Outside my window, something huffed loudly. It sounded impatient.
“Wait!” I said.
I heard a clacking like rapid-fire gunshots or teeth being gnashed in frustration.
“You haven’t even told me what a Guardian is,” I pointed out to Xeno. “Or does.”
I can only show you what is out there, beyond your window. How you respond determines who you are. When you know that, you will also know what you must do.
The thing outside scratched at my window again. It sounded like it was testing the glass, looking for a weakness.
I heard Mom coming up the stairs.
I closed the book and shoved it under my pillow. “Oh my gosh!” I whispered. “School! I have to go to school. I can’t do this right now.”
Mom paused outside my room and knocked on the frame of my door. “Ten minutes, kiddo.” Then she hustled down the hall toward her bedroom. Right before we left the house, she always ironed her clothes, then brushed her teeth with an electric toothbrush that was so loud and sucked up so much energy that I think it had been banned in thirteen countries.
My window slid open, just a notch.
I leaped toward it to clamp it back down, but my arm bumped the lamp shade on my nightstand, knocking it over. It tipped and fell straight to the floor, the lightbulb shattering into tiny milk-colored shards across my carpet.
I listened for my mom, but she didn’t call my name. She hadn’t heard anything from her bedroom.
My hands rested on the windowsill as my breath thundered in my ears.
Two red eyes glowed in the morning’s darkness, framed by the rising sun. My window continued to slide open in tiny, jerky movements.
Veins instantly pinched tight all over my body, shocked by a burst of adrenaline. Huge, bumpy gray fingers slid through the opening. This was real. Xeno was real.
Monsters were real.
A hand followed, a massive square hand with fingers thick as corn dogs. The hand smeared a gray paste against the white wood trim. The hand turned, palm up, and raised the window the rest of the way. The sunrise on the horizon made a soft pink glow.
I didn’t want to look. The nurses had said it wouldn’t be scary the first time I saw my mutilated leg, but it was.
It was.
I looked up and saw two red eyes burning brightly, watching me frozen and alone.
The window was completely open.
I would never be able to undo this moment.
The monster growled, a gritty sound, like it had gargled rocks. It came through the window all at once, an enormous gray creature, so tall it had to stoop to avoid hitting its head on my ceiling. Its skin glistened like wet clay, and its body was lumpy with mounds of strange flesh bulging out in odd places. It looked like a rough, unfinished sculpture, as if the beautiful part was yet to be revealed, still hidden beneath all the clay.
Goose bumps pricked my skin. The awe of seeing a creature so bizarre, so monstrous and strange, and the shock of standing in the same room, breathing the same air, made my knees go weak. We were both real, living in the same world, mangled girl and monster. How was that possible?
The creature had an enormous square head with strange symbols written across the forehead and hollow places gouged out for its eyes. It didn’t have eyeballs, just a dark hole in the clay, with a red fire burning inside. Where lips should have been, a gray slash created two lips stretched so thin they were almost white. The lips revealed two rows of giant teeth, each tooth the size of a Post-it note. The creature watched me, cocking its head to one side, as if I were the curiosity.
Tears formed in my eyes. I carried too many secrets in my ordinary, everyday life. I couldn’t handle one more. Why had I agreed to this? I would never be able to tell anyone what I had seen. This secret would make me lonelier than ever.
It growled again and I grimaced. The monster reached its hand out to me as if to reassure me, but I shrank back. Its skin looked wet and dirty and I didn’t want to touch it.
Huge tears like marbles welled in the monster’s dark eyes and fell. They rolled across my carpet and burst like water balloons. Its chin trembled, and with a pitiful cry, it jumped out the window.
From my mother’s bathroom I heard the whir of her electric toothbrush at full speed.
I swallowed again and breathed through my mouth, slow and steady. Every nerve in my body was on fire.
I had to shut my window and lock it. That thing was still out there. It might come back and I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t want this secret.
I leaned forward to grab my nightstand for support, and a slurping noise caught my attention. It was a sound like a toddler sucking its thumb. I looked down and saw the monster, its fingers in its mouth, curled up in a ball, rocking itself right there in our shrubbery. It reached up to wipe the tears streaming down its face, then popped its fingers back in its mouth.
I started to say something, on instinct. I had hurt its feelings and I was supposed to be sorry, but I wanted to slam the window shut. It was a freaking monster. How did it expect me to react? Ten minutes ago I hadn’t even believed they were real, and now I wished they weren’t.
It looked up at me just then. Anger, pain, and sorrow emanated from its fiery red eyes. I had the unmistakable feeling I was seeing myself through them. I was the monster. I had hurt something because it was strange and different and ugly.
“How you respond determines who you are.” Xeno’s words came back to me. I felt sick.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I really was. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.”
The monster scowled at me and ran away through the bushes. I lost sight of it as Mom called my name. It was time to get in the car.
The first bell had just rung when Billy approached me in the hall.
“Whoa, didn’t you sleep last night?” he asked, falling into step beside me. “You look tired.”
I kept moving so he wouldn’t know how much he was embarrassing me. I wanted to be ignored, but he stayed as close as an IV pole.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. I kept walking. There was no way to answer that question.
“Are you sick?”
My heart raced as sweat broke out on my upper lip. In the hospital, a nurse would have rushed in to check my vitals at this point. Diagnosis? I think I had a crush. Plus I was still reeling from an encounter with something I shouldn’t have seen and would never forget. My body felt all wrong, like my brain had to rewire itself after this morning to make room for the new information and it didn’t have the energy to remind me of how to move properly.
I didn’t know how to act around Billy. He was so smart and quick that anything I said sounded stupid. In the movies, the pretty girls said cute stuff and flung their hair around. I had bristles. If I swung my head, he might lose an eye.
“Look, I love that you’re as fierce as I am,” Billy added, “and I thought that was why we were going to be friends. But friends talk.” He got in front of me and stopped, forcing me to as well.
He thought I was fierce? Because of an answer I wrote on a test? I wrote that because I felt sorry for myself. It was not exactly a battle cry.
I had to get to class. “I have a lot on my mind.” I chose my first words carefully; then my mouth picked up speed. “And I didn’t sleep well last night. I feel half dead, like a zombie.”
“Don’t be a pessimist,” he said. “Zombies aren’t half dead. They’re half alive.”
I grinned, and he moved back to my side. We resumed the walk to class, and a couple of girls said hi to me, loudly, while they smiled at Billy.
We passed Alexis, who stood at her locker getting a book out for homeroom. She watched us, her forehead wrinkling like when she didn’t understand a question. How could I explain my friendship with Billy? Every girl flirted with him, but I didn’t. Alexis knew that wasn’t my style. When it came to guys, I had no style. So what was I doing walking down the hall with the best-looking guy in our grade? She might even be wondering if he was the re
ason I wasn’t talking to her.
“So the dance Candy talked about?” Billy asked. “Will it be any good?”
I had to change the subject or be forced to admit I hadn’t been to one yet. Our whole school district had a winter dance every year, even for the elementary kids. No one had ever asked me, and I didn’t have the courage to go alone. Alexis hated wearing dresses—she said they made it more obvious that she had the curves of a toothpick—so it wasn’t her idea of a fun night either.
“Well…,” I murmured.
What if Billy asked me to go? My stomach bounced down to my knees and back up. How would I know if he meant as friends or as a date? He paused, looking at me, obviously waiting for a complete sentence.
I ducked into the girls’ restroom.
Once inside, I pushed the door closed and turned. Candy was there, looking at herself in the mirror. And beyond her stood the strange woman with light blue-gray eyes and blond hair. She was wearing a long black gown of a style I’d only seen in history books. The sleeves of the gown moved as if an imaginary breeze were ruffling them.
A grim smile slowly curled her lips as she glided forward, glancing from Candy to me. Clearly Candy had no idea she was there. My body jerked back, reacting before my brain could process what I was seeing, or imagining. It was the strangest feeling, like being pulled apart, my inside and outside working at different speeds. I reached out to warn Candy, my face still turned up toward the specter hovering between us.
Then her image dissolved into smoke, disappearing through the cracks of the door and out into the hallway.
“That’s weird. I was just thinking about you,” Candy said. She glanced at me, then went back to brushing her long straight hair in sweeping, elegant strokes, as if she hadn’t noticed anything at all. Of course she hadn’t. I was the only one seeing things these days. Just when I thought being the odd girl out couldn’t get any lonelier. I realized my hand was still extended toward her and I dropped it to my side.
Even under the fluorescent lights of the bathroom, her hair was gorgeous, flowing under the brush like liquid.
I wanted my old hair back so badly. When Candy looked in the mirror, did she see how beautiful she was? Did perfect-looking people feel perfect? I almost started to ask. It would be weird if being perfect and feeling perfect weren’t the same thing at all. Still, I kept my distance to avoid seeing our reflections side by side in the mirror.
Every stall door was closed, but there was no sound in the restroom except the soft whish of the brush through her hair. I refused to sit in a stall with her in here, so I pretended I needed to wash my hands.
Candy caught me stealing another glance. She shrugged as she sighed. “You’re giving me the silent treatment, aren’t you? Is it because of what Natalie said?”
The paper towels were on her side of the sink, so I either needed to reach over for them or walk around her. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed something else in the mirror. Two brown scaly legs with claws on each toe began to slowly descend to the floor inside a stall, as if a monster had been crouched on a toilet the whole time I had been in here.
I swallowed and forced myself to breathe. Blood pounded through my veins like a freight train. I had never seen a monster at school before. Did that mean they were following me, or had they been here all along and I was only now able to see them?
Candy set her brush down with a loud clank and faced me. I glanced back at the stall as she cleared her voice, expecting me to pay attention. “Natalie isn’t the brightest girl, but she didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” She reached for a paper towel and handed it to me. The monster legs slid out from underneath the stall door, slithering soundlessly across the tile toward Candy. I noticed they were covered in bumps, not scales, with a layer of fine white feathers.
I wiped my hands and crumpled the paper towel. Chances were, the monster was here because I was the Guardian, even though I still wasn’t sure what that meant. I only knew that it probably wouldn’t eat me. Not that Xeno had promised they wouldn’t, but it was a hopeful theory. That didn’t exempt Candy. I needed to get her out of here. I started to tell her we both had to go, when she interrupted me.
“Just listen.” Candy rested her hand on my arm. Surprisingly, her skin was warm. I had assumed she was cold-blooded, like all reptiles.
“I know we’ve never been friends. But don’t judge me.”
I picked her hand off of me and she blinked. “We should get to class,” I said. One claw scraped lightly against the tile floor right next to Candy’s foot. She didn’t notice. I froze, not knowing what it was going to do next.
She crossed her arms. “I know you don’t like me because you think I’m superficial.”
One leg extended even farther, like the monster had elastic limbs. It began slipping around the back of Candy’s legs.
“Maybe I just know something you don’t.” She leaned forward as if she was about to spill a major secret. “Girls are judged for our looks in a way that boys aren’t.” She waited for me to agree, one eyebrow raised.
I nodded.
“Girls who make an effort get treated better. Life is easier for them. So being pretty is really more like being smart.”
“Candy, I—”
“No! Don’t argue.” She met my eyes with an intense gaze. “You may not like me, but at least I won’t lie to you. This is an ugly thing to say, but the truth is, life hurts less when you look good and you fit in with everyone. And, Sofia, I can’t help but think that you’ve had enough pain already.”
She moved her hand to rest on my shoulder. “The point is, you have such potential if you would just try. Let me help you.”
The toilet flushed and we both jumped. The monster’s two legs were sucked backward toward the bowl and disappeared.
Candy moved to the stall and used her fist to bang the door open. It was empty. The red light on the automatic toilet flashed off and on. “I hate those things,” she muttered. “They always flush without any warning.”
I exhaled in relief, although I felt a pang of guilt for whatever monster had just gotten unexpectedly sucked away. Monsters were old and automatic flushing toilets were new.
“Candy, we better get to class. The bell is going to ring any minute,” I said.
She looked annoyed that I hadn’t fallen at her feet in gratitude. “You don’t even want to talk about this?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know if that monster could swim. He might be back. “You might get in trouble if you’re late,” I reminded her. “You’re on the student council. The teachers don’t mind if I’m late.”
“Exactly!” she said. “Because everyone feels sorry for you. But that won’t last forever. You have to decide who you want to be before it’s too late. You’ll either go back to being the sad girl without a lot of friends, or you can use this opportunity to become everything you ever wanted to be. The whole school would get behind you! You have to decide what you want, and if you do want to change, you’ll need a plan. You’ll need me.”
I grabbed for the door, biting my lip so I wouldn’t cry. The door swung open, hard. Someone on the other side pushed as I pulled. I fell backward and landed on my rear end. Alexis stood over me, looking horrified upon seeing what she had done. Billy peeked over her shoulder. He must have been waiting for me.
Candy moved first. She grabbed me from behind, lifting me from under my shoulders, and helped me to my feet.
“I thought you two were supposed to be friends,” she snapped at Alexis. Alexis inhaled like she was about to explode.
“No one here is my friend, okay?” I said. It came out all wrong. Alexis winced as if I had slapped her. Billy frowned, as if I had hurt him too.
“Think about my offer,” Candy said. Then she brushed past the three of us on her way to class. “I’ve already started a list of things you’ll need to do.”
I didn’t know what else to say, so I just followed her. It was the right direction to walk but felt like the wrong way to g
o.
I dropped my book bag on the floor when I got to the kitchen. Mom was right behind me, and picked up one of the books that fell out.
“Ewww,” she said, staring at the book cover. Mom wrinkled her nose like she smelled something rotten. On the cover was a snarling monster with a body hanging limp from its jaws. Before I could stop her, she dug out my other assorted titles. I had planned on returning them all, since Xeno thought they were useless.
“I didn’t even read them,” I said, trying to grab the book from her hands. She lifted her hand higher, staring at me with a frown.
“Well, good, because this is not appropriate reading material,” she said. “Besides, I don’t want you worried about things that aren’t even real.”
“Why is everyone on my case today?” I groaned. And who knows what’s real, anyway? I wanted to shout.
Mom stared at me in silence for a long moment before she replied. “I am not ‘everyone.’ I am your mother.” She suddenly sounded tired. “And if there’s something going on, we need to talk about it this weekend, okay?”
I had forgotten it was a long weekend, since tomorrow was a teacher in-service day. Normally I’d have been excited about relaxing and watching TV for three whole days, but I was heartsore from a bad day at school; plus I was nervous about what the weekend would bring. All I seemed to do was accidentally hurt people’s feelings. Maybe monsters were unsafe, but apparently, so was I.
Forty minutes later, Mom moved to answer the doorbell when the pizza arrived. “Let me get it,” I offered. “You relax.”
I wanted her to think I was trying to make up for being moody, but in reality I had to make sure it wasn’t a monster ringing the doorbell. I still had no idea how this Guardian thing worked. I needed to get upstairs as fast as I could without hurting Mom’s feelings and figure all this out, because maybe next time there wouldn’t be an automatic toilet flush to save me.
I paid the guy and carried the pizza into the kitchen while Mom stood in front of the TV. She had been searching to find a movie for us to watch but was transfixed by a commercial. As she watched, text rolled across the screen like credits after a film, listing every dangerous germ and virus that lives in the average home. The only defense was a new disinfectant conveniently priced at $29.95.
The Last Monster Page 8
