The Scary Story of a Girl and a Monster

A girl and a monster make friends even when everyone is against it.

          Once, a long time ago, there was a little girl named Amanda.  She lived in a small village near a meadow.  She had long hair that she always kept in a braid and tied with a blue bow.  She liked to wear dresses with puffed sleeves when she went to school.  As soon as she got home, she changed into her bib overalls with a bear sewn on the front.  Amanda was learning a lot of different things in school but she enjoyed math the most.  She did her homework as soon as she got home and then she helped around the house.  She would help her Mom cook and clean and she would help her Dad in the garden.  After that, she usually played in the meadow.  She liked to run through the tall grass.  She would run for as long as she could just to feel the wind on her face.  Sometimes she would try to outrun the clouds as they moved across the sky.  She loved to stand on the top of a little hill and feel the wind blowing her hair.  She would kick her red ball and chase it or skip rope along the path from her home to the meadow.  Sometimes she liked to lie on the ground and look at the clouds.  On the weekends, when the weather was good, her family would have a picnic in the meadow.  Then she and her parents would lie on the grass and look at the clouds together.  Before she came home for dinner, she would pick wild flowers and bring them home for her Mom.

          Near the village where Amanda lived, there was a forest.  Nobody knows how big the forest was.  It had lots of different kinds of trees and many lakes and streams.  There were many different kinds of animals and birds living there.  Deep in the forest there were mountains and beyond the mountains there were places in the forest that were so deep and far away that nobody had ever been able to go there.  These were the scary parts of the forest.  These were the places where animals lived that nobody had ever seen.  In the deepest parts of the forest, the very deepest and darkest places, the old places, where the damp mists hovered over the ground, there were monsters.  These were the scariest parts of all.

          Now the important thing to remember here is that monsters work real hard to be scary.  Every time you hear or talk about monsters, you have to act like you're scared.  You don't want to be impolite and hurt the monsters feelings.  Now back to the story.

          People had always been told to stay away from the forest.  There had been some that did go into the forest, but they never came out again.  Nobody knew what happened to them.  Some said that they were still in there and they were lost forever.  Some said that they been eaten by wild animals, and some said that the monsters got them.  Nobody knew for sure what happened to them and nobody ever figured out how to find them.  People were too scared to try.  That is why everybody was always told to stay out of the forest.

          At the same time that Amanda was living near the meadow, there was a monster named Zortlog living in the forest.  He stood about 4 feet tall.  He had hair that was a moldy green color so he could match the trees and bushes of the forest.  If he stood in the sunlight just right, everyone could see black tiger stripes on his back.  His arms were long enough that his knuckles could drag on the ground.  His parents always taught him to stand up straight because it was very bad manners to let his knuckles touch the ground.  He lived in the deepest part of the forest in a village where the other monsters lived.  His home was in a damp hole in the ground under an old stump.  Every day he would go to school and learn how to be a scary monster.  When he came home, he helped his Mom arrange the rocks and leaves on the forest floor.   He also helped his Dad plant moss and fungus on the tree trunks around his home.  Usually his fingers were green because of all the fungus he helped plant.  Other than that, he was always very clean.  His Mom wanted him to look nice so every morning, she made sure he combed his hair and cleaned his teeth before he went outside.

          He liked to play with his rock collection and splash in the stream by his home.  Sometimes he would just walk quietly around the forest and look and listen to all the birds and animals.  He would pick up interesting looking rocks and add them to his collection.  He would then arraign the rocks according to size and color.  He liked to practice his math by adding and subtracting with his rocks.  Some of the rocks he gathered were just the right size and shape that he could throw them real far and skip them on the lake. Sometimes, he tried to see how many skips he could make on the water.  Sometimes, it was fun just to see how big a splash he could make by throwing a huge rock in the water.

          One day, Amanda was playing in the meadow near the edge of the forest.  She was kicking her red ball and running after it.  The ball bounced into the forest and rolled down a path and out of sight.  Amanda remembered all the times she had been told not to go into the forest.  She knew the stories about monsters and what they did when they caught people that wondered into the forest.  She looked down the path and couldn't see her red ball but she didn't think it went too far.  It was such a nice sunny day and she didn't want to lose her red ball so there couldn't be much harm in going just a little way down the path just to find her red ball.  Amanda looked around and couldn’t see anyone so she carefully walked down the path looking for her ball.  At the same time, Zortlog was by a stream playing with his rock collection.  He heard a noise and looked just as the red ball rolled down the path and stopped near the stream not far from him.  That was when Amanda walked up to get her ball.  She looked up and saw Zortlog and cried out “Ahhh, a monster” and she ran away.  Zortlog looked at Amanda and cried out “Ahhh, a girl” and he ran the other way. 

          Now to review what has happened up until now.  Amanda and Zortlog have both ran in opposite directions and are hiding from each other.  All of the animals have stopped what they were doing and the birds flew away because the cries were so loud.  The important thing to remember is rock collection and red ball are still sitting on the ground by the stream.  And now, on with the story.

          Zortlog and Amanda had both been taught to be polite to everyone around them, so they both came back and introduced themselves.  Amanda said, "Hello, my name is Amanda, and this is my red ball."  Zortlog said, "Hello, my name is Zortlog, and this is my rock collection."  They told each other about the schools they were going to.  Amanda told about the math she was learning.  Zortlog told about his scary monster lessons.  After that, they told each other about what they were doing at home with their families.  Amanda talked about how she liked to run in the meadow near her home and help her parents around the house.  Zortlog talked about how much he liked to collect rocks and help his parents around the stump they lived under.

          Zortlog showed Amanda his scary monster lessons.  The first lesson was where he jumped out from behind a bush and yelled "Booyah."  He also jumped down from a tree and yelled but they both agreed that the results were the same.  In the second lesson, he would stare and growl.  They both had fun staring and growling at each other.  The third lesson was the scariest.  He would wave his arms and jump real high and at the same time he would yell "Booyah" over and over again.  They both agreed that this was the scariest.  Amanda was always careful to tell Zortlog if he was being scary enough.  Amanda showed Zortlog how she did her math.  She would add and subtract numbers.  She also showed how she was learning her multiplication tables.  Amanda and Zortlog used his rock collection to do their math together and it was very good practice for Amanda.

          Amanda showed Zortlog how she played with her red ball.  She kicked it and they both had fun running after it.  Sometimes they would toss it back and forth to each other.  Zortlog showed Amanda how much fun playing with a rock collection was.  They arranged the rocks according to color and size.  Then they stacked the rocks in piles and tried to make each stack higher than the last before they fell over.   Soon they found out that they both had a favorite game they could play together.  They would play hide and seek.  One of them would hide and the other would look high and low for the one that was hiding.  When Amanda looked for Zortlog, he would try to use his scary monster lessons.  If he was high up in a tree, he would jump down and yell "Booyah".  Other times he would jump out from behind a bush and yell the same thing.  They both agreed that the results were the same.  Amanda was always careful to be honest about how scary Zortlog was when he jumped and yelled.

          Amanda loved to jump rope, so she taught Zortlog how to do it.  It took him a while to learn, but when he did he had a lot of fun.  Then they would spend long hours skipping rope.  After that they played with Zortlog's rock collection.  It only took a few days before she was doing much better in school.  Zortlog did so much better in his school because he was having so much fun practicing jumping out from behind a bush and yelling "Booyah."  Everyone agreed the results were the same when he jumped down from a tree.

          This went on for a while when Amanda's parents started to wonder where Amanda was and what she was doing.  They had noticed that sometimes she was away from home in the afternoon and they couldn't see her in the meadow.  Her red ball and jump rope were gone so they knew she was playing somewhere.  She was still coming home in time for dinner but she hadn't talked about any new friends at school.  They asked Amanda where she had been and she just said that she was out playing.  She was doing much better in school with her math so they didn't think anything was wrong.

          Zortlog's parents were wondering where Zortlog was all day.  He always took his rock collection with him.   Sometimes he had a lot of rocks that were just the right size to skip on the water and sometimes he didn't have any.  They knew he was collecting more because that was his favorite thing to do, so they didn't think much of it.  They noticed how much better he was getting with his scary monster lessons.  He was so scary when he jumped down from the trees and yelled "Booyah."  They all agreed the results were the same when he jumped out from behind a bush.  He just said that he was practicing with his new friend.

          One day, Amanda's parents went looking for Amanda.  Dinner was early that day because they wanted to go into the village.  It was the day that everyone celebrated the founding of the village.  Zortlog's parents were looking for Zortlog at the same time.  It was the day the monsters got together to remember when they all moved into the stumps they were living under.  Amanda's parents walked around the meadow where they knew Amanda liked to play.  They looked down the path into the forest but they didn't go in.  Just at the end of the path, they saw what looked like Amanda's jump rope on the ground.  They could hear the sounds of running and laughing so they walked down the path to see who was there.  It wasn't too long before they found Amanda and Zortlog throwing the red ball to each other.  At that same time, Zortlog’s parents walked up because they could hear something going on. 

          Amanda's parents said, "This isn't right, you need to get your monster away from our girl."  Zortlog's parents said, "This is the forest where we live, you need to get your girl away from our monster."  After that, they had a long talk about who shouldn't be able to play with who and why.  Amanda and Zortlog told about how they hadn't just been playing but were practicing their school lessons with each other.  Amanda showed how much better she was with her math by counting Zortlog's rock collection.  Zortlog showed how much better he was at being a scary    

monster.  He jumped out from behind a bush and yelled "Booyah."  Everyone agreed the results were the same when he jumped down from a tree.

          The parents went back to the villages where they lived and told everyone about the experience they just had.  Amanda's parents told about the monsters living in the forest and how nice they were.  They told about how Amanda was so much better at her math because a monster had helped her.  Zortlog's parents told about the nice people living in the village.  They told about how much happier they were because Zortlog had been practicing his scary monster lessons with Amanda.   

          So they all gathered in the meadow by the edge of the forest to get to know each other.  All the parents realized what good friends Amanda and Zortlog had become and how good they were doing in school.  It just happened to be the big holiday for the village and the monsters so they had it together.  They had a big party with a lot of food and candy.  It was so much fun that they wanted to have it again every year after that.  Ever since then, the two villages have been having a holiday where they all come out dressed like someone else.  They can have parties together or they just walk around the street saying hello.  The children like to knock on everyone's door and ask for candy.  This is still going on today.

          And so, gentle reader, when you are out on Halloween night and you see someone, is it a person that is dressed like a monster, or is it a monster that is dressed like a person?

Author's Note

My daughters and I made this up when they were young. It took me a long time to write it because it was always different each time we told it to each other.

Reviews

[Trace]

Dave my friend. ... so good to see you finally here
Enjoyed reading this story again.

Hope you have fun here and explore your talents fully.

Take care.

Trace

[Sami Khalil]

Now you are competing with Cody William stories. Just kidding. A splendid one...:).......................