes off the creature. “Any words of wisdom?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, your monster rules. What should we do? Or not do?”

  “Oh.” I gazed into the creature’s tear-filled eyes. “Well, we probably shouldn’t trust anything it says. Or free it from its bindings.”

  “Check and check.” Adam held the knife out. “Who are you?” he asked in the same tough-guy voice he’d used before.

  The creature cringed against the tree. “Monster.”

  “We know you’re a monster,” Adam practically growled. He was good at this. “What kind of monster? Where’d you come from? And how do you exist in the first place?”

  The monster blinked at us. “I-I’m not any kind of monster!” it wailed. “I can’t decide!” It started sobbing all over again. Green snot bubbled from its nose.

  “What do you mean, you can’t decide?” I asked slowly, looking into its brown eyes. A thought was forming in my brain.

  “I mean, I don’t know what kind of monster I’d be good at being! I’m scared of everything. And I don’t know what sounds to make.”

  The thought in my head clicked into place. “Wait a second. So you can change into different kinds of monsters?”

  The monster fidgeted in the ropes, its skinny chest heaving. “Yes …” It dropped its eyes guiltily.

  “So that swamp creature crawling out of the creek …” I trailed off, and it nodded. “And that Sasquatch that scared the bejeezus out of us a few weeks ago?”

  “Yes … I can change shapes.” The monster paused. “Did I scare you?”

  “Are you kidding? I thought I was going to have a heart attack!”

  It beamed proudly. “Maybe I’m not as bad at being a monster as I thought!”

  “Sure,” I said. “Only next time, remember that swamp creatures don’t eat brains, and a Sasquatch doesn’t moo.”

  “Great, Lissa,” Adam said. “Give it tips.”

  “Sorry.” I crouched to examine the monster. Its skin was pale—really pale—and mapped with spidery blue veins. It shrank away from me.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” I stared at its long, bony hands, its knobby knees. It was hard to believe that a monster could look so fragile.

  “Okay,” it said, its eyes wide. “I believe you. Since you came back.”

  “This might be kind of a rude question.” I paused. “But … are you a boy or a girl?”

  The monster wrinkled its wide forehead at me. “Boy, of course!” He sounded annoyed.

  “Of course,” I echoed, exhaling slowly. My heart still pounded, but now from excitement. The makings of an epic movie had just fallen into my lap. This was a real monster—one that talked and didn’t seem human-hungry. And he could transform into different kinds of creatures.

  “What should we do?” Adam asked me. “If anyone finds him, they’d lock him in a lab and experiment on him or something.”

  The monster’s nostrils flared. “No! No zoo! No experiments! No one can know about us! That’s what Atticus says!”

  “Who’s Atticus?” I asked. Was he camera-friendly?

  The monster sucked in his breath. “No one.”

  Adam moved to tighten the ropes. “Really? No one?”

  The monster dropped his head. “Atticus is in charge of all of us. In the beginning, we all look like me—gobliny. But he was mad at me ’cause I couldn’t figure out what kind of monster to be. I ran away to figure it out on my own.”

  “Ran away from where?” I asked.

  “Down Below.” The monster tapped his foot on the ground.

  “You live … underground?” I asked. “How?”

  The monster blinked at me. “I don’t know. I just do. Well, we all do.” He squirmed. “These ropes really hurt. Can you please untie me? I promise I won’t run away.”

  Adam and I exchanged a look. “We need a minute to talk, Monster,” I said. “Can we call you that? Or do you have a name?”

  “Not yet,” the monster said, starting to sniffle again. “Monsters don’t get names until we figure out what kind of monsters we are.”

  I steered Adam into the abandoned cabin. “What do you think?” I whispered once we were out of earshot. “He seems harmless.”

  He seems harmless. Another rule. In a monster movie, the person who says that gets eaten first. Still, every instinct told me Monster wouldn’t hurt us.

  Adam puffed out his cheeks. “It’s crazy, but I think you’re right. He’s too wimpy to be a real threat. I just don’t know what we’d do with him.”

  “Are you kidding me? We’d make an amazing movie! Or movies! Look around you.” I bent down and picked a purple flower growing between two bricks. “We have a set that production companies would kill for. For free! Not using it would be the biggest waste ever.”

  “Just to be famous? I won the junior sharpshooter award at the county fair this summer. That’s famous enough for me.”

  “I don’t even know what to say to that.”

  “There’s more to life than being famous.”

  “It’s not about just being famous. It’s about getting famous because you’ve done something amazing. A contribution that makes you worthy of fame.” My stomach twisted as I thought of my play. That was supposed to be my first step toward fame.

  “Contribution?” Adam raised his eyebrows.

  “Yeah. Like writing a book or making a film or painting a picture. Giving something back to the world. That’s what I want to do.”

  Adam stared at me until I looked away. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You really mean that.”

  “Of course I mean it,” I said, trying to hide how embarrassed I felt. “Now, are you going to help me or not?”

  He shrugged. “What’s in it for me?”

  “I’ll make you the best boy!”

  “Best boy? What’s that?”

  “It’s the person who handles the power cables and runs the lights for the shots.”

  “Great, so I’ll get electrocuted.” Adam folded his arms. “If this is only a two-person production, shouldn’t person number two have a better job?”

  “Okay, fine. You can be the producer.” He still didn’t look impressed. “And you can have half the ancillary rights,” I added reluctantly.

  “Ancilla-what?”

  “Ancillary rights. You know, the profits from T-shirts and posters and stuff. Ooh, maybe Mattel will want to make an action figure of Monster! One that can transform!”

  “Oh, merchandising. You’re so generous.” Adam paused, looking at the ground. “I’ll tell you what I want.”

  “What?” All the ancillary rights?

  “I want you to make an effort. Let me show you around Freeburg. And in exchange, I’ll help you with your little movie.”

  “Little? It’s going to be huge!”

  He raised his eyebrows. “We’ll see. So. What’s it going to be?”

  “Whatever it takes. But … that’s it? I just let you show me around Freeburg?” I resisted the urge to tell him I’d already been to the town’s one gas station. And grocery store. Yahoo.

  “Not just that. Give Freeburg a chance. And you can’t whine or complain or act all snobby about how much better New York is.”

  “I’m not snobby!”

  “Sometimes you are.”

  “Well, I’ll stop.” I smiled. “I will totally give Freeburg a chance. I’ll go to bingo, and the fish fries, and pick some corn …”

  “Ahem. Snobby!”

  “Sorry.” I stuck out my hand before Adam could change his mind. “I promise to give Freeburg a chance and not make fun of it or compare it to the city.” Though there’s no comparison.

  “Deal.” We shook on it and then returned to Monster, who was still squirming uncomfortably, almost like he needed to go to the bathroom. Do monsters go to the bathroom?

  “Okay,” I said. “We won’t t
ell anyone about you. And we’ll even help you decide what kind of monster you want to be so you can return to Down Below, wherever and whatever that is.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Monster said. He sounded so grateful that I felt a little guilty for having an ulterior motive. But hey, show business is cruel.

  “You just have to promise that you won’t scare anyone while you’re here,” Adam said in his tough-guy voice. “Otherwise you’ll answer to me.”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Monster nodded. “I promise.”

  Adam kneeled down to cut Monster’s ropes. “I hope we don’t regret this.” He looked up at me. “Wait a second. Don’t people in monster movies say things like that?”

  “All the time.”

  “I’m not even going to ask how that turns out for them.”

  ACT TWO

  SCENE ONE:

  A MONSTER INTERVIEW

  The next day at school, I couldn’t concentrate. Luckily, Ms. Green probably thought I looked confused because I was hopeless at Geometry and not because I was trying to figure out how an underground society of monsters operated or what their agenda was.

  And, almost as important, how I could use my newfound knowledge of the world of monsters to create the first horror movie to win Best Picture since The Silence of the Lambs.

  Adam was quiet on the bus ride home. When it dropped us off at the end of Mine Haul Road, he didn’t head into the woods. Instead, he stepped into the ditch on the side of the road and motioned for me to follow him into the cornfield.

  “Come on! I want to show you something!”

  I stayed put on the road. “What?”

  “Follow me and you’ll see. And remember, a deal’s a deal. No snobs allowed.”

  “I think we should check on Monster first.”

  “Just give me half an hour.”

  I sighed. “Fine.” I followed Adam through green stalks and over clumps of dirt. It was like a maze. The corn was really tall and it was hard to break through one row to another with the stalks growing so close together.

  “This is different,” I muttered, reaching for an ear and tearing it from the stem. I peeled back the husk, brushing my hand against the soft tassel sticking out of the end.

  Adam turned to grin at me. “Yeah. Isn’t it great?”

  “It’s kind of peaceful,” I admitted, right as a deer bug bit my arm. “Ow!” I swatted it away.

  “Deerflies like corn. You’ll get used to it.” Adam turned and marched away, humming.

  I followed him until the corn ended in a big, empty field. “Is this your parents’ property?” I asked, scratching my new bug bite.

  “Nope.” Adam headed across the field toward a lake with an old wooden dock jutting out into it. When we got there, the dock creaked beneath our feet.

  “Seems like you trespass a lot.”

  Adam shrugged. “People around here don’t care. And I never hurt anything.” He untied a canoe from a wooden post and stepped inside.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as he plopped down.

  “Taking advantage of one of the many free activities Freeburg has to offer.” Adam leaned and extended an oar. “Here.”

  I stepped into the boat. It lurched, rocking back and forth. I sat down before it could pitch me overboard. The water smelled like fish and algae, and a green film covered the surface.

  Adam pushed us away from the dock with his oar. Seconds later, we were paddling—Adam with four strokes for every one of mine.

  “You’re great at this,” I said. “Maybe I should just leave the rowing to you.” My arms already burned from the effort, and sweat was running down my back.

  “Almost there,” Adam grunted.

  We turned a bend in the lake. “Holy cow!” I exclaimed.

  Ducks were everywhere. Hundreds of them. Some brown and small, others black with orange beaks. There were even a few swans. And they weren’t scared of us at all. A few darted toward us, their sleek feathery bodies cutting through the water.

  Adam dropped his oar onto the floor of the boat. “Come to me, my feathered friends,” he called out, raising his arms.

  “They’re not even afraid,” I said in awe as I watched a little white duck bobbing alongside us. A brown goose, honking like crazy, plowed through the other birds as it took up a prime spot next to the boat. Ducks quacked in protest.

  “Watch out, that one’s Mother Goose,” Adam said, pointing to the brown bird.

  “Why is she called that?”

  “Because she’s the oldest and the crankiest.”

  “Ha. So she’s like the geese in Central Park. Those things’ll attack you.”

  We sat for a few minutes, watching the ducks. Above, cotton candy clouds moved across a blue sky. The boat rocked gently. It was the kind of quiet moment you never have in the city where things are always happening and there’s always something different to see.

  Finally, Adam picked up his oar again and sliced it through the water. “I guess we should get back. Your parents might worry.”

  I reached my hand toward the little white duck. “Oh, yeah. The librarian mentioned something about not keeping doors unlocked. What was up with that?”

  Adam’s mouth tightened. “We had something happen here last year.”

  “Really?”

  “This little kid got kidnapped. Just four years old. His parents went to check on him in the morning and he was gone. Vanished. No signs of a break-in or anything.”

  “That’s terrible,” I murmured, thinking about Haylie. Once she crawled under a bush in the park to catch bugs, and Mom and I almost had a joint nervous breakdown when we couldn’t find her.

  “Yeah,” Adam said, then cleared his throat like the subject made him uncomfortable. “And strange. Because, look around you. We’re in paradise! Nothing bad happens here!”

  The sky looked like a Pixar screenshot, and corn was lazily waving in the breeze. The lake’s surface glinted in the afternoon sunlight.

  “Well, the ducks don’t look rabid. I’ll give you that.”

  “Ducks can’t get rabies.”

  In the water, a brown-speckled duck was quacking as it treaded water. “They seem hungry. I guess we’d better bring bread next time, huh?”

  Adam grinned. “Or corn. Wonder where we could find that?”

  I smiled and shook my head, sticking my oar into the water. Sure, I’d suggested coming back here, but so what? We had ducks in New York City, too. Who cared if they weren’t as friendly?

  Monster was waiting for us when we got to his home, sitting on the crumbled stoop. He reminded me of a kid waiting for the ice cream truck. A kid with pointy ears and light-blue skin.

  “You came!” he cried, like he was surprised. His huge eyes zeroed in on our backpacks. “Did you bring me anything?”

  I dropped mine on the ground. “Of course we did.” I unzipped it and pulled out an unopened bag of potato chips. “Look, barbecue.”

  Monster grabbed the bag and stuffed it into his mouth, swallowing it whole like he was a boa constrictor.

  Rats. I’d planned on using the potato chips as treats. One treat per question answered.

  And boy, did I have a lot of questions: How old was Monster? Did he have any special abilities? How many other monsters were there? Could they leave Down Below any time? Could humans visit?

  Monster burped. “I’m still hungry.”

  “Of course you are.” I swiped my hair out of my eyes. Even in the middle of the woods it was hot. I reached into my backpack again. “How about an apple?” It was bruised, but Monster wouldn’t care. After all, he’d just eaten potato chips still in the bag.

  Monster reached for the apple. He tilted back his head and dropped it in, chewing once. “Mmm.”

  “Wow, it’s like watching a living trash compactor.” Adam removed a bottle of red Gatorade from his backpack and held it out to Monster. “Want to wash it down?”

  “No!” I grabbed the bottle. “Don’t give it to him yet.”

  “But
I want it,” Monster whined, reaching toward me. I held it high, out of his reach.

  “You’ll get it,” I said in a soothing tone. “But first, we need you to answer a few questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, how’d you get in our woods? What is Down Below, and how’d you escape?”

  Monster’s eyes shifted nervously. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”

  “It’s okay.” I kept my voice light. “Remember, you’re a secret. Adam and I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Can I have a drink first?”

  “Fine.” I handed him the Gatorade, and he clutched it in his knobby hands. With one long pull, the bottle was empty.

  Monster burped loudly. It shook the trees. He cleared his throat and looked at the ground. “One night, I decided to escape. I knew where to go because I saw monsters using the portals before.”

  “Portals?” Adam asked.

  “Yeah.” Monster picked up his tail, holding it like a security blanket. “Monsters use portals to go between Down Below and Up There.”

  “‘Up There’ is here, huh?” I asked.

  He nodded. “And portals are the space below where someone sleeps. Like between the bottom of the bed and the floor, so long as there’s room for monsters to crawl out from under it. It’s like …” He tipped his head, frowning. “A door on the floor.”

  “Interesting,” I said, shivering.

  I imagined what that would look like from an aerial shot, the camera panning out to show some innocent kid lying in her bed beneath pink covers … and underneath her, a whole world of tunnels and darkness and snarling monsters.

  “And, like a door,” Monster said, picking up a stick and absentmindedly tapping it on the ground, “some portals are locked and some are unlocked.”

  “What’s the difference?” Adam asked.

  “If someone doesn’t believe in monsters, monsters can’t use their portal. From Down Below, it looks like a rusty trapdoor that’s chained shut. But if someone does believe in monsters, the portal glows. All a monster has to do is pass through it. Well, so long as the person’s in the bed. It can’t be an empty bed.”

  “Which portal did you use to come up here?” I asked. “Do you remember?”

  Monster sucked in his lips like he was trying to decide whether to trust us. He exhaled, noisily. “I used a portal in the house by these woods. The one with the saggy wooden porch.”