World of Monsters Read online

  There’s a pile of lace, and I pull it over my head, glowing like a bride. I think I look just like the ladies in the stories that she reads me. There are pearls, and this big flower hat that goes straight on my head, practically covering my view.

  As it is, the ribbon dangles down in front of my eyes. With a slight frown, I push it away clumsily, fixing myself before heading downstairs. I walk carefully, not wanting to mess up anything I'm wearing.

  “Mommy. Mother, look!” I wave my arms in the air excitedly. Staggering awkwardly down the last of our stairs, I twirl and almost fall down. Giggling to myself, I look up, pushing the lace up to see her properly.

  “Hmm.” She’s smoking her long stick again and writing at her desk. I never know what she’s doing, because she doesn’t let me see. Pouting, I try to get her attention before she tells me to go away.

  But where? Humming to myself, I brush back my hair and beaming, run towards the front door giggling to myself. She tells me to not go out, because there are monsters. But from the windows, it looks normal. A blue sky and green grass and an empty street is all I find, and there are no monsters to be seen.

  Quietly I turn the lock and step out quietly and carefully, not wanting to step on my lovely dress. Feeling like a princess and a bride, I turn around and glance at our flowers. Mother never comes out, but now I sneak out and water the plants and grass when I can, so it doesn't look ugly. And I still haven't seen any monsters, so I think maybe they are afraid of me, like spiders are.

  Now what?

  I dance around merrily, laughing with the fairy queen and all her attendants. We laugh and dance and giggle, enjoying the warm sun and being outside. Mother will be distracted for a while and I want to have fun before sneaking inside and hoping she doesn't know where I have been.

  “What are you doing?”

  Falling over in surprise, the lace falls onto the dirt and I look up through my long hair. “Huh?”

  “I said, what are you doing?”

  Once I move my hair away, I can see better. Standing, I look to see the boy is part robot. He cocks his head, completely removing his antennas. It's weird, but robots aren't monsters, so I think it's safe. Mother isn't here and she doesn't let me talk to people very much.

  I hurry over. “I was dancing,” I tell him plainly. “What are you doing?”

  He shows me an empty plastic pumpkin. “Getting ready for Halloween.” Pausing, he ruffles his shaggy hair- it makes him look like a puppy. “I thought this house was haunted. My brother told me.”

  Looking back at my home, I shrug. “I haven’t seen anything odd, and I live here.”

  “I’m Garrett. Do you go to my school?” He changes the subject, glancing around.

  Is he looking for someone? I look to, before I look at him curiously. I haven’t talked to many people, especially a boy. “No, I don’t. I don’t go to school. I learn here at home.”

  “Well, that’s weird.” He looks at me now like I’m an alien.

  Except he’s the one who looks all funny. “No, it’s not. It’s a bad world out there, with monsters and stuff,” I repeat what my mother told me. “Oh, I’m Olivia.”

  “That’s a weird name.”

  “Is not.”

  “And there aren’t any monsters. If I do see them, I kill them,” he assures me.

  “Really?” I beam. I hadn't thought about that. Maybe if I tell mother, she will come outside.

  Garrett nods. “Uh huh. Except for tonight. All the mean things and scary things come out on Halloween.”

  I frown, trying to think of the books I’ve read. Before I can say anything, we hear someone call his name not too far away. He groans, slumping his shoulders. “I have to go. I live way down the hill. Me and my brother are scouting out for tonight.”

  “For what?”

  “Trick-or-treating,” he gives me this obvious look but I don’t understand. “Should we come here?”

  I glance at the house. She’ll probably come looking soon and I’ll have to go inside. “Mother doesn’t like guests or any other people.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “You’re weird,” I counter.

  He sticks out his tongue, and someone yells his name again. So he puts his antennas on once again, and starts running off. Except as I watch him go, he pauses before he fades away, turning to wave.

  I return the wave, and think about the robot boy for the next few days.

  Garrett explained the word 'hermit' to me when we were nine, and I thought that explained everything. It definitely made sense, didn’t it? Except three years later, I was reading the dictionary and came upon the word 'agoraphobia'.

  This word came to define our lives, mother’s and mine.

  “Step away from the windows,” she calls and I roll my eyes like any thirteen-year-old would. Much of our walls on the upper floor- as well as our attic- are made of glass, one way mirrors. So most of the time, mother stays on the bottom floor and keeps all the curtains closed. Or she tries to, because I'm constantly dragging them back open to see the world around us.

  “They won’t come,” I assure her as she changes records on our player. I fix my ballet slippers, frowning at the dust collecting on them. I hum to the music, smiling brightly at her as she bites her nails.

  “You never know,” she mutters with a shake of her head. “You never know.”

  I wrap her in a hug. “Mother, look at it logically. If it hasn’t happened before, it won’t happen again." Then the momentum in the song begins to build, so I dance away. She begins clapping to the rhythm, talking me through it. I made this dance, but she tells me to do sharper spins and to hold my head up higher as though she were my teacher.

  Maybe I deserve it, since I just lied to her. I have been lying to her for years.

  The following evening, I close the door gently, smiling to myself. Stepping back into the hall, I walk past the stairs eagerly, impatient to get out of here now that she’s completely asleep. Mother doesn’t know, but she snores horribly and there’s no way to fake that snore.

  Every Sunday and Wednesday, I sneak out just before midnight to our yard. I’ve gone past our gate three times. I made my mother take me on a walk for my birthday but we didn’t make it more than ten yards, then when I was playing with Mother’s lighter and accidentally tossed it out. She began to panic and demanded I get it, so she let me step out for that minute.

  And the last time was a year ago on a dare Gary made me take. I ran to his house, to see his trampoline, and jumped on it for a while. It was the best night of my life.

  It’s my favorite time, being with Garrett. Grinning, I grab a jacket and step out after turning on our porch light seeing as there’s no moon this evening. Skipping to the gate, I look around because I don’t see him.

  “BOO!” He jumps out at me, hiding in our hedge that’s constantly growing higher.

  Screaming, I smack him on the shoulder. “Garrett,” I hiss as he busts up laughing. A smile turns on my face and I have to hold back my own giggles. Shaking my head, I smack him again. “I can’t believe you would do that!”

  He scoffs. “It’s like, the tenth time I’ve done it and you fall for it every time. You’re so gullible, ‘Livi.”

  Crossing my arms, I raise my eyebrow. “Well you’re deficient and puerile, so there.”

  “I’m what?”

  “Exactly,” I smirk.

  Garrett’s at a loss for words as well as thoughts for nearly a full minute before he fumbles for something to say. “You would use that on me," he complains, making a face at me.

  I shrug. “It works every time.” My gaze lingers on his face. “You look like a girl. Get that?”

  As he shakes his head, his hair moves as well. It’s getting long and
his mom just let him color it black. I think it’s disgusting and weird, but apparently it’s something cool that kids do at his school. I don’t really get it. I like my hair- why don’t other people like theirs?

  “Well you’re not…you’re… you’re a hermit.” It’s his only comeback, lame as it is.

  “It’s better than all the jerks out there,” I nod my head towards the street. “The woman you call Mrs. Lisbel lets her dog poop here all the time.” He gives me a skeptical look. “So obviously I just put it back on the sidewalk.”

  Glancing around, he smirks. “We could put it on her porch.” I stare at him through wide eyes at such a concept. "It’ll be fun. Just imagine her face when she comes out and steps on it to get the morning paper. She gets mad at me all the time when I play my music too loud. Come on!”

  It takes another minute before I'm fully convinced. I find some bags, as well as a shovel, and we scoop it up. Garrett carries it, laughing at the nasty smell.

  Stepping past our black iron gate is such an exhilarating moment. I glance back to my mother's window and wonder if she knows what she is missing. But I can't talk to her about this, I never could. Taking a deep breath, I grin and turn back to the evening's event. My heart hammers and my blood runs wildly as I grasp Garrett’s hand tightly, a habit whenever we’re on the same side.

  Like madmen, we run down the street laughing with one another. We share jokes and giggle as we reach the porch. It’s a little run down, but nothing like ours is. It’s white with gross green shutters, and it looks sort of like her dog doo.

  We put the sacks down on her porch, and laugh together as we start running back. We run and run up the hill, and I drag him into my yard. We lie on the dying grass, staring at the stars and we tell each other stories and laugh quietly, right beside each other until the sun starts to rise.

  For the fifth time, I’ve finished watching every show of ‘I Love Lucy.’ Humming, I turn off our old television and hurry out to the balcony with my skirt filled with paper. There is string hanging down everywhere on my balcony and in this attic where I spend most of my time. After nineteen years, I’ve really come to love this room.

  There are one hundred and thirty-two paper cranes resting on my skirt. I clutch the folds of my skirt to keep them afloat as I begin attaching them one by one with my free hand up on the string. At one point, I pause to open the glass windows on my balcony so the sun can reach me.

  Our record player sings loudly my favorite songs and I’m wearing my slippers as usual so I can’t help but twirl now and then. My long hair trails behind me, getting in the way whenever I make a turn.

  In fifteen minutes, I’ve finished and I pause to lie down on the wooden floors to stare up at the slanted ceiling with all the paper cranes just waiting to fly into the clouds. Not that I don’t blame them. With a sigh I step out to my balcony, hanging over the edge and feeling the breeze through my hair. Sighing, I smile to myself and close my eyes.

  When they open, there is a sight I didn’t expect. “Garrett?” I lean forward and nearly fall off in my shock- what is he doing here, in broad sunlight?

  “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,” he calls out softly with a smirk on his face.

  The kid got a really bad haircut. Rolling my eyes and shake my head and put a finger to my lips. Hurriedly I glance around for my mother, and give him two fingers to tell him I'll be there in a moment. Leaving the balcony, I head towards the door but in my haste, I knock over a box.

  “Owww,” I groan, rubbing my calf as I glance at the tipped contents. I grabbed all these boxes from our basement last week, to see what was in them. We have an old computer with which mother buys things all the time. When she gets tired of her baubles, they are put in the basement.

  This one is only filled with papers- but I’m going to have to organize them eventually, I suppose. Shoving them back clumsily into the box, it’s not even half full. For some reason I take it down two flights of stairs so I don’t forget about it.

  On the bottom floor I find mother sitting on our table, smoking and still in her pajamas. “Mother?” I cock my head. “What are you doing?” I thought it was a bit early for her taste, and I glance at the time to see how out of touch I might be.

  She stares at me. “Olivia, what are you doing?”

  “I’m… cleaning,” I tell her slowly. “I found your key to the basement and… I’m cleaning.” I set the box down as proof. Because it's not like I'm going outside, of course, that would be silly.

  My mother gives me a look. “Stop wasting your time. Make me coffee?” She returns to her desk where a typewriter sits. Finished with her rough draft, she’s going to slowly work on the revisions. I’ve seen this work so many times, although I never read her books. Mother lives in a state on constant typing, but it makes her happy.

  Pausing in the hall, I peak around the corner and watch my mother. She’s older- I guess she really never told me her real age- with wrinkles forming. She stresses herself out and has panic attacks now and then.

  Her black hair is long, streaked strongly with gray and white. I brush it for her every day, and sometimes she brushes mine. And where my figure is small and very slight, she’s so much taller and beautiful, flawless ivory skin where I have freckles. I used to think I would grow up looking just like her, but I'm afraid that hasn't quite happened yet.

  I wait for the typing to grow into its normal rhythm before daring to turn the knob of the front door. Swallowing tightly, I close it quietly and then run around to the other side of the house. He was here a minute ago, would he have run off?

  “Aha!” Arms wrap around me from behind, twirling me around as I shriek. Startled as I am, I’ve learned by now that I can’t ever scream too loudly because mother would hear and that would be the end of this.

  We’re both laughing as he finally sets me down and I turn, grinning at him. “Hey! So what on earth, mister, has made you come all the way up here to my little castle and see me during broad daylight?” I give him a look.

  He smirks. “School.”

  I frown. “School.” Then it takes me a minute. “You mean college? Stanford?!” I squeal, clapping my hands delightedly. He nods furiously, grinning like a madman. “Do tell,” I demand, tugging the two of us on the fading grass. It crumbles beneath my toes- I don’t own any shoes but my ballet slippers- and I can’t help but smile as I let Garrett talk on animatedly with arms waving and everything.

  As he talks, I think. What will I do without him? He's been talking about this moment for years. He loves electronics and is constantly messing around with his own robotics and weird little wires. It's about time he got into the school of his dreams. But it also means he's leaving, and I don't know when he'll be back. I mean it’s going to be months.

  “Hey.” He turns to me, seeing I’m not paying attention. Head on his hand, he gives me a look before pushing up his glasses. “I want you to come.”

  I stare. “What?”

  Garrett pulls one of my locks out of my face and smiles at me. “I want you to go to the graduation, and the farewell party. I want you to be there with me, and I really want to just be with you out there.”

  “Out where?” I’m confused though my heart patters at the sound of his words.

  “The world,” he scoots closer, towering over me as I lie down. “Olivia, come on. You deserve so much more. You shouldn’t be held back because your mom is scared.”

  My gaze strays. “What if I’m scared, too?” I ask honestly.

  He grabs my hand.”I’ll be here. There’s nothing to be scared of, I swear. There’s so much good and magic out in the world, just like all the stories you read. Don’t you want an adventure? Haven’t you dreamed of going and seeing things? Come with me.”

  The closer he gets and the more he talks, I start to give in. But when I hear my mother wailing inside about something just when he’s on the verge of winning, I shake my head. “I can’t, I have to be here, for her. I can’t leave mother,” I sigh, giving him
a sad look. Garrett has enough charm and I know he'll try to talk me out of this, so I hastily stand and run to the house, unable to take his goofy smile anymore.

  He calls my name, but I slam the door, racing towards my mother. Picking up my skirt so I don’t trip, I run in circles before I find her on the next floor where she accidentally locked herself in our old closet. “Just a minute, mother!” I hit the handle three different ways and jerk it open. The house is old and you must know its secrets to survive here.

  She falls out, spluttering and red-faced, but falls silent as she catches herself on the floor. She was grabbing a scarf, it looks like, and she clutches it close to her bosom. “Fix the door,” she demands before stalking off.

  My mother just has a hard time talking about anything, that’s all. Sighing, I close the door- it’s not like we keep anything in there so I don’t know why or how she got herself in there. With Garrett gone and my mother too reserved to speak, I wander around aimlessly for a short while in search of something to do with my time.

  The box is there, and I recall I was going to go through them and sort them by date or something, so I grab the box and sit on the table to deal with that. Humming, I watch mother make a cup of tea, and she watches me through narrowed eyes. “What are you doing?”

  “I spilled the box, so I’m cleaning these up. Legal documents, it looks like. Oh, our house papers,” I grin at her, and then start through the rest. “My birth cer… my birth… my….” Furrowing my brow I glance at mother and then down at the paper, wondering if I'm imagining things.

  “Your… put that down!” She snaps suddenly, her face turning white. “Olivia Sage Kings! You’re invading my privacy!” The woman lunges towards me.

  I pull back my arm, retracting the papers and jumping off onto the other side of the table. “No! Mother, what are these adoption papers? What on earth is this?” My chest tightens and it’s hard to breathe as I stare at this woman. She isn't my mother, and if that's not who she is, how do I know her? Why hasn't she told me I come from somewhere else?

  “Nothing, it’s nothing,” she splutters at me. “Child, please, come here, it- it’s nothing just put it away. Throw it away for all I care.”