Keys are often portals to excitement. Today I offer a short story for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

“Trouble Sleeping”
by Randy Briley

Mattie couldn’t see the monsters under her bed but she knew that they were there. She could hear the gnashing of their teeth and the stomping of their clawed feet as they carried her bed into the night. Her mother had warned that this would happen. If Mattie was cleverly mixing mud pies in the new blender, her mother said the usual grown up things like, “What were you thinking, young lady?” or “You just wait until your father gets home.” But if Mattie was being really, really clever and drawing fancy black spirals on her new white dress then her mother would add in, “Keep this up, Miss, and the things under your bed will carry you away.”
And now they had.

Mattie was afraid of monsters. She could imagine their long, spiked snouts and devilish eyes buried under black bushy eyebrows. Although she thought they might lead terribly interesting lives, she was in no hurry to be close enough to ask them about it.
“ Where are you taking me?” she asked the slithering thing below.
“ Nowhere,” hissed the creature.
“ Nowhere? Well, clearly you’re taking me somewhere. I can feel the bed moving and the air has gotten terribly cold.”
“ Grumpff,” the monster growled. This type of logic was well beyond its comprehension.
“ Well, if you can’t tell me where we’re going, can you at least tell me how long it will take to get there? I do have school tomorrow, you know.”
The monster glanced at its watch, which was rusted thick and missing several of its numbers. Unable to tell the time, it shrugged and instead dropped Mattie down a large, damp hole in the garden.

Mattie was most certain that she was indeed “somewhere”. The music was scratchy and she could feel all sorts of “things” dancing around her. She heard the monsters singing as they spun around the room and she laughed. They weren’t very good at it. Not only were they not carrying the tune, it sounded as if they had tripped it down the stairs. The squeals and screeches filled the cavern. Something wet and feathery landed on her head and asked her to dance. She thought it might be a crow, so she said yes, as she had always liked crows. With her partner, she jumped around the room trying her best to dance as if she had tentacles instead of legs. Slink right, one, two, three…slink left, two, three, four. When the song stopped the monsters cheered for her.
“ Horraaah!” one of them screeched as goo shot from its nose.
 “ Yipee!" yelled another, banging its tail against its belly like a drum.
After the third dance the monsters taught Mattie their monster song. The words were easy once you understood that you just made them up as you went along. They sang late into the night and danced their scary dance. After midnight, Mattie finally went to sleep and dreamt of bumpy things with horns and claws and shining, smiling eyes.

The next day as Mattie woke, she was back in bed and her mother was shaking her awake.
“ Mattie, you’ll be late for school.”
Mattie looked around the room. “Where are all the monsters?” she asked, still groggy from the dancing.
“ Monsters? Well, you be good today, young lady, or they will carry you away tonight for sure,” her mother warned.
Mattie only smiled a monstrous smile and slithered out of bed.

© 2006 Randy Briley. Do not use without permission.