My dad can’t tell me nothing. I just don’t care what he says. I care, but everything he says annoys me. It’s his timing. He’s always disrupting what I’m doing. If I’m sleeping he wakes me up, if I’m hanging out with Mommy he barges in, if I’m playing with Legos or my Ultraman guys, he’s there saying it’s time to pick them up. So I pretend he doesn’t exist and keep doing what I’m doing. If he yells, I ignore him even more.
But if Maurice comes in, I do what ever he says.
Maurice is a goblin. He’s real ugly. If I don’t do what he says, he threatens to eat me, like he did to his own goblin kids when they didn’t listen to him. So I listen.
One time when Maurice was brushing my teeth, I wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing–I was playing with the cap from the toothpaste–and he got mad and growled at me. I ran out of the bathroom, toothpaste drool running down my chin and onto my shirt. I would have hid under the bed but that’s where he lives. It’s good that he’s lives there, because he keeps other monsters away. He’s the goblin I know.
Mornings go like this.
I wake up and shout, “MOM!” I’m not scared, haven’t had a nightmare, and I’m not ready to get up to pee. I just always yell for my mom at four in the morning. And she comes. She lays down with me, and I fall back asleep happy to have her there.
Next thing I know, my dad is in my room.
“Hey, Bud, it’s time to get up.”
“Get out of here,” I say.
“Somebody’s a grump.”
“I don’t think he slept well,” Mom says. And Dad shrugs and goes to the kitchen. He’s in there, making lots of noise, putting dishes away, making tea just so I can’t get back to sleep.
I lay my head on my mommy’s belly. She pets my head, and I look up at her. She’s beautiful. She has a small nose and almond shaped eyes that can smile and frown as well as her mouth. Her short black hair curves away from her face in slopes shaped like bananas.
She says, “Mommy loves you so, so, so much. I wish we can spend the whole day like this.” Mommy’s breath stinks, but I don’t mind. I want to spend the day with her, too.
But Dad calls from the kitchen. “It’s after seven.”
“I hate Dad,” I say.
Mommy’s eyes frown, and she sticks her bottom lip out.
If I don’t get ready in time, mom gets mad at me. But Maurice almost never comes out in the mornings. I think he doesn’t like the light.
But he shows up at night. Regularly.
“Time to brush your teeth.” My dad says.
I don’t respond. I’ve got a space dragon guy going with my Legos. It’s got wings and a tail that shoots. I show Dad.
He pretends to be interested. Says I did a good job. Points to the tail and says, “Cool you made a handle for your airplane.”
He’s clueless. I show him how to hold it by the sides. Like this:
He still grabs it by the tail and says, “See, this is a cool handle.”
“If you hold him by the tail, Dad, he’ll bite your hand off.”
“Oh, okay. Better not do that then. Go brush your teeth.”
“Two more minutes.”
“You said that two minutes ago.”
I go back to working on the dragon. Dad finally gets the message and leaves.
I play. I don’t keep time. I don’t care about time. Time is my dad’s thing. He’s always talking about it like he’s got a clock for a brain. I just play.
It must be dark out because Maurice comes in. “Time to brush your teeth, kid.” I’m not sure why Maurice thinks it’s so important for me to brush my teeth. His own teeth are frightening. Every one is pointy and crusty with yellow gunk. The inside of this mouth is bloody, like he’s just eaten another one of his kids. Maybe he doesn’t want my teeth to look like his. But whatever the reason, if that’s what Maurice wants me to do, I’ll do it partly out of fear, and partly because he’s so much cooler than my dad. Maurice understands.
I hold up my dragon, so he can see it.
“Cool Dragon,” Maurice says.
“Can I take it in the bathroom.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks, Maurice.” And off I go.
While brushing my teeth, Maurice tells me all about being a Goblin. About the wars they had with Elves a long time ago. And he tells me about Trolls–famous ones from stories like Beowulf, and “Three Billy Goats Gruff,” and he tells about a hobbit named Gollum who was turned into a Goblin by a magic ring. I spit toothpaste and say I want a ring like that, so I can be a Goblin too.
Maurice lifts me off the stool and sets me on the floor. “Into bed with you, or I’ll have a kid snack tonight.” He pushes me toward the bedroom. He’s a little rough, but I don’t mind. That’s just the way Goblins are.
A few minutes later. Maurice is in my room again.
He doesn’t like to read to me. He says he doesn’t read good. But whenever he does read, it’s fine. He reads as well as my dad, better even. He tells me that reading aloud is hard for Goblins, it makes them loose their breath.
But I’ve got Where the Sidewalk Ends opened to his favorite poem, “Monsters.” And Maurice can’t resist to read it. So he lays down beside me on the bed and let’s me see the drawing. There’s a boy laying in bed, like me, his eyes are wide and his hair is standing up. His dad’s legs are sticking out from the bottom of the bed. With a jagged toothy grin, Maurice begins to read.
“There are hungry monsters under my bed,
Growlin’ at me ‘cause they haven’t been fed…”
When he comes to his favorite part, he can’t hardly read because he’s half laughing half drooling…
…So just to prove that Harry was silly,
Under the bed crawled Mr. McGilly.
Harry heard a “chomp,” he heard a “slurp,”
He heard a “gulp,” he heard a “burp.”
And now little Harry sleeps sound in his bed,
‘Cause there are no monsters, as father said.
(And if there are–well–they’ve been fed.)
Then Maurice reads me a few more poems: “Enter This Deserted House,” “Worst,” and “The Googies Are Coming.” He tells me it’s time to sleep, and I say okay, because that’s what you tell Goblins.
Then I say, “Let’s make a deal.”
“What is it?”
“You hide under the bed, and when my dad comes in, I’ll ask him to see if there are monsters under there. When he looks, you eat him, okay?”
Then Maurice reaches up and peels his face off. And there’s my dad! He says, “Hey, you’re not getting rid of me that easy. Now go to sleep.”
See? Dad always messes up everything.
“Okay,” I say. “But tomorrow night you have to be a Clone Trooper.”
