Monster Nanny

by Tuutikki Tolonen

“What are you whispering about?” Oscar asked.

  “I’m not whispering,” Halley snapped.

  “You were,” Koby said. “But I couldn’t make out what you said. I don’t think there’s any point in going shopping.”

  “Argh,” Halley grunted at Koby. “Whatever. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it. Let everybody hear it, then. I have a feeling that the monsters can turn invisible with the help of that dust.”

  “Well, I can see them quite easily,” Mimi said, before disappearing with giggling Alice into the bathroom to figure out how to get the washing machine to work. Surely it couldn’t be that hard?

  Halley went on, looking at Koby: “After you had run off and the monsters had started cleaning, I sat at the kitchen table and watched. When there’s a lot of dust, it’s just dust, a bit like a shadow. But when it settles, you don’t see it anymore. Then it starts to work.”

  “What do you mean, ‘work’?” Oscar asked.

  Halley went on: “Well, suddenly the monsters simply vanished from view. I saw them in the hall, and then I saw nothing in the hall. I thought they had run away or gone into another room. But as soon as they moved, I could see them again. I think that if they stand quite still in their own dust, they can be invisible.”

  “How could that be possible?” Koby mumbled to himself.

  In the bathroom, the washing machine started. Mimi and Alice had figured it out.

  CHAPTER 16

  Guarding the Door

  HALLEY SAT WITH HER back against the front door and tried to stay awake. She was on door watch, and naturally you couldn’t sleep on watch. Halley’s job was to keep the monsters in the hall while Oscar and Minnie went to look for camping gear. Because tonight they would all move out to the yard.

  How would Halley stop the monsters from going after their charges, if they really decided to go? Anyone else might have thought about it, perhaps even worried. But Halley did not bother her head with the matter. She would think of something. For now there were other things to think of. Like what to tell the absent parents.

  Invisible Voice had phoned again. The blizzard was still going on. The passengers had been told that the airport would be closed at least another twenty-four hours. Invisible Voice had been worried and said that they must phone Mom in Lapland. Koby had told him that they couldn’t call Mom, but they could send her a text message.

  Just an hour earlier Mom had sent them the message:

  Is Dad at home now?

  Halley sighed. You had to be really careful with words. You couldn’t tell outright lies, but you had to stretch the facts a bit. But not so stretched that Mom became suspicious.

  Of course, they couldn’t tell Mom that Invisible Voice was stuck in a snowdrift. Otherwise she would come straight back, and that would help nobody. So they had told her:

  Hi, Mom! All good, as before. Just washed the walls with the monster. Dad sends love and says home is the best place in the world. We have friends over and may go for sleepover or picnic. Bye-bye. Love from: all at home

  All of that was true in a way. Invisible Voice had sent his love on the phone. He had said that home was the best place in the world. Although such a phrase from Invisible Voice was so strange in Halley’s view that Mom was bound to suspect something. But Koby would not agree to lie anymore.

  Mom had replied right away:

  Good! Don’t overdo the cleaning. No need to wash the walls. All’s well here, if a little boring. We have no planned activities. The camp is unusual in many ways. Tomorrow we’ll go to a spa. They told us that we can all sleep today or go for a hike. I, for one, am not sleepy! Off for a hike, then.

  Halley yawned. If only she could sleep! She had slept far too little last night. She scanned the hall walls, just to keep awake. The monsters had spent ages scrubbing them. Then they had stayed around the kitchen door, restless. The mosquito-fairy made them nervous.

  “We’ll have to hide that spike creature so that the monsters can settle down,” Koby had said.

  So Halley and Oscar had tapped a few air holes in the cookie jar lid using a nail and hammer, so that the fairy, or whatever it was, wouldn’t suffocate. Then they had shoved the jar in a top cupboard in the kitchen.

  “It’s your own fault. You shouldn’t have attacked,” Halley had whispered to the mosquito-fairy, which was shaking its spike angrily at her. “You’ll be OK here in the cupboard. You shouldn’t even be hungry—you just ate. Take a nap or something.”

  Halley had closed the cupboard door but left a little opening for light. Even a mosquito-fairy probably hated the dark. A muffled click-click-click sounded from the cupboard. The mosquito-fairy was trying to break the thick glass with its sword-straw, but the jar was a fully secure fairy prison.

  Then the monsters had immediately settled down. They stuffed themselves in the closet like the last time: first Grah flat against the back wall, then two more monsters with their big, hairy bellies pressed against each other, at most half of them inside the closet. Their heavy, matted heads were lowered on Grah’s shoulders. In a moment, the whole monster threesome had dropped off.

  Or pretended to have dropped off. Or something. Halley sighed, bored. Of all the things she was forced to think about. This was life with Mimi and Koby. They had to go on about things that didn’t matter. Did the monster sleep or not? What did it matter? The fact was that the monster closed its eyes and stayed still for hours. It was all the same no matter what you wanted to call it.

  Halley yawned. It was so boring. She was so awfully sleepy. From the bathroom came the hum of the hair dryer, Mimi’s chattering, and Alice’s giggling. The girls had washed the bathrobe and were now drying it with the hair dryer because Mimi wanted to wear it again. Wonder what Mom would say about that? One of Halley’s eyes plopped shut by accident. She opened the eye quickly.

  Muffled tinkling came from the kitchen. The angry spike fairy had not given up. And oh, how sleepy Halley was . . . What if she closed both eyes, just for a little moment? Oh, how lovely it felt. Would anyone care if Halley kept her eyes shut? The main thing was that somebody sat in front of the door. Nobody could open the door without Halley knowing. How blissful, lovely, sweet it was to sit here with her eyes closed, yet fully alert . . .

  In less than a minute, Halley was fast asleep. After five minutes, she flopped to her side and drew herself into a ball on the hall rug like a guard dog—the difference being, of course, that she was not napping like a dog. She was in deep human sleep, and therefore noticed nothing when thick, bendy monster fingers grabbed her gently and picked her up off the floor. She merely sneezed sleepily when she was pressed against a dusty monster chest. Halley didn’t even wake when she was put down clumsily in a strange, rustling place and covered up with something heavy. She wasn’t even roused when the front door quietly clicked shut.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Monster’s Natural Defense Mechanisms

  MEANWHILE, ON THE BALCONY, Koby was reading Runar’s book and was so immersed in it that he could almost hear Runar’s voice in his ears. Koby was preparing for later that night. Everyone would naturally have questions, and Koby would be the only one who knew the answers. Or actually Runar. Runar and Koby together.

  Koby turned first to Chapter 9 and started reading.

  The Monster’s Natural Enemies

  and Defense Mechanisms

  The monster is strong and probably very scary in appearance to many people. When you have seen it charge and crash through a forest, you cannot believe that it would fear any other creature. The monster is clearly not a prey animal. It lacks the prey animal’s sensitivity, which makes it run away at the slightest rustle. In any case, the monster itself causes plenty of noise. It would not survive a life-or-death fight, if something tried to hunt it.

  But the monster is hardly a hunter either. It does not attempt to follow, scent, or find any living being. I never saw it chase or attack anything. On these grounds, I propose that the monster does not belong in any natural chain of pr
edators and prey. So, is the monster an alien species in our forests?

  Going around the forest with the monster, I noticed that it is wary of only one species: our own, the human. Whenever its keen senses detected a human being nearby, it tried to hide or leave the area. It is noteworthy that not even people who passed very closely noticed the monster. They looked directly at it, but could pass by without seeing the monster . . .

  “Without seeing the monster,” Koby repeated. He read on.

  I did not manage to witness very many encounters between a human and monster (excepting my own) in our two years together. Indeed, one of the monster’s means of survival may be disappearing or hiding.

  On many occasions, I saw the monster become frightened or annoyed by something. Then it growled, even roared, and flexed its muscles under its dusty coat to create a strong smell of an earth cellar. But not once did I get to see it defend itself or attack. Nevertheless, my imagination tells me that in the case of the monster, this would be a most interesting phenomenon. However, I leave the study of this issue to the scientists of the future. I had no opportunity to study it.

  Koby nodded solemnly. Yes. He accepted the task. It was self-evident that he, Koby Hellman, was one of the future scientists about whom Runar wrote. The task had already begun. Today Koby had seen the monster’s defensive smoke bomb. He had also seen the monster’s enemy and put it in a cookie jar. Actually, Halley had, but it was in the jar now all the same. Koby had also examined the fairy-frog’s attack site on Minnie’s monster’s skin (a little red dot, no visible injury, no evidence of pain at the sting site).

  Koby heard the hall phone ring inside the apartment. Invisible Voice. He checked his watch. Almost seven. The monsters must be awake by now and making supper. Koby shut the book and hurried from the balcony into the living room. There he saw, strangely enough, Halley asleep on the trash bag–covered couch under the rag rug usually kept at the hall door.

  The phone continued to ring, and Koby went into the hall. He instantly noticed that the closet door was wide open. The closet was empty. Where were the monsters?

  Koby grabbed the receiver and answered.

  “Hello! Of course, the Hellmans. Hi, Dad, don’t you recognize my voice? Koby here.”

  Koby looked around. At least one monster was still here, he noticed. Grah was sitting at the table between Mimi and Alice, drawing with colored pencils. They looked like tiny matchsticks in the monster’s giant hands.

  “What was that you said?” Koby asked, and concentrated on the call again. “What other way round?”

  In the kitchen, Mimi whispered to Alice: “Maybe Invisible Voice has found another way round the blizzard. I wonder how long it’ll take to go around it?”

  “When are you coming home?” Koby asked. “Why aren’t you sure? Listen, if you arrive tonight, we may not be at home. Yes. No . . . listen. We’re going on a night trip. I mean, a sleepover! That’s what I meant. With Oscar and Minnie. Yes, well, you don’t know our friends.”

  Koby listened to his father and answered: “Of course we’ll take Mimi with us. Oscar has a little sister, too, Alice,” Koby continued. “Yes, Alice is real. A real human, talks and everything.”

  “Dad thinks you’re some imaginary friend! Even though I already told him the whole story,” Mimi told Alice, giggling.

  Koby went on: “Sure. In a tent in the yard. The tent was in our storage cage, it’s quite OK. Oscar is a Boy Scout and knows all about camping. Yes, of course I do too!”

  Mimi rolled her eyes, laughing. At best, Koby had watched camping shows on TV.

  “Well, you can’t know all our hobbies,” Koby said kindly to the phone. “If we’re not at home when you arrive, call my phone. Bye-bye!”

  “Where isyour dad?” Alice asked.

  “A bit like a business trip and on the way home at the same time,” Mimi said. “But now there’s such a bad blizzard that the airport is closed, and he had to find another way round.”

  “Really, snow in June?” Alice queried.

  Koby walked into the kitchen and asked: “Where are the other two monsters?”

  “Looking for Oscar and Minnie, of course,” Mimi replied. “Or maybe they didn’t want to stay here anymore. With that.”

  Mimi pointed at the top cupboard, from where came an endless, muffled click-click-click. Koby nodded.

  “What are you doing, by the way?” he asked.

  “Watching Grah draw,” Mimi said. Grah raised its head and grunted. Mimi stroked its back encouragingly.

  “Well done, Grah!”

  “It does break quite a few pencils,” Alice said, eyeing the pile of broken pencils on the table.

  “It can’t help it,” Mimi said. “It’s only just learning to draw with colored pencils. Perhaps they’re thicker wherever it came from. At its home.”

  Grah’s home, thought Koby. Wonder where it is?

  “What is it drawing?” he asked.

  “Hard to tell,” Mimi said, bending thoughtfully over Grah’s drawing. “It’s got a lot of green and black.”

  “And holes,” Alice pointed with her finger.

  “The holes aren’t meant to be there,” Mimi corrected Alice. “It just has thicker paper at home. It’s used to paper that the pencil doesn’t go through so easily.”

  “How do you know it has paper at home?” Koby asked.

  “I have a feeling,” Mimi answered evenly.

  Grah moved restlessly. Perhaps it didn’t want to think about the paper at home.

  “It looks a bit like a forest to me,” Koby said. “There are trees and some rocks. That black lump must be a mountain.”

  “It’s a really nice picture, Grah.” Mimi nodded approvingly. “What is that at the front?”

  In the middle of the wild, messy, and holey drawing, there seemed to be a group of dark figures. Were they monsters? Could be. At least, they had huge hands. In front of them were three smaller . . . somethings. What were they? They were not monsters, because they were blond and multicolored.

  “Grah, what are those?” Mimi asked, pointing at the colorful figures. Grah did not answer, just gazed at Mimi with its motionless globular eyes.

  “Maybe it doesn’t want to say,” Alice mumbled.

  “You don’t have to say,” Mimi said, patting Grah’s arm.

  “I could take that drawing and study it a little,” Koby said, and reached for the paper. “I thought—”

  He could say no more, because Grah’s shovel palm slapped the drawing back on the table. Then the monster, eyes fixed on the table, screwed up the picture into a tiny crumpled ball.

  “Oops,” Koby managed to say. Mimi stroked the monster’s back protectively.

  “It’s something personal, don’t you see? Even monsters are allowed to have secrets,” she muttered to Koby.

  CHAPTER 18

  The First Night in the Yard

  AN EARLY SUMMER’S NIGHT in Finland is not dark. The air just gradually becomes heavier and more mystifying. The day birds stop their jolly twittering and fall asleep on their perches. The night birds open their beaks, but they do not twitter joyfully. They let out their strange, curious calls, as if to ask: Is there anybody else here? Am I the only one awake?

  On this night the night birds were not alone. The grass playing field next to the marina had sprouted two tents: one for Halley, Mimi, Minnie, and Alice, the other for Koby and Oscar. Putting them up had been tricky; nevertheless, there they were, the first, slightly wonky dwellings of the monster camp. Right behind the tents was a small, dense forest, suitable for monster outings.

  The other kids arrived at nine. Fourteen children had had monsters sent to their homes. Fourteen! There were more of them than Koby had expected. They all talked at the same time, asking questions: What were the monsters? Where had they come from? Where did they go to the bathroom? How well did they understand speech? Why did they shed such enormous amounts of dust? Why did everybody think that they didn’t exist? Why were the children not allowed to tel
l anyone about them? Were they really not dangerous, in spite of the growling?

  Koby looked around and took a deep breath, strangely calm and excited at the same time. Nobody had told the new kids that Koby was the camp’s monster expert. Yet they had all come straight to him. How had they known? Did it show somehow?

  On the ground next to Koby stood a paper bag, from which a slow click-click-click came every now and then. The blocked view seemed to calm the fairy-troll. If it saw nobody, there was no need for it to be on the attack the whole time.

  Koby scanned the edges of the field and the shadows under the trees. There was no sign of the monsters. They had not come with their children. Where were they?

  “Are you really going to sleep out here?” asked Leo, Koby’s classmate, who was looking at the tents behind Koby.

  Koby nodded.

  “At least tonight.”

  “Why?” asked Elijah, a blond-haired boy from another class at school. His little brother, Luke, was yawning next to him.

  “We’ll talk about that soon,” Koby answered. “Does anybody know where their monsters are?”

  “I bet our monster is at home, sleeping in the hall closet,” said Jenna, who was in Minnie’s class. Her sister, Alba, nodded in agreement.

  “In the hall closet? How can it fit in there?” Leo asked.

  “That’s where ours stays, too,” Elijah said.

  “Where else could it be, anyway?” Alba asked.

  “I suppose any place it can fit,” Koby said. “Where does yours stay, Leo?”

  “The shower stall. We haven’t got a hall closet,” Leo replied.

  “So how do you take a shower?” Jenna asked.

  Leo grinned.

  “I don’t shower.”

  “Yuck.” Mimi sniffed.