“No,” I assured him, “I’m not.”
His frown returned. “Then what’s the matter?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I think maybe I’m afraidforthe monster.”
“I’ve read this one before,” volunteered Maya, a five-year-old from Sunny Street Day Care. “The monster is okay at the end. Keep reading, you’ll see.”
I nodded, raising the book again. “That’s a great idea.”
I kept reading and turning pages, but I only partially recovered after my initial lapse.
Still, I got through the other books and, miraculously, a precarious rendition of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” before finally wrapping up.
Ramsey hurried over to me as I started packing my books back into myDon’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!tote that I’d purchased at an ALA conference a few years back.
“The monster turned out okay,” said Ramsey. “Did you see?”
“I sure did,” I replied, offering him the warmest smile I could conjure.
“All the monsters did,” he added. “Even Grover.”
“That Grover,” I said, referring to the other classic I’d added in,The Monster at the End of This Bookby Jon Stone and Mike Smollin. “He was worried about nothing, wasn’t he?”
“He didn’t know he was the monster,” Ramsey observed. “But… he also didn’t know that he wasn’t.”
I blinked at this and frowned. Then, finally, out of nowhere, some much-needed relief washed through me.
Children. In so many ways, they were so much wiser than adults. Always, they had been my best teachers.
“You know, Ramsey,” I said, “you’re right. Grover did all that fretting for nothing, didn’t he? He was afraid of the monster because he didn’t knowhewas the monster. At the same time, he didn’t know that he wasn’t really a monster at all. Not like he was thinking. Not like he feared.”
“Yeah,” said Ramsey. “So nobody got eaten or anything.”
He patted my knee with one umber hand, a gesture that melted my entire heart—what was left of it at this point anyway.
“That’s lucky,” I replied with another short laugh that made Ramsey’s smile broaden. “You know, Ramsey, you really helped me to see things more clearly.”
And I wasn’t just telling him that. He had.
Because his words served as a reminder that Grim wasn’t a monster, either. Not really. And if he wasn’t a monster, not the truly scary sort, then what did he have to fear?
The powers that be…
If they—The Few—cared enough about collecting human souls and seeing them to their various destinies, if they cared enough to give Faust, a man who had notoriously sold his soul to the devil, refuge from literal demons, then they couldn’t beallbad.
And if they weren’t all bad, Grim was likely… okay.
If they were looking out for Johann, Flora, and Cedric, they would look out for Grim, too.
Right?
“Don’t worry, Miss Hart,” said Ramsey as he rushed in to give me a hug. “The monsters all turned out fine.”
“Thanks, Ramsey,” I whispered, patting his back before he turned and hurried off to line up with his friends for craft time.
For a while after that sweet interaction, things got better.Igot better.
I started to focus again. But then, when three o’clock rolled around, my terror came crashing down on me all over again when Hunter entered the children’s department—something he never did.
