A MONSTER IN MY ROOM - SAMPLE

About this book Stories help children to expand their imagination and to understand their experiences and their feelings.

The book A Monster In My Room invites the reader to reflect about that small “fear” which everyone felt one day during the night alone in the darkness of the room. A small fear which many times disappears when we fall asleep, but sometimes takes a while to go away...

Our senses sharpen and transform the smallest sound in a loud noise, a fleeting shadow in a frightening vision.

What to do? What to believe? How to convince adults that it is not only imagination?

Will friends laugh if they know?

Written in the first person, A Monster In My Room describes how a pretty smart boy solved this situation.

It also shows that fear is not exclusively a child thing.

Adults also feel it.

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Copyright © 2020 Toni & Laíse Direção editorial Aloma Carvalho

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Revisão Maria Gabriela Alzueta Pós diagramação Daniela Fujiwara

Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação (CIP) Toni Um monstro no meu quarto / Toni & Laíse. - 1ª ed. - São Paulo: Bamboozinho, 2020.

24 p. : il. , 21 x 28 cm ISBN 978-85-93655-99-9

CDD 028.5

1. Ficção infantojuvenil brasileira. 2. Literatura infantojuvenil brasileira. I. Laíse. II. Título. Índices para catálogo sistemático: 1. Ficção: literatura infantil - 028.5 2. Ficção: literatura infantojuvenil - 028.5

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To Danilo and Susana.

It was immediately after my birthday that I saw it for the first time.

I already knew that it was there, already had heard some strange noises, but was afraid to look. But now I was eight years old and was too grown up to be afraid. So, that night, when I heard one of those noises, I gathered all my bravery, leaned on the fringe of the mattress and looked. And two big yellow eyes looked back. I shouted and ran away. Entered my parents’ room, ran to their bed and got under the covers, between them. They were as scared as I was and when they asked me what had happened, I answered stuttering that there was a monster under my bed.

“What a silly thing...” said my father. “Aren’t you too grown up for that, son?” asked my mother.

I asked to no avail, they didn’t let me sleep with them. My father took me back to my bedroom, turned the light on and made me look under the bed: there was nothing there anymore. He kept saying that it had been only a nightmare, fault of these programs I see on TV, that monsters do not exist, etc.

After that, he said that I had to wake up early to go to school next day, kissed me goodnight, turned off the light and left, closing the door. I remained a good five minutes there, totally still, in complete silence. I turned over and was already thinking that my father was right and that all had been really a dream when I heard the noise of a toilette flush in the bathroom. Then, steps in the corridor, each time closer, until my door opened and closed again, and the steps became each time near towards my bed. I had no courage to turn around and look.

I felt a bump in the bed. The monster was back. It had only gone to the bathroom. I couldn’t look again under the bed. I stayed awake all night, listening to the strange noises it made. Next morning, I went to school sleeping on the bus and, during class, I was so sleepy. I only woke up during Physical Education, when a ball was thrown in my face while playing at goalkeeper (at least, it wasn’t a goal).

I had no courage to tell anybody at school about the monster. I was sure that if I would tell it would be a big mockery. Certainly, if another boy would tell me such a thing, I would laugh a lot at his story.

In that afternoon, I went to the supermarket with my mother and once more I had a big itch to broach the subject.

She realized it and like mothers always, or almost always, know what we are thinking, she started asking that if I thought it was true there was a monster under my bed, the cleaning lady would have stumbled on it.

And, if she had stumble on it under my bed, the least she would do is to ask for a raise… I had to admit that it made sense. Imagine: the cleaning lady was scared stiff of a cockroach (just like my mother), if she had stumble with a monster while cleaning under my bed, she would scream for the whole building to hear it.

We dined without my father that night, since he worked until late that night. He arrived so tired that skipped dinner.

He went straight to bed and when I went to say good night to him, he was already snoring. That reminded me the monster.

It was then, in that instant, that occurred to me why the cleaning lady had never seen the monster. It was more or less like my father: it was at home only during the night.

During the day, it went... well, I don’t know where it went during the day, but at night it came under my bed.

I decided to wait and see its arrival. It passed one hour, two hours...

I read all my comics twice, and the monster didn’t show up. I was falling asleep when I felt thirst. I went very slowly to the kitchen without turning a light on, not to awake my father and my mother. After sipping a rest of the mango juice that was left from dinner, I felt also a little appetite. Then... well, I knew it was wrong, that I shouldn’t, that my mother would not like it at all if she discovered it, but even so, I opened the cupboard and grabbed a package of biscuits stuffed with chocolate.

I went back to my bedroom very slowly. I jumped into bed, lighted my lamp and, trying not to make too much noise, opened the package. Then, very slowly and with great care not to let any tiny crumbs fall on the bed or on the floor, I started to devour the biscuits. After eating two or three biscuits I decided to open one in the middle to lick the filling. I believe I forced it too much, since the biscuit escaped from my hand and, after kicking on the board of my bed, fell to the floor.

I had to remove it out of there and couldn’t leave any small crumbs, because if my mother noticed, it would be an incredible scolding.

I stretched out of bed, and when I was catching the biscuit, my blood froze in my veins. An enormous blue hand, came out from under my bed, caught the biscuit and returned to the darkness. In the next seconds, I stayed motionless listening to a horrible sound of monster chewing:

Then, after a silence that seemed to linger forever, I heard for the first time the voice of the monster under my bed.

What did it say? Only one word:

It ate the whole package, and I almost pee in my bed. I woke up in the morning with my mother shaking me and got the biggest scolding for eating chocolate biscuit in my bedroom. The monster had made a big mess! I couldn’t possibly tell my mother that I had slept given chocolate biscuits to the monster that stays under my bed, as well as it was not possible that a monster would not make a mess while eating chocolate biscuits.

I got the scolding in silence and went to school thinking about the situation. There was a monster under my bed, but it was not there during the day. It was real. So real that it went to the bathroom and loved chocolate biscuits. But how was I to convince anyone to believe this?

Was there a way to make my parents see the monster? Or was it better if they wouldn’t see it? How to know it, the monster could get mad and devour both. And me? Would it be contented with chocolate biscuits every night?

Then, I had the idea to take a picture of it (no one would doubt a photo).

When the night came, I was there once more waiting for the monster, only ready to take its picture.

I stayed looking at the clock, tic-tac, one hour passed, tic-tac, tic-tac, looked under the bed, tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac, it wasn’t, tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac, what a torpor, tic-tac, what a bore, tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac, heeeeeiiiiiii, tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac, slept holding the camera in my hand, tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac, creak... the door opened, I woke up in a snap and started to shoot the camera.

Want to know what came out?

Alas: a lot of photos of my father in pajamas and without glasses.

My mother heard a noise and sent him to see if I was having another of those nightmares with monsters under my bed.

“What are you doing, boy? Gone crazy”? He was already angry enough and I thought better not to disclosure that I was trying to photograph the monster. He sent me to bed straightaway, since it was late, and left, closing the door.

I remained seated in my bed really frustrated.

Why the monster didn’t show up?

Then I remembered the noise my mother had heard which had made my father come to my bedroom.

I looked under the bed, and the monster smiled at me with a yellow smile.

I spent the rest of that night listening to the tic-tac of the clock and the strange noises made by the monster, until I slept.

On the next day, during breakfast, I decided to broach the subject with my father and, as soon as I started to talk about the noise that my mother had heard, he already cut me short with an explanation: Air in the pipe, son. They are fixing the floor above and had to interrupt the water supply yesterday afternoon.

I went to complain about the noise with the syndic and he explained. There was nothing but this… How is that possible? Why adults had a logical explanation for everything?

Air in the pipes nothing of the sort! It was the monster under my bed, hey! I was dying to start a discussion with my father right away, but he was late, gave me a kiss and left hurried to work.

I spent the whole morning at school thinking about a way of making someone believe me, up to the moment when the teacher came to talk with me. She sat beside me and said that I was very distracted lately and asked if I had any problem. No, teacher... Imagine, no problem... only a blue noisy monster which lives under my bed and that I cannot show to anyone. Besides this, everything is fine...

Well, I didn’t say this to her; I wished but, instead, said only “No, nothing, teacher”. Before she rose, she said that I was not to forget that homework for tomorrow was an interview with someone from the family, and left.

I am glad that she mentioned it, since I had already forgotten!

The teacher was right. I was very distracted lately. If things stayed as they were, I was going to flop at school.

Then, it would be my father and my mother that would turn into monsters with me.

I tried to interview my mother, but she went out before I could speak with her and only came back hours later with her hair all set and anxious because her nail polish was fresh.

Fine, I decided to interview my father. But it didn’t work: he came in a hurry, got into the shower, shaved again and when I saw, he was tying a tie in his neck. Where were they going so dressed up? And why they were not taking me?

“Your father has a business dinner, son. We are going to dine with a foreign client and his wife and you will stay with your aunt. Why don’t you interview her?” said my mother telling me goodbye, while my aunt remarked how beautiful she was and how my father was elegant up to the moment they entered the lift.

The first thing my aunt did was to order pizza, which I found great, since I adore pizza. I told her about the interview and she said fine, but only after pizza. The pizza arrived and it was delicious.

My aunt ate a lot more than I did, but even so three pieces were left, that my voracious aunt said would eat it later on.

I thought that finally I was going to have my interview, but to no avail. “I have to make a telephone call, darling. Very quickly, we will talk right away, right away, and started blabbing out of control with a friend on the telephone, and talked, talked, talked, talked, talked, talked. Didn’t leave the phone anymore.

One hour passed and nothing. I thought I was going to miss my interview, and I waited so long, that got hungry. I decided to eat another slice of pizza, heated in the microwave, but when I arrived at the kitchen, where was the pizza?

The monster! If it liked chocolate biscuit, why wouldn’t it like pizza? Then, I had an idea: why not interview the monster?

At that moment I thought it was perhaps a crazy idea, but after all, I hadn’t been able so far to interview anyone and it was getting late. I found the pizza box (empty) beside my bed.

Under it, the monster was making its strange noises.

I sat on the bed and tried to think of a good question to start the interview. Up to now, I had never tried to talk to the monster. Truly, the only thing I had made so far was to feel afraid of it.

My heart was accelerated, but I breathed very deeply, closed my eyes and asked what was its name.

There was a long silence, and then it answered. I was surprised with its name. I don’t even know how to write its name. Don’t even know how to repeat its name. I had hoped that it would be a monster’s name (like Godzilla, for instance) but, since its name was so difficult to say, I asked if I could call it only monster. After another stretch in silence, it answered yes.

I asked if it had always being a monster or if it was a scientist turned into a monster. It answered me that nobody turned into a monster: “monster is already born a monster”.

Look at this, I was already talking to it! More than that: it was helping with my homework. Or, even better, it was my homework!

I asked what monsters ate; it replied that everything.

I asked what they like to drink; it also replied everything, but would prefer soft drinks since it helped with noises: “BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRP, you see?”.

I wanted to know what it did during the day, and it replied that it was none of my business.

Then I asked if it was related to any famous monster, like the Monster of the Black Lagoon, or Monster of the Ness Lake, or Big Foot, or the Abominable Snow Man, and it replied that they were all its cousins. I spent a long time talking with the monster under my bed and ended up discovering a lot of things about monsters of which I had never heard before.

For instance, I discovered that their favorite dish is feijoada, that monsters never get sick (maximum, colds), only appear at night, and that there are monsters of all kinds, sizes, colors and temperaments.

They are born already big, know how to speak several languages, love to read, don’t like gymnastics, usually hate arithmetic, only go to the beach at night, like to draw, prefer rock to samba and, absolutely hate pagode.

I don’t remember the moment I blacked out, but my father woke me up and complained that I hadn’t even put on my pajamas to go to bed.

My mother complained that I shouldn’t eat in bed, least of all pizza. My aunt complained that the one who wanted to eat the rest of the pizza was she.

I heard everything, dressed quickly and went to school to deliver my interview.

I was imagining what would be the reaction of my teacher when she read. After all, I didn’t interview my father, my mother or my aunt, like everybody. I interviewed the monster that stays under my bed.

Don’t know, maybe she would decide to call on my parents to talk: “The little one gone crazy finally: he needs to be hospitalized...” or something similar.

But maybe she would like it, feeling that I had a lot of imagination. I would have to wait and see.

Finally, I had a quiet day. I wasn’t worried anymore about the monster. On that night, I didn’t worry to catch it arriving or tried to show it to anyone.

When I perceived that it was there under my bed, I noticed that I wasn’t afraid of it anymore, nor of the noises that it made, nor the bumps that it gave my bed once in a while.

I think that the difference is that now I knew it better.

But now there was something I wanted to know and hadn’t asked during the interview. I wanted to know why me. Why, among so many boys and girls it could have chosen, it had come precisely under my bed. The answer was quick: “Because you believe…”

Next morning, at school, when the teacher returned the corrected interviews, I had a surprise: she had given me the best grade of the class. And, more surprisingly yet, besides the grade there was a little note that said like this: “We need to talk. Look for me after class.” And there I went after class to the teacher’s room looking for her.

I already imagined what she wanted: she was going to say that she liked very much my interview, but monsters don’t exist, and all that blah-blah-blah.

But do you know something? This did not bother me any longer.

So what that nobody believed me? I was really no longer afraid of the monster...

Then, there was no problem if nobody believed in it. I believed and that was all!

The teacher and I sat on a sofa, and she got really close to me and asked if that story of the monster was true or was it invented.

I even thought of lying, but told the truth: “Yes, teacher.

There is a monster under my bed.”

When she heard that, she seemed very happy and gave a little cry. Now this, why did she become like this?

She got even closer, looked to the sides, to see if there was no one else around, and whispered in my ear: “I also have a monster under my bed”. Gee! For this I couldn’t expect… could I? So that was the reason why she gave me such a good grade. She was happy to discover that there was a student that also had a monster under the bed.

Her problems were very similar to mine. At her house, no one saw the monster; not even her husband who slept in the same bed!

But I believe that her situation was worse than mine, since she is not a child, people immediately assumed she was working too much, was very stressed, should go see a psychiatrist. No one thought that it was only her imagination or a nightmare.

Anyway, it was very good for me and for her to discover that we had something very uncommon in common. Thereafter, the teacher started telling me every day what had happened with her monster and I what had happened with mine.

We discovered that our monsters were much alike: liked more or less the same things and even made noises alike.

But my monster was blue and hers was grey. With time, we just encountered other people that had a monster under the bed too.

Even in my school, only in another term, there was a girl of high school that also had one.

The pharmacist of the square in front of the gas station two streets below mine also had one. The Physical Education teacher of another school in which my teacher gave classes, also. And these were only from the neighborhood. We heard that the hostess of a famous TV newscast had two, a couple. The same way they say that an ex-mayor of our town had a very big monster and that the president of a big bank had one here and another in his beach house.

You know? It is not very difficult to get smitten to monsters after knowing them better and lose the fear. Monsters are great listeners. You start to talk to them, complaining about that unfair grade, the scolding that your father gave you, the silly present you got from your aunt, or that beautiful and choosy girl from your school that ignores you, of your mother that does not allow you to see everything you want on the TV, etc.

A monster never tires of listening to you. You can talk, talk, and it stays there making its noises, while you unburden.

It is true that they are a lot of work also.

Mainly to eat, since, as you know… they eat EVERYTHING. If you start to notice that some things are missing from your house without leaving any trace (anything: a toy, an old slipper, the TV remote control, leftovers of pizza...), be ready: probably there is a monster in your house.

I finally learned that not always they remain under the bed, even though it is their favorite spot. Sometimes, they stay in the cracks of the sofa, in the laundry’s cupboards, (mainly on those that are only opened ever so often) on the section under the oven, behind the refrigerator, under the water tank, and in some other places (suffice to be a little dark and untidy, as normally is under people’s bed).

One day, my monster didn’t show up. Never imagined that it could happen and that I would worry because there was no monster under my bed. What could have happened to it?

I stayed waiting awake a long time and nothing. I slept, woke up suddenly, looked under the bed and nothing. It did not come yet.

What could have happened to my monster?

Has it experienced some sort of accident? Has it got lost? Has it got hurt? And if it was because of something I said?

Have I offended it? Will it come back? What a bore! I have felt so much fear to have a monster under my bed, and was now afraid that I would never again have a monster under my bed. Morning arrived, and my father came to talk to me. But I was very upset and didn’t want to talk to him.

I profited that I was already a little bit late for school and left (by the way, I was crazy to arrive at school and talk to my teacher, to tell her that my monster had disappeared).

She also found it strange. Of all the people she knew or had heard, that had monsters, they would only disappear if the person would stop believing. Since I continued believing, there was no reason for the monster to have gone. I spent the day worried if the monster was going to return that night or not. After dinner, my father said that he needed to speak with me, but again I didn’t want to talk to him: I said that I was really tired, went to my bedroom and closed the door. I remained wishing my father wouldn’t come after me, since I was afraid that he would scare the monster and the monster wouldn’t come.

Besides, if my father would ask why I was so bothered, it was impossible to tell him that I was concerned with the monster, which hadn’t shown up the previous night, and that I was afraid it would not come evermore.

Again, I stayed looking at the clock and no monster. Suddenly, my father came into my bedroom.

“Son, there is a monster under my bed...”

That’s what had happened: my father had started to believe in monsters, and the monster had decided to spend some time under his bed. Hence, my father wanted to chat with me.

He had heard the noises, felt the bumps and believed already, but today, finally, he looked under the bed and the monster smiled at him. I taught my father not to be afraid of the monster. Actually, I taught him everything that I knew about monsters, and he ended up as friendly to the monster as I. Now, the monster spends a while under my bed and a while under the bed of my parents. And my mother?

Well, she still does not believe in monsters. Besides, she has a deep sleep (sleeps like a rock) and thinks that those noises of the monster come from my father’s belly... she is always saying that he eats a lot of junk food on the street.

But I know that everything is a question of time. One day, she is going to start believing, a very tenuous belief, but it will be sufficient for her to begin to see the monster under the bed.

TONI AND LAÍSE RODRIGUES ARE THE PARENTS OF DANILO AND SUSANA. THEY LIVE IN A BIG CITY AND BELIEVE IN MONSTERS UNDER THE BED.

BY PREPARING THIS BOOK’S ILLUSTRATIONS, THE AUTHORS CREATED MONSTERS WITH DIFFERENT SIZES, COLORS AND SHAPES ON EACH DOUBLE PAGE. SOME ARE VERY SCARY, AND OTHERS ARE EVEN FRIENDLY. BUT THE TEXT HIDES PART OF THE ILLUSTRATION AND THE READER IS INVITED TO IMAGINE THOSE MONSTERS AS IN A GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK IN WHICH ONLY A PART OF THE BODY STAYS OUTSIDE OF THE HIDING PLACE. MADE FROM COMPUTER GRAPHIC RESOURCES, THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THIS BOOK INVITE THE READER TO LET GO HIS IMAGINATION AND MAKE OF READING A GREAT PLEASURE.

Tips to explore the book A child could read the book alone and afterwards tell family and classmates about the story.

An adult could read the book for a child (or group of children), pausing in the reading to comment on each of the monsters, which appears in the book.

After reading the book, it is possible to draw one, two, three... how many monsters the reader believes that one day saw under the bed, inside the closet, at the end of the corridor, behind the door or anywhere your imagination say that they exist (for keeps or only making believe).

HAVE YOU EVER AWAKED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WITH THE FEELING THAT THERE WAS SOMEONE ELSE IN YOUR BEDROOM? HAVE YOU EVER FOUND YOURSELF LOOKING UNDER THE BED AFTER HEARING A CREAK? ARE YOU THE ONLY ONE AT HOME WHO PREFERS TO SLEEP WITH THE LIGHTS ON? IF YOU ANSWERED YES TO AT LEAST ONE OF THESE QUESTIONS, THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU. VISIT OUR WEBSITE!