Oliver stiffened himself in preparation to talk. “No snacks tonight.”
Before Oliver could continue, the monster let out a thundering roar. “Hungry!” Oliver’s bed quaked. Green mist carrying a rotten garlic odor rose from the floor.
Oliver closed his eyes and took deep breaths, as instructed by Josh. He promised Josh he would attempt to befriend the monster and didn’t want to admit to giving up too soon. He didn’t want Josh to see him as everyone else did–a wimpy child.
“No snacks tonight. Snacks are for my friends.” Josh had instructed him to stop allowing the monster to boss him around. The room belonged to Oliver, not the monster.
The bed’s movements reduced to a quiver. The monster’s hissing grew softer. “Friends?”
“Yeah. Someone I play with. Read comics with. Eat snacks with. Like my friend Josh.”
“Friends eat snacks?” The quivering moved from the bed into the monster’s voice.
“Yes.” Oliver hesitated, but then he thought of Josh. Josh said he needed to take control. “And friends don’t scare each other.” Oliver rolled onto his back, making himself larger by stretching his legs out. He was in charge of his room. “What’s your name? You can’t ask for snacks without telling me your name.”
The monster’s silence caused Oliver’s hands to shake as he questioned whether he pushed too far, too fast.
“Name?” Now the monster hardly raised its voice above the level of a whisper.
Oliver took a deep breath. Like Josh, he was a tough guy. Following Josh’s advice, he placed one foot, then the other, on the floor, before crouching down. His body shook. He avoided looking under his bed by gazing at the ceiling.
“I’m Oliver. That’s my name. Who are you?”
“Name?” The legs of Oliver’s bed banged and bumped against the wood floor.
The monster reminded Oliver of Rocky or Jasper. Neither of them had names when they arrived in the Green house. Oliver said, “I’m going to call you Bump.”
The green smoke dissipated, although the stink remained. Oliver wondered if Bump, like Rocky, failed to brush his teeth. Both possessed revolting breath.
“I’m Bump. Snack now, friend?”
“Just because you have a name doesn’t mean we’re friends. We haven’t played yet. Or read comics.” Bump was even worse at making friends than Oliver. At least Oliver played with other kids nicely, as his mother told him to do.
“Play?”
“Yeah, play. A game or something. But we can’t play under the bed. There isn’t enough space. Come out if you want to be friends.”
“Out?”
Oliver thought he heard Bump’s voice shake. Was Bump afraid of him? No, that wasn’t possible. Kids cower in fear of monsters, monsters do not cower in fear of kids. Oliver remembered he offered Rocky a dog treat when he wanted to entice the dog to come closer. Perhaps monsters could be tempted with food like dogs.
“Come out and I’ll get you a snack, like last night.”
The bed banged, as if Bump writhed beneath it. Then it stopped, and he heard a shuffling sound. Oliver’s eyes widened. He forgot his fear and moved his eyes from the ceiling towards his bed. Two fluorescent orange eyes blinked at him from under the bed. Oliver muffled a scream and repeated to himself: I’m tough, I got this, I’m tough, I got this…
The eyes wobbled forward, illuminated by the night light along with the body. Oliver gasped, then covered his mouth with both hands.
Bump stretched up to his full height, which at best only reached the size of one of Oliver’s plastic action figures. His scrawny chicken legs ended in large, browned feet. The overall effect reminded Oliver of marshmallows stuck to the end of a stick roasting over a fire. His round, fur covered body looked soft enough to stroke. Bump smiled, or maybe he grimaced or growled. It was impossible to tell. His scraggly, yellow teeth produced the foulest of odors. Oliver wondered if he owned a toothbrush. How did this teensy creature make his bed shake? Oliver’s mind raced, filled with questions for his new friend.
But Bump had only one question. He said, “Snack, friend?”
***
The next day, Oliver struggled to focus on school. In the middle of class, his body jumped from his assigned seat, sparked by uncontainable energy as he thought of telling Josh about Bump. His inability to control himself led to his teacher making him stay inside during recess.
Normally, losing recess would have upset Oliver, but it didn’t that day. During the extra quiet time, he daydreamed about Josh’s reaction and contemplated his questions for his next meeting with Bump. Even as Oliver trembled with the memories of Bump’s unique mix of aggressiveness and sociability, his mind filled with questions for the puny monster.
Tasha waited for Oliver on the sidewalk, far from the school entrance, eyes glued to her phone. Oliver knew it was because Tasha wanted to avoid being seen walking home with her nerdy, annoying younger brother, but the arrangement also suited him. He preferred to keep his distance because greater distance gave her fewer opportunities to torment him.
Tasha looked up from her phone only long enough to give Oliver a subtle nod of acknowledgement before turning her attention back to the screen. Without a word, she set off towards home, expecting Oliver to trail behind her. Oliver rambled along behind Tasha, far enough to keep from attracting her attention, but close enough to avoid inciting her anger, until they arrived home.
Then he raced past her, ignoring her shouts, and burst through the front door in search of Josh. Josh sat at the kitchen table, eyes focused on his laptop, open books strewn around him. Fruit and crackers sat on the table, spread out in an appealing arrangement. He invited Oliver to have a seat without looking up from the screen.
“Sorry, bud,” Josh said. “I need to quickly finish this assignment.” He had already missed the assignment’s deadline, since it had been due at the start of class that day, but had convinced his teacher to give him an extension. Josh had twenty more minutes to finish cobbling together a page on his post high school graduation plans in Spanish.
Josh’s distraction prevented him from noticing the disappointed expression that crossed Oliver’s face. In his mind, Oliver had elevated the moment of his arrival so high that his subsequent crash in expectations felt as if he had crushed his favorite superhero figurine beyond repair. The sound of Tasha’s bedroom door slamming shut rang through the kitchen.
Oliver slid his chair closer to Josh to escape the blinding glare of the setting sun’s bright beam, which bounced off the white table and into his eyes. Then he finished his snack. He stared at Josh, willing him to look up. He strained to sit still.
“Why don’t you go watch cartoons? I’ll be done soon, then I’ll join you. Promise.” Josh didn’t look up as he spoke. He knew that with Tasha home, this suggestion was likely to cause grief. But he needed to concentrate. He didn’t want his C grade in Spanish to fall to a D.
Oliver dragged himself into the living room, knowing his continued presence at the table would annoy Josh. The fifteen minutes he spent waiting in the living room felt like an eternity. It reminded him of struggling to wait in bed for the sun to rise after waking up too early on Christmas morning.
Josh walked into the living room and stopped inside the entrance. The television was off. The kid perched on the sofa, ready to jump. Whatever was on his mind consumed him. He leaned further forward, letting words burst from his mouth like a can of soda left in a hot car.
“Josh, I did it. I met the monster. It was so scary but so cool. His name is Bump. Well, I named him that because he didn’t have a name. And he ate the garlic. He told me about it. And he wanted more snacks. And then he got mad…” Oliver jumped around the living room, his body exploding and bouncing in time with his words.
Josh held up his hands. “Whoa, calm down there Flash. You’re going too fast for me.”
“It was so AMAZING.” And terrible, but Oliver would tell Josh that part later. First, he wanted to sound big and tough.
Josh cringed and motioned his hands downward. In his eager state, the kid forgot about the difference between indoor and outdoor voices.
“It worked! I met the monster under the bed. He’s so scary, especially when he gets mad.” Oliver clapped his hand over his mouth to stop himself from saying too much about the monster’s scary side.
“So you lured the big, scary monster out?” Josh tried and failed to suppress his smile.
Oliver, failing to notice Josh’s reaction, grew serious. “The monster is short enough to stand under my bed. But so horrible. He can sneak up on you and BAM!” Oliver quivered at the memory of Bump’s angry explosion. He took Josh’s hand. “Let’s go see him.” Oliver dragged Josh towards his bedroom but stopped when his sister stepped into the hallway. He didn’t want Tasha involved in meeting Bump because then it wouldn’t be his and Josh’s special secret anymore.
Josh’s face fell. Tasha’s provocative look repelled rather than attracted him. Her efforts at flirtation caused his stomach to churn rather than flutter. At fourteen, she was too young and immature to be attractive to him.
He knew he should be grateful for the high school freshmen’s obvious irresponsibility, since that was the reason he had this babysitting gig, but at that moment, trapped as he was, he couldn’t manage it. He sank into the plush sofa, his body deflating like a leaking balloon. Tasha took a seat across from him and began her monologue.
While Tasha focused on tormenting Josh, Oliver crept towards the kitchen. Her piercing laugh faded as he gained distance. He planned to sneak a selection of snacks for Bump into his room while no one watched him.
Oliver grabbed a bag of carrots, garlic, and strawberry yogurt. He wanted something tastier that could also improve Bump’s breath. But he hesitated, remembering Bump’s violent reaction to peppermint candies.
After Bump ate garlic, Oliver tried to convince him to eat a mint, as a way to improve his breath. Oliver wasn’t sure if Bump felt insulted, or if he strongly disliked peppermint, but either way this caused Bump to explode into a destructive rage. All of Oliver’s clothes and toys were thrown around the room by the resultant tornado. In his mind, he saw himself cowering in a corner, hiding from the storm, and shuddered.
Despite the risk, he added a packet of his favorite treat, chocolate mint cookies, to his stash.. Then he went to his room where he played a careful game of hopscotch, jumping over the toys and clothes that littered his bedroom floor, to hide the snacks in his sock drawer.
Back in the living room, Oliver took a seat next to Josh. Josh, ignoring Tasha’s incessant chatter, pulled a new, shiny comic book from his backpack. The book was titled Tremendous Trio: Intergalactic Abyss. Oliver’s eyes widened, taking in the vibrant cover which depicted three muscled, spandex-clad heroes powering themselves out of a fiery hole. The Tremendous Trio was Oliver’s favorite group of superheroes within his beloved fictional universe. Today, the Trio would be called on to both save the universe and save Josh from Tasha.
As Josh read to Oliver, Tasha turned her attention to Instagram, but kept one ear tuned to Josh’s voice. She took in the story in the same passive manner with which she followed her history teacher’s lectures: connected enough to catch the highlights, but not so tuned in as to grasp the meaning. The subject of superheroes saving the world from an ever-expanding black hole didn’t hold interest her any more than the causes of the American Revolution. Neither would help her land Josh as a boyfriend.
Tasha looked up from her phone and raised her voice loud enough interrupt through Josh’s cartoonish voices. “What if there’s an intergalactic void in your closet and that is the reason monsters keep appearing in your room at night?” Tasha tossed her phone onto the coffee table and sat back with her arms crossed. A grin spread across her face. She disliked being ignored.
Engrossed in the story, Oliver jumped at the sound of his sister’s voice. Then he considered the possibility of a black hole in his closet.
But he had spent enough nights in there hiding from Bump to know it was a safe space.
She did, however, raise a new question. How did Bump get come and go from under Oliver’s bed?
Oliver knew it wasn’t through his bedroom door, since that would cause Rocky to bark. Bump couldn’t pass through Oliver’s bedroom window either, because screens blocked it. He hated to admit it, but Tasha’s suggestion of an abyss under his bed made sense. He wondered if the hole under his bed possessed the power to pull him in, like the intergalactic abyss, then shuddered at the thought.
Josh’s eyes threw daggers at Tasha, then he said, “It doesn’t matter how Bump comes and goes from your room. The important thing is that he isn’t tormenting you anymore, right, buddy?” He gave Oliver a friendly nudge.
“No, I guess not.” Oliver said, biting his lip. The manner of Bump’s comings and goings mattered a great deal. What if the black hole under his bed allowed in other types of monsters? Or sucked him into an intolerable, monster-dominated land?
He refrained from asking Josh about any of this in Tasha’s presence. He didn’t want to give her more ammunition to use against him. It was the exact type of information she loved sharing with their parents, who would then subject Oliver to yet another absurd lecture on the imaginary nature of monsters.
Josh, absorbed by the comic book, failed to notice it was well past five o’clock, and thus jumped when Eddie walked through the front door. Josh packed up and headed home, saving the rest of the story for Monday afternoon.
After Josh left, Oliver, alone with his thoughts, imagined what would happen in his bedroom that night. Thrilled by imaging his new friend, his thoughts focused on the types of questions that young children often pondered: was he a kid monster, did he have parents, was he a boy? In his imagination, Bump became his best friend, and then Josh joined them, forming a formidable trio of musketeers. Oliver would become so popular that he would be invited to every birthday party, picked first for every team. Instead of being embarrassed by him, Tasha would be proud to have him as her younger brother.
Then Oliver’s mind drifted to where Bump went when not under his bed. That led Oliver back to the possibility of having a black hole under his bed. He couldn’t sleep above something as dangerous as that. His bed could be sucked in, with the hole spitting him out in a monster-filled universe full of creatures far more terrible than Bump. No one would know where to find him. He would be trapped. His appetite diminished like water down a bathtub drain. Instead of finishing his dinner, Oliver used his fork to push it around on his plate.
Eddie watched as Oliver’s mind’s descended into its own world. His son, who had woken up energized and confident that morning, now seemed weary and meek. Perhaps he was coming down with a cold.
Eddie asked, “Are you feeling ok?”
The question shook Oliver from his imagination with a force similar to that with which Bump shook his bed. “I’m not hungry,” he said.
He didn’t want to tell his father about his newer worries because he couldn’t explain them without talking about Bump, and that would only land him in trouble.
Eddie’s eyes narrowed and his mouth stretched. Cheese ravioli was Oliver’s favorite meal, yet he had finished less than half his normal serving. He moved around to Oliver’s side of the table and laid a soft hand on his forehead. Oliver didn’t have a fever, but this knowledge failed to ease his worry for his son. As a precaution, Eddie decided to put him to bed early.
Oliver dragged his way through the nighttime routine in a pointless attempt to delay his bedtime. The dread of what else might be under his bed far outweighed his enthusiasm for seeing Bump again. The closer he was to being ready for bed, the more flushed his face became. Even the promise of his father reading him a bedtime story wasn’t enough to motivate Oliver to go into his room. Instead, Eddie resorted to half coaxing, half pulling him, like a heavy suitcase with a broken wheel.
Once inside the room, Eddie froze, dropping Oliver’s hand. The room was an absolute disaster. He took in a deep breath of the musty odor of forgotten toys as he surveyed the damage.
Hurricane Oliver had tossed around every toy from the tidy cubbies which lined the room’s walls. He had even scattered the cubby bins around the room. Several drawers from his dresser were pulled open, the clothes strewn across the floor. Even the pictures hanging on his walls were skewed. If he didn’t know better, Eddie would have suspected a starving baby bear had ransacked the room searching for food.
Eddie froze with indecisiveness. His son was not destructive by nature. Instead he was driven by a powerful imagination and was far more inclined to quiet activities that fed his creativity than the type of play that led to this mess.
He stopped himself from reprimanding Oliver. He hoped to lull his son to sleep for a peaceful night then spend a quiet evening with his wife. That wouldn’t happen if he questioned Oliver regarding the mess. Instead, he decided to deal with the problem the following day.
For now, he would read his son a story from the book in his hand. Something light to send him off into an easy dreamland. Eddie stretched himself out next to Oliver on the bed then read aloud.
Oliver listened to his father’s soothing, measured voice. Although the story his father read was for babies, it also was one of Oliver’s nostalgic favorites. The story conjured soothing memories, but he fought the urge to sleep by forcing his eyes open. The longer he stayed awake, the longer his father would stay. The longer his father stayed, the further away his troubles would remain.
Eddie saw his son fighting sleep and decided it was time to bring out his most effective weapons for combatting a childish battle against sleep: soothing sounds and comforting caresses. He softened his voice. He stroked Oliver’s arm. Eddie Green was a patient, goal-oriented man. It took another twenty minutes, but eventually Oliver lost his struggle for wakefulness. After that, Eddie continued to read, to caress, for several more minutes, until he was certain Oliver slept deeply. Then he crept out of the room, careful to avoid squeaking the door’s hinges as he pulled it shut.
Oliver didn’t realize he slept through the entire night undisturbed until his sister woke him the next morning. Normally, the rough way she shook his body awake would have angered him, but that morning, he was too distracted to be angry. He wanted to know what had happened to Bump.
None of the various twists and turns his mind took the day before considered Bump failing to appear. Although Oliver knew Bump did not show up every night, he expected, after their exciting initial encounter, that Bump would feel curious enough about him to return straightaway. His shoulders slumped at the thought that his new friend found him boring, like the kids and school, and abandoned him.
Then it occurred to Oliver that perhaps Bump hadn’t deserted him; maybe he could not come back. There was a certain complexity that made travel in and out from under his bed difficult. Dangerous, even. Oliver shivered at the thought. Oliver needed to understand how Bump came and went. If there was a dark passage under his bed, he needed to know about it. But not by investigating it himself. He could never do that. The level of risk was too great. Instead, he needed Josh’s advice.
