Case Closed

Jeffrey lay on his back under his kid’s bed, his furry, green hands rubbing his poor tummy. It REALLY hurt. Sometimes, it was no fun at all being the ‘monster under the bed.’ All that candy had just been too tempting! His kid, Davy had been dressed as a creepy Monster for Halloween. Of course, that wasn’t his fault. It was the Mommy’s fault. It was her idea, after all, for Davy to dress up as him! She’d thought it would make Davy less scared of him. Hah. It was his job to be scary, wasn’t it? What did she know? Dressing Davy up in blue. All ‘under the bed’ monsters were green; everyone knew that! Closet monsters, now. They were blue.

Still, all those suckers and candy bars? The chocolate. It was so yummy. Who’s the sucker now, he thought. Me, that’s who. He moaned softly…just loud enough to maybe wake Davy up. Would serve him right after all, leaving all that candy out in plain sight. Jeffrey rolled over and looked at all the empty wrappers around him. Should he clean up the mess? Or let Davy get blamed for it? He really wasn’t such a bad kid, as kids went. Much more fun than the last one. Clarence? Clark? Jeffrey shook his head. He couldn’t remember and there’d been so many kids over the eons.

He picked up all the wrappers. Had to hide the evidence. Jeffrey looked over to the closet. The door was open! He’d hide it in there. That way, Dudley, the ‘closet monster’ would be blamed. No, that wouldn’t work. The Mommy would still blame Davy. Then he had an idea! The Dad!

Holding the wrappers, he peeked out from under the bed. The bedroom door was open. Jeffrey snuck out into the Hallway. The door to the Dad’s Office was wide open. He looked both ways. (Even though it was the middle of the night, he knew to always look both ways before crossing the Hallway.) Nothing. No one. Not even the dreaded cat.

Jeffrey scooted across the Hallway and peeked into the Office. The Dad was snoring in his big chair. Jeffrey sidled over and dropped all the candy wrappers on the floor. There! That’d work. He ran to the door, checked the Hallway and returned to safety under Davy’s bed.

“Did you save Me any candy?” asked Dudley in his loud Closet Monster voice.

“Shh! No, I didn’t. You never share with me!”

“I want candy!” shouted Dudley.

Davy rolled over and began to whimper, “Mommy! Daddy! I’m scared!”

Davy’s Parents both came running. The Mom settled Davy down, then looked at the Dad with a frown. “Did you eat all Davy’s candy?” she whispered angrily.

“No, why?”

She pointed to the trail of wrappers behind him. Giving Davy one last pat, she poked the Dad's belly and huffed out of the room. The Dad followed, picking up wrappers as he went.

Jeffrey smiled, and went to sleep.




498 words