Peeves. Mike Waes Van

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СКАЧАТЬ in shock because I couldn’t really form another word. I just pointed with a confused and freaked-out look on my face. In response, the creature opened its mouth. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. “We need to keep this place neat for clients so I can actually afford these clothes you toss on the floor,” she continued, talking right over the noise as if she couldn’t hear anything.

      She must have seen the colour drain from my face because she sat me down on the edge of my bed and felt my forehead. “Honey, you look pale. Are you sick? You’re sweating. Do you have chills? It’s not a fever. Did you sleep okay?” Mom never seemed to run out of things to ask me, even though I never have enough answers for her. Especially while staring at an incredibly loud and furry monster that seemed to not exist to her at all. “I really hope you aren’t coming down with something,” she continued. “Is this about yesterday? Are you still worked up over it? Or are you just angling for a mental health day here?” I didn’t feel sick, but I did feel super annoyed at the onslaught of questions when the only relevant question anyone should be asking was, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” And then, without warning, I sneezed again.

      “Maybe it’s just allergies. Do you think it’s allergies? You don’t usually have allergies, but sometimes they develop,” she pointed out. And as she kept talking, I saw something else develop.

      My sneeze had taken me by surprise, so I didn’t have time to cover it up. And right on the floor where it had sprayed, I saw the tiny, clear drops start to pull together into a translucent glob of goo, almost like a booger … but bigger … and it moved! It stretched and expanded and started to form a mosslike film on its surface that quickly turned into a bluish fur. Then a pair of eyes popped through, looking all around like it was fascinated at everything it saw.

      “Slim, honey, just breathe. You don’t want a panic attack now,” Mom said, attempting to calm me down. “Remember what your therapist said about breathing through it?” I nodded, trying to breathe, hoping she was right. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the new little monster.

      The fur ball with eyes rocked back and forth until POP – a pair of arms sprang from its sides, and it pressed its paws against the floor and pushed itself up, stretching its potato-sack body until it was standing on two little feet. It rubbed its head until a pair of pointy ears flicked out. And now this second furry little creature was looking up at me with the biggest, most curious eyes I’d ever seen – like it wanted to know all it could about every single thing it saw. A few crooked little teeth jutted out from its head as its furry face formed a mouth. When it opened, I was expecting another round of beeping noises, but that’s not what this one did at all; instead, it asked, “Am I an allergy?”

      That was enough to send me skittering off the bed and on top of the noisy creature on the other side. I could feel it squish below me, like a deflating air mattress. It was a weird, unpleasant sensation, and when I rolled off, the noisy thing was flattened on the floor. I crab-crawled away as far as I could get from the creatures I had somehow sneezed into existence. As I tried to gain control of my breathing, the flattened one re-formed, seemingly unharmed, and started beeping again. I tried to get away but I was pinned against my dresser. My one-thousand-and-forty-seven piece Lego Batman set that took me three days to assemble fell off the top and shattered on the floor. I’d never get it back together again. Mom had thrown out the directions in the move. I wanted to scream. The noisy one’s satellite-like ears twitched in my direction. CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH it repeated like my Lego masterpiece would never stop breaking, while the other creature picked up my scattered Lego pieces, asking rapid-fire, “What are these? Why did you do that? Where are you going?”

      I backed away from the mess and over towards Mom, who was visibly frustrated by my freak-out. “Slim, for heaven’s sake, what are you so upset about?” she asked.

      “You don’t see them?!” I shouted.

      She looked around and her eyes finally landed on the creatures. “Oh, I sure do,” she said. She walked right over to the creatures this time, bent down between them, and picked up some candy wrappers I forgot to hide. “Did you eat these before bed? What did you expect with all that sugar in your system? And what have I told you about leaving food in your room? It attracts pests! This is why I had to have the old house fumigated for the new owners!” she lectured, while the second little creature looked up at me and asked, “Am I a pest? Is she blind? Are you crazy?”

      I looked back at Mom as she got to her classic, “I’m not a maid service, Slim.” Lucy popped her head in the room to check out the commotion. I had never been so happy to see her. Surely, she’d be able to see these little creatures and prove I wasn’t losing my mind.

      But Lucy just looked at the mess and said, “He actually has a whole candy stash hidden in here.” She’s such a tattletale. Normally I would have snapped at her, but instead I sneezed.

      “Lucy, go and get ready for school,” said Mom. Lucy stomped off down the hall as another voice entered the fray.

      I turned in horror – yet another furry little creature had formed! This one had a huge trapdoor-like mouth, a pink hue and a smug look as it loudly started saying things as if it had a Twitter feed to my innermost thoughts. It pointed at me and screamed, “He’s lonely. He deletes his internet history!”

      My response was a swift kick. The creature flew across the room and splatted against the wall like those goo-filled balls that stick where they splat until you pull them off or they peel off on their own. This furry little thing did just that, taking my life-size Spider-Man poster off the wall with it. The creature landed on the floor, unsplatted and unhurt, right in front of the previously hidden safe space cubbyhole. After it basically reinflated itself, it pointed and shouted, “He hides the candy in there!” as Mom picked the poster up off the floor.

      But it didn’t focus on any point for very long. It was too obsessed with cataloguing all my subconscious concerns to even pause. “He’s ugly. He smells weird. He only has two Instagram followers!”

      I began to hyperventilate. My face was flushed and the room was spinning a bit. “Why do you change colour?” asked the asking one.

      Mom pinned the poster back on the wall and grabbed up the dirty laundry still on the floor, saying, “This room is a disaster.” She saw me breathing heavily and rushed over, sitting me on the bed. “It’s okay, Slim. You’re having a panic attack. Just breathe through it. Do you want me to get your Xanax?” I shook my head no because I knew what a panic attack was and this was not that. I would have preferred a panic attack to whatever this was.

      “Just look at me, okay. Focus on me. Everything is fine,” she continued. “None of this is worth getting worked up over. Just breathe.”

      I wanted to argue, but Mom was looking at me with her constant frenzied but exhausted concern.

      I closed my eyes and breathed slowly and tried to calm my system, but when I opened my eyes, the creatures were still there and still making noises, asking questions and revealing all my worst thoughts about myself. I really wanted someone to see them too. I wanted to shout that there were monsters in the room. But I knew she wouldn’t understand. I knew I’d just get more of that look, and I knew behind it she was thinking, Why can’t you just be normal? So instead what came out was, “There are … there are … there are … more candy wrappers on the nightstand.” She exhaled and her shoulders slumped, and I lied some more. “I’m … okay. You’re right. It’s just a … panic attack.” It was easier that way.

      “Okay. Good. You’re okay,” she said as if she were trying to believe it as hard as I was trying to convince her. And with a tired sigh, she got off the bed, still holding my dirty laundry, and picked up the candy wrappers. “It’s time to get ready for school.”

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