Strange as IT Seems

Chapter 34: The Shadow Monster

"What level of Math would she be at? Should it just be Biology right now... Physics is way too advanced... And what English should it be? Should I do Shakespeare?" Mia mutters to herself.

"What are you doing Mia?" Georgie asks, coming to the kitchen table with his crayons and colouring book. He jumps on a chair and plants himself across the table from her.

"Just making a list of what books to buy for my tutoring job," she says. "Now the real work begins."

She looks up at her cousin as he dumps his box of crayons all over the table, letting them roll wherever they please and making a big mess. She has to move her plate with the half-eaten toast to avoid the avalanche of Crayola colours.

"Hey, didn't Uncle Zack put a desk in your room? Why aren't you colouring there?"

"Because it's next to my closet and that's where the monster is," Georgie explains, looking for a fresh page to start colouring. He then grabs his blue crayon and starts to scribble.

"Georgie, I had Uncle Zack check the walls. It was probably just a squirrel that you were hearing."

"But what about the lights?" he asks.

"The squirrel might have been chewing on the wires," Mia shrugs. She's with her Aunt Sharon at this point, Georgie needs to stop being afraid of the monsters in his closet. He's been coming into her room in the middle of the night with his blanket and pillow and sleeping down next to her bed. Maybe her lights are comforting to him because she sometimes forgets to unplug them when she's up late reading.

"No, that's how you tell the monsters are there. It makes the lights go crazy. It eats the light."

"Georgie..." Mia says firmly, giving him a look of annoyance.

The tiny kid looks down, insulted and ashamed, distracting himself with his colouring.

He begins colouring more aggressively, venting his frustrations at the fact that no adult will believe his stories. Mia can see tears forming in his eyes and he wipes his nose once to hide it.

"Hey buddy," she says, trying to hide the guilt of having to be hard on him. She slides an extra piece of white paper over to him. "How about you draw us a picture of the monster so we know what it looks like, and we can keep an eye out for it? And maybe when you draw him, you won't feel as scared anymore."

His eyes light up eagerly and he takes the paper to start drawing the monster.

"It has long arms like this..." he mutters to himself as he uses his black and brown crayons.

Mia goes back to her list of books and thinks about how much money she has. Hopefully, it's enough, but if she'll have to sacrifice one subject, it'd probably be Geography... plus there's always the library.

Bill walks into the kitchen and goes for the fridge. Pulling out a can of Coke, he opens it and turns to his cousin and brother, both involved in their own things.

"W-What's going on here?" he asks, walking over.

"Mia told me to draw a picture of the monster in my closet, so I'm not so scared anymore."

Bill and Mia exchange looks of acknowledgement that this was a good idea. As much as they loved Georgie, he had to stop coming into their rooms at night, interrupting their sleep.

He leans over to see what his brother's drawn so far. It's a large black and brown form with long and thin arms, legs, and fingers. He's working on the head, but it seems a lot smaller than the rest of the body, but that could just be that Georgie didn't know about body proportions yet.