Daddy had always told me there was no such thing as monsters, and I do believe him, or at least I try to. As I lay in bed tonight, trying to escape to a land of dreams over the noise of Mommy and Daddy arguing, I am sure that I can hear its loud breathing from under my bed. It comes in rasps, sometimes quick, but sometimes slow. Whenever Daddy comes in it always sucks in its breath, as if it couldn’t stand his presence. When Daddy finally leaves again I can hear its long sigh of relief as it returns to its slow inhale and exhale pattern. I try to ignore it, and when I can’t I plug my ears, but it never goes away. Tonight the monster was more restless than usual, and my brain wouldn’t stop thinking terrorizing thoughts about it. I tossed back and forth until I heard the thud of Daddy’s feet come down the hall.

You might think that staying under a little girl’s bed is a very cramped and unheard of thing, but I don’t mind, it’s what my class does. I’ll give you a brief summary of how we work: there’s a council of high monsters, one for each class of monster. There’s the Scarers, the Halloween Specializers, Prowlers (they work directly with the council), and then there’s my class; the Supporters. My class is considered the lightweight in the monster world, but to us we feel (and know) our class is best because we get to help children, not scare them.

When Daddy’s thudding feet passed my room I gave a sigh of relief: if he knew I was still awake he’d probably yell at me again. I knew that Daddy only wanted the best for me, but sometimes I just couldn’t sleep. Once I heard his snores from the other room I hopped down to the floor. I knew I wasn’t “hearing the wind” or “just imagining it”; there was definitely something under my bed. I crouched down and remembered the time when I had done this with Daddy. Of course nothing had been under my bed, but Daddy had been wrong about my sticker collections, so maybe he was wrong again about a monster under my bed.

When she pulled up the hem of the blanket I let her see me; I let her see my glowing eyes and the dark fur that lined my body. I saw her eyes pop out as she dropped the blanket and scuffle back. She was silent for a minute, but then she lifted the hem of the blanket again and peered in at me. I let my eyes soften and began to let out a sound that was a mix between a purr and mumble. I needed to show her that I wasn’t there to harm her. She gave me a curious glance then began to reach her hand in toward me, and I reached my furry paw out to her. She wasn’t at all afraid. In fact her mouth started to curve into a smile. I responded with my own grin, though I’m sure it looked somewhat hideous. The last person I was assigned to had been an older boy; when he found me he had run screaming to his parents. Little Kate was different. She didn’t believe what the other kids had told her about monsters.

Today when I think about my distraught childhood I can’t help but think about the black-furred monster under my bed, though I shouldn’t call him a monster because in fact he was quite the opposite. If I ever had a bad day I was able to confide in him with the utmost confidence that he wouldn’t tell, because where would he go, and who would he tell? Remembering the day he had left me is worse than thinking of my parents divorce. I had never been close to my parents, the monster had been my closest friend.

The day I left Kate was dark and gray, even the birds had quit their morning songs. I didn’t have anything to pack, I had brought nothing with me and I knew I couldn’t keep anything that Kate gave me. To this day I remember scrawling the words, those horrible parting words, that the council had forced me to write. I had crawled out from under her bed for the first time in years, I had felt the sun on my back and how nice it felt to stretch my long tired and underused limbs. I went over to her desk with her miniature pony and sticker collection, picked a glittery pen and piece of paper and thought about staying.

He had scribbled twelve words onto a torn piece of Hello Kitty paper and taped it on the underside of my bed. He had strategically put it in a place I was sure to look at night, where I would look for many nights after in case he returned. Today as a nineteen year old it makes me smile to think of the relationship we had, to know of the secrets he had kept for me and how he had always been there for me. I haven’t lost that scrap of Hello Kitty paper either.

When I had finished writing her it turned out to be pages long, far too long to leave for a girl who would soon forget about me. I tore off the last part of the letter to leave for her and took the pages with me as my keepsake of her, so I would never forget how much a little girl had made me feel. In the part that I had left her I had scrawled “You, my dear Kate, are a light that refuses to be extinguished.”

He had written me this small note, a token for me to have. When I had found the small scrap of paper it had been close to the hour of midnight, and I couldn’t hold back the tears that stung my eyes. I began to sob, and I tried to hide the tears, but who would hold me now when I cried? As the tears continued to rain down my cheeks I heard the fighting cease in the other room, and then the familiar thud thud thud of footsteps coming from the hall. I threw the note under my bed, silently vowing to myself that I would never pick it up again, and tried to hide my soaked face.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed young lady?” Daddy’s stern face peered in through the crack in my door.
“I-I fell off my bed,” I had never lied before, and I especially shouldn’t have told my first to Daddy. If he found out I was lying to him he was sure to tell Mommy and get me in trouble again.

He opened the door, picked me up as if I were a foreign object and placed me back in bed. “You’re ten years old now Kate, I don’t think you fall off the bed anymore.” He gave me another stern look when he got to the door. “We have a long day tomorrow at the lawyer’s, so get some rest.” With that he closed the door and his thud thud thud went back down the hall.

Little Kate, or rather I should just call her Kate now since she’s grown, was never afraid. She never thought the worst of me, instead she saw the best. I was grateful that I’d gotten to protect her, gotten to keep her secrets and tell her it was all going to be OK at the end of the day. You see, the other monster classes ruined it for my class. They left kids thinking that that we “monsters” who live under their beds are there to hurt them, when in reality, we’re there to scare away the thing that scare and hurt them the most: their parents.