Monsterville

by Sarah S. Reida

  “I guess.” Monster looked away.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He used the exact same tone Haylie uses when she wants me to ask her what’s wrong.

  I took the bait. “Monster, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s just that I didn’t have any friends Down Below. I was too new.”

  “Well, every new place stops being new at some point, right? And you find things you like about it. And people—or monsters—that you get along with. Soon it’s not a new place anymore. It’s home.”

  Ugh. I sounded like a school-mandated program on values.

  “I guess so.” Monster propped the poster board against the wall. “But I still want to see Haylie again. How about if I’m careful?”

  I glanced around his little room. It was a total dump—lots of dust from broken bricks and giant gaping holes in the walls and ceilings. Adam and I had dressed it up with blankets and rugs and an air mattress, but it was still a rat hole.

  “This plan is totally a recipe for disaster,” I said, “but okay. You and Haylie can play together again. But on one big condition, okay?” When Monster nodded, I went on. “You only hang out when Adam and I arrange it. When the coast is clear. Because I’m telling you, if my dad thinks Haylie’s in danger, you’re in danger. Got it?”

  Monster gave me a gap-toothed smile. “Got it!”

  I smiled back tiredly at him. As much as I liked Monster and as badly as I wanted to make my movie, I knew that he needed to go back Down Below pretty soon. I didn’t trust him not to search for Haylie when he was bored.

  And I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t be spotted.

  SCENE FIVE:

  NIGHT ESCAPE

  On Monday, Todd showed up in his ninja costume. He looked ridiculous.

  “A bet’s a bet,” he told Adam and me.

  I was surprised. The kid had honor.

  That afternoon, Adam and I had serious work to do with Monster after school. “Monster,” I directed. “Like we talked about. Come out of the building and pretend you’re going to attack me! And then you hear a sound and run off, okay?”

  I showed Adam how to hold the camera and took my spot in the foreground, sitting cross-legged on the ground and opening a book. La la la, look at me, waiting to be killed….

  “Action!” Adam called, and Monster-the-zombie shambled out of the house. I flipped a page in my book, willing my eyes not to stray. Director, writer, and actor—I was a triple threat!

  Monster was so close I smelled his sour breath. “Now?” he asked.

  I tossed the book. “Monster!”

  “What?”

  “You don’t ask me when! And right before you’re about to bite me, you pretend to hear something and run off. We’ll add the sound later.”

  “Oh.” By then, Monster had transformed back into his goblin-like self. “Can we do it later? I’m hungry. And I want you to read me Green Eggs and Ham.”

  I sighed and got to my feet. “Okay, fine.”

  Shooting went on like that for three days. Monster either ruined scenes or wasn’t interested in doing them at all. Like a typical star, he delayed production.

  I wished Casey and Taylor were here to help. Any excuse to be creative, we ran with it—like the improvised skits we filmed in Washington Square Park and the play we put on for Taylor’s mom’s birthday. They’d find a way to make Monster perform.

  On Thursday afternoon, I was headed into the woods for another filming attempt when Haylie ran out from her playhouse.

  “I want to come with you!”

  “Oh.” I glanced at the woods. “No, Haylie. It’s too far. And you could fall and get hurt.”

  “But I want to see Monster.”

  “Well, Monster’s … busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I don’t know. Monster stuff.” But I knew that whatever Monster was doing, he’d love to see Haylie. He asked about her every day.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Hanging out in his monster house. Cleaning his monster room.”

  “I want to see it!”

  “No, that’s a terrible idea. Monster’s house is really far into the woods. And there are dangerous things out there. Like … bears.”

  “Bears?” Haylie’s mouth dropped open.

  “Yes, bears. And bears love how little kids smell.”

  “They do?”

  “Yes, but they can only smell kids from ten feet away or closer. So as long as you stay in the yard, you’re totally safe.”

  Haylie scrunched up her face. “But what if I want to pet the bears?”

  “You don’t, Hails. Just trust me.”

  “Oh, okay. So can Monster come out and play?”

  I sighed. Sometimes I wish Haylie wasn’t so smart for her age. Other four-year-olds will forget a question if you distract them, but not Haylie.

  “Tell you what. I’ll bring Monster to play if you promise to keep him in the playhouse where Mom and Dad can’t see him. Okay?”

  Haylie nodded. “Okay, I promise.” She paused. “Lissa?”

  “What?”

  “Why do we call Monster that?”

  “Call him what?”

  “Monster.”

  “Oh. Well, because that’s what he is. He doesn’t have a name yet.”

  “Why don’t we give him one?”

  She was right. Monster deserved a real name. I mean, how would I like it if people went around calling me Girl all the time?

  “That’s a great idea, Haylie. Do you have anything in mind?”

  “No. I just thought he should have a name.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She went to grab her tea set, and I weaved through the trees to find Monster. He came with me happily. At the edge of the woods, I scouted the yard for my parents. When I saw that the coast was clear, Monster and I made a break for Haylie’s playhouse. She was sitting outside at its picnic table, waiting, shielded from the sun by a pink, floppy hat.

  I practically shoved Monster through the playhouse’s tiny door.

  “Ow!” he protested, but then he wrapped his gnarled hands around the bottom of the window frame and poked his head out. “Hi, Haylie.”

  “Hi, Monster!” Haylie tapped at her hat. The brim hid half her face. “Do you like my hat?”

  “Sure. It’s really … pink.”

  “Thanks! And you’re really blue.”

  “I’m always blue.”

  Haylie tilted her chin up to look at me. “He’s always blue,” she repeated. “Blue.”

  She smiled.

  In movies, directors show the passage of time with a montage—you know, like watching an actor training for the Olympics and the first shot is him struggling to lift a barbell, and then it shows leaves changing from green to yellow and in the ending shots he’s lifting a way heavier barbell. So you’re like, “Oh yeah! He’s totally ready.”

  That kind of sequence couldn’t be used with the progress on my movie. Because there was none. Everything I filmed was just—meh.

  By mid-October, I had about twenty hours of footage of Blue. The problem was, none of it was anything special. It was a bunch of clips that didn’t amount to something whole.

  I couldn’t blame everything on my star. It was my fault, too. My ideas were all over the place, and none of them were great. No high-concept idea that would be a blockbuster.

  One Friday evening before bed, I stared at my computer screen trying to will a good idea to come to me. I knew that praying for an amazing epiphany wasn’t exactly how Francis Ford Coppola had come up with The Godfather, but I was desperate.

  Why couldn’t this be as easy as writing the seventh grade play? I wrote that whole thing in under two hours, inspired by the lameness of Casey’s brother, Scott, and his obsession with Call of Duty. And cheered on by Casey and Taylor, as I perfected my snappy dialogue.

  I’d barely even been trying then. But I was trying really hard now and getting absolutely nothing in return.

  Somet
imes being a Creative Person is really annoying.

  My phone buzzed, and I grinned to see TAYLOR lit up on the screen. I grabbed it and punched TALK.

  “Cheer me up,” I instructed her.

  “Only fourteen days until you get to see your play!”

  “Trust me, I’m counting. Anything else?”

  “Okay, here’s the latest,” she said, and I could picture her on the phone, curled up in her desk chair with her feet on her desk, frowning in concentration as she painted her toenails. “Mr. Reed wanted to rewrite your script.”

  It felt like I’d been punched in the gut. “What?”

  Roland Reed thought I was a terrible writer. Talentless. That my script was single-ply toilet paper. Post-use.

  Taylor laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Mr. Kincaid wouldn’t let him touch it.”

  Mr. Kincaid is an English teacher at St. Mary’s. According to Casey and Taylor, he was asked to supervise the rehearsals, since Roland Reed treated his own appearance as optional.

  “But Mr. Kincaid’s not a screenwriter,” I said through numb lips.

  “He’s also not a crazy person. Trust me. It’s fine.”

  That didn’t make me feel better. It was like in bad romantic comedies, where the heroine’s friends say she “can do so much better” after she gets dumped. Well, she’s still alone, isn’t she? And I had no backup screenwriter to confirm my talent, compared to how the heroine always has a way-better-but-previously-overlooked-for-silly-reasons guy friend.

  “Okay,” I said, but it didn’t make me feel any better. Even if Roland Reed had a few screws loose, he still had street cred. “Did he say why?”

  “He said it needed more angst and less heart. Then Mr. Kincaid was like, ‘Mr. Reed, we value your opinion and your work. But this is a play for young people. We need heart.’”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Then Mr. Kincaid gave Mr. Reed money to get sodas for everyone. And he never came back!”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. He’s special. Don’t worry about anything he says.”

  “I won’t,” I lied.

  After we got off the phone, I went to Haylie’s room, hoping she could cheer me up.

  “Want to play Monsterville?” I asked.

  Her eyes lit up. “Yes!” She was in bed with her dolls, and she jumped up. “A monster around every corner! A monster around every corner!” Soon every doll was knocked to the floor.

  “Goodness. Calm down, Haylie.” I retrieved the game from its spot on a shelf, and she flopped down on the bed.

  Haylie beat me three times because I kept getting stuck. I even had to go down the big waterslide once.

  When I landed on that space, Haylie said, “I’ve never gotten to go on the waterslide.”

  “Well, don’t be too jealous. I’ll lose for sure now. Because look—you’ve only got two spaces until you get to the princess.”

  Haylie rolled the die and got a three. “See? You win,” I told her. “Ready for bed now?”

  “Yes,” she said smugly. “I won enough tonight.”

  That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept imagining Roland Reed ripping my script in half and throwing it into the garbage. And thinking about how much fun rehearsals must be. Casey and Taylor had posted a bunch of pictures on Facebook, tagging random objects as “Lissa Black.” It was supposed to be funny, but it only reminded me that I was gone.

  Plus, my room was stuffy, and an owl kept hooting. It sounded so close that it felt like a personal attack: “Try to sleep! Hoot! Hoot! HAHAHAHAHA!”

  “Don’t make me come out there,” I grumbled, sticking my head under my pillow and wishing for earplugs. Or a slingshot.

  Something thwacked against my window. I froze, listening. Another thwack.

  Groaning, I rolled off my bed and went to the window. Adam was there, holding a handful of pine chips, the kind we had spread around our hedges. I unlatched the window and pushed it open.

  “You’re throwing pine chips at my window?” I called softly. “Couldn’t you get pebbles?”

  “Pebbles?” Adam looked down at his pine chips. He dropped them and rubbed his hands against his jeans.

  “In movies, the prince always throws pebbles at the princess’s window.”

  I could see Adam’s grin even in the dark. “Yeah, but I’m not a prince. And I’m pretty sure you’d hit anyone who called you a princess.”

  “This is true.” I leaned over the window ledge. “What’s up?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Neither can I.”

  “Good. Let’s do something.”

  “What?”

  Adam twisted, showing me the backpack he was wearing. “It’s a surprise,” he said mysteriously. “Want to climb out the window?”

  “Can’t I just walk out the front door?”

  “You can, but then it would be less of an adventure.”

  “Okay, fine.” I pulled on a pair of sneakers and put my desk chair beneath my window, using it to boost me through. I balanced, my butt on the ledge.

  “Just ease down. Keep your knees bent.”

  I dropped, my knees buckling. “Ack!” I yelped as pine chips dug into my palms.

  Adam held out a hand. “That was pathetic.”

  “Shhh! Someone might hear you!”

  We weren’t being that loud, and Mom and Dad probably couldn’t hear a thing in their room—Dad sleeps like the dead, and Mom wears earplugs—but it was exciting to think that Dad could fling his window open and discover me sneaking out.

  Adam might be a Boy Scout, but he had a dangerous side. I never would have guessed. And I kind of liked it.

  We tiptoed around the corner of the house. It was damp outside, and wet grass squished under my sneakers. A slice of moon overhead cast just enough light to see the ground ahead.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, wrapping my arms around me. It was chilly.

  “To see Blue.”

  “At night?”

  “Yeah. Don’t you think he’d like a little company? I can’t sleep, you can’t sleep … what do you bet that he can’t, either?”

  “Okay, sure. And it’s a weekend, anyway.”

  When we got to the edge of the trees, Adam fumbled in his backpack and handed me a flashlight. “Here, just don’t aim it at your house.”

  “Of course not.” That’s a cardinal rule of horror movies: know when to use a light. Because if you’re escaping from a killer and using a flashlight to cut through the woods, you might as well be screaming, “Here I am! Come get me!”

  The woods were pitch black. I pulled my hood over my head and drew the strings so only my nose poked through. I kept picturing a twig popping one of my eyeballs out like a grape. I wasn’t taking any chances.

  I played the flashlight over the ground. Something slithered across the path, and I tried not to feel grossed out. A breeze whistled through the trees, and bullfrogs were croaking in the creek. They were talkative tonight.

  Adam marched ahead as smoothly as if we were walking on a sidewalk in daylight. “Isn’t this great? The woods are so peaceful at night.”

  “Yeah, sure. Until we’re eaten by a werewolf. One we know personally.”

  I wondered how much Blue practiced at night. He swore he did—turning into different creatures and prowling the woods—but I knew a secret that made me suspect he was lying.

  Adam had rigged a little lamp for Blue. It needed its batteries recharged almost every day. And they wouldn’t need to be recharged if Blue weren’t keeping the lamp on all night.

  That’s right. Blue—a monster—was afraid of the dark.

  The walk to see Blue felt longer at night. When we finally reached the cabin, a dim light was glowing from inside.

  “Blue?” I called quietly, aiming my flashlight at the doorway. “You there? It’s us.”

  Blue crept out of the cabin. “Lissa? Adam? What are you doing here?” His grin was as wide as the Cheshire Cat’s in the Disney iteration of Alice in W
onderland.

  Adam dumped his backpack on the ground. “I thought it would be a good time to go camping. You know, before it gets too cold.”

  Winter would be coming in only a few months. We couldn’t keep Blue in a broken-down shack when it was snowing and freezing outside. For his own good, Blue really needed to figure out what he wanted to be.

  Blue poked the backpack with his long fingers. “What did you bring me?”

  Adam nudged him away and reached into the pack. “Graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate. S’mores stuff. Lissa, can you get some dry leaves and sticks? You might have to hunt a bit.”

  I brought Adam an armful of dry sticks and pine needles. He selected a few sticks and leaned them together to form a crude teepee. Then he reached into his backpack and pulled out a roll of toilet paper.

  “You need that for out here?” I asked him. “I didn’t know Boy Scouts were so dainty.”

  Adam shook his head. He wadded the toilet paper and stuck it in between the sticks. Then he sifted through the pine needles and leaves, examining them like he was mining for gold. “We can’t burn the green stuff. It’ll smoke instead of catching fire.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever you say, Scoutmaster.”

  I was curious about what he was doing, though. Taylor’s parents have an electric fireplace—one you light by pressing a button on a remote control. It’s way convenient, but it’s pretty much just for decoration. The glass doors don’t even get that hot.

  Adam lit a match. I could smell the sulfur. Keeping his left hand cupped around the match, he lit the tissue in three places. The blue-red flames licked at the paper, snaking around the makeshift teepee.

  Blue found three long sticks, and we each impaled a few marshmallows. I stuck mine right into the fire.

  “Not an accident,” I told them. “Marshmallows taste better all charred and black.”

  “Yeah, just don’t wave it around to blow it out. Charlie lit himself on fire doing that.”

  “Charlie doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who’d light himself on fire,” I commented.

  “He was eight. I remember it because I was four and thought he was invincible.”