Chapter Three

Things that go Bump in the Day

BUZZ. BUZZ.

The alarm sounded at 6:00 AM. Sara reached over and after several attempts managed to press the snooze button. It had been a night of turmoil. She had tossed and turned all night long, and with every toss and every turn, a new nightmare would invade her dreams.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

When her alarm sounded the second time, she knew she could no longer avoid the inevitable. It was time to get up.

She couldn’t move. She tried turning over but couldn’t move. Was she paralyzed? Or was something holding her down? She tried raising her arms. Could the evil calamities have invaded the sanctity of her room overnight and attacked her? Glancing in her mirror, she saw apparitions hovering over her holding down her arms and legs. Her worst fears had come true. Shaking and sweating from fear, Sara looked over and saw the hairbrush lying on the bedside table. She tried to reach for it but could not move her arms. She had no weapon against these horrendous calamitous ghosts. It was hard to breathe. They were suffocating her. “I want my daddy.” The apparitions closed in on her.

BUZZ. BUZZ.

She opened her eyes; the alarm was ringing. Reaching over to turn it off, it occurred to her- she was moving. She looked into the mirror. There were no ghosts. It was only a nightmare.

She had a busy morning ahead of her. Not only would she have to get ready for school and make her breakfast, but she would have to wrestle computer calamities first. She had only 45 minutes to get to the school bus.

Opening her closet door, she saw all of her clothes in order as she had carefully arranged them, jeans on the left. T-shirts were on the right in the order she would wear them. First a red one, then a blue one, then green, pink, orange, purple, and yellow. Having worn green yesterday, she picked up the next shirt- her pink Minnie Mouse shirt, her favorite shirt. She could never have a bad day when she wore her favorite shirt.

Her hair was a mess. She needed to brush it. Her perfect ponytail now looked like she had used her hair to mop the kitchen floor. She glanced over to the bedside table, the place she had seen the hairbrush last. It was not there.

“Duh.” laughed Sara, “I saw it there in my dream.” So where was this hairbrush/weapon? She had sat it down next to the backpack when she rescued her cell phone and had not picked it up again.

She had developed a very strict routine every morning and hated varying from the routine even the slightest. She sat on the edge of her bed, wanting to brush her hair, open the door, smell her mother’s cooking, run down the hall, give her mom a hug, eat her breakfast, grab her backpack and lunch, and run to the bus stop. Today was not an ordinary day.

Wishing for her mother’s special spinach pancakes, she ate a few crumbled Doritos, some Oreo cookies, and the rest of the Mountain Dew. Next, she needed to retrieve her backpack and hairbrush.

She tip-toed to the door, opened it slightly and glanced at her mother’s door. It was still closed. There were no signs of monsters from the hallway to the kitchen entry. She closed the door again.

Grabbing the cell phone and IPOD she shoved them in her pockets and holding onto the Oreos for a nutritious lunch. She opened the door, scampered down the hall, darted into the kitchen, scooped up the hair brush, threw the backpack over her shoulder, scurried through the kitchen door, and ran for the bus, arriving just before the driver closed the doors. As she entered the bus doors, she glanced at a car parked in front of her house. A giant toad was sitting in the driver’s seat staring at her. She gulped.

The sight of a large toad in a hideous green suit sitting in a car in front of her house would appear odd to Sara but, after the events of the previous day, it was not so shocking.

She sat at the back of the bus and watched as the toad pulled away from the curb and followed the bus.

Unable to solve the toad problem, Sara started to solve the one problem she could solve. She brushed her hair and put it into the perfect ponytail.