Circle Of Success
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The two men walked up the stairs and into a small, cramped room with one door. There was only one bed here, too, so I guess there’s not much else to do when you’ve got an army of monsters living in your house. The man on the other side pulled open his closet.
“You can’t be serious,” said the man who’d been locked up. “I’m not letting that thing out of my sight again.”
My father just smiled. He held a long-barreled handgun in both hands. His eyes were bright as he aimed them at Mr. Monster’s head. It took me a moment to realize the gun wasn’t real. My father had made this entire thing up for his own amusement. This wasn’t even a weapon—just his fingers making pretend movements.
“Don’t worry about me, boy,” Mr. Monster told him, but I could see how tense he was. “I’ll keep the monster away from you while you get some sleep tonight.”
The man on the bed looked back at him and then shook his head.
“You know what?” I said. “That’s fine. We should stay awake anyway. If anyone comes in here, they might have guns.”
“Good idea,” Mr. Monster agreed. “We can watch each other.”
Then I realized something: I hadn’t asked my dad whether he needed help with this, but he’d insisted on coming himself. He must want to see Mr. Monster as badly as I did. So I grabbed Mr. Monster by the arm and pulled him down toward me, then whispered into his ear.
“Dad, don’t make us wait any longer!”
He stopped pretending to shoot and turned to me, smiling widely. Then he pointed his fake gun at my face and shot a little blast of air through the barrel. It tickled slightly against my cheek, so I pretended to duck, then jumped back and slapped my hand over my mouth.
Mr. Monster laughed at me and kept walking forward until we stood right next to my father. My dad didn’t seem surprised at all by the sight of Mr. Monster standing beside him. They nodded their heads at each other, like old friends meeting up for the first time since school.
Dad reached into his pocket and produced a tiny silver object that looked sort of like a ballpoint pen, except way smaller. He held it up in front of Mr. Monster’s eyes so they would stop staring at mine and look at something else, and then he spoke quietly as if he couldn’t trust anyone else to understand him.
“Listen, kid. Your mom called me earlier, worried because she hadn’t heard from you. You’ve already missed curfew twice, and she’s starting to wonder—”
His voice broke off and his shoulders sagged in relief like he was suddenly happy to learn this monster knew about my mother’s concerns. That’s when I understood what my dad was doing: He’d made the monster think this conversation was happening between them as well. But really, he was talking to me alone. Because no matter how hard he tried, he could never say these words to Mr. Monster directly.
“But she knows it’s important,” said Dad, and then he paused a moment before continuing. “She wants you to stay home tonight, though, if you’re going to go out.”
He handed me the little silver device and I took it without speaking. Then he turned to the monster and spoke as if we were having a normal conversation together.
“And don’t you worry about that guy over there either,” he said. “If anything happens to me, he’ll take care of her.”
I nodded and turned back around. My dad still had the toy gun tucked into the corner of his hand where he wouldn’t drop it. He looked like he was ready to use it in case he felt threatened. As far as I could tell, the only weapon he’d given the monster was his own voice, which meant I had to try and find a way to distract him and give myself more time to talk about Mr. Monster.
“How are you doing, man? What do you need me to bring for tomorrow?” I asked.
Mr. Monster’s eyes focused on me now, finally paying attention to me instead of my dad. He nodded and leaned forward as if he wanted to speak to me privately.
“I’m good. Thanks for asking.”
“Yeah, well, I know it seems strange, but I actually have a lot to talk to you about.”
“Okay?”
My heart was pounding harder than it had in weeks. If ever I’d wished Mr. Monster was a better liar, it was now. There was no way for me to know how much of my father’s story he understood. But he seemed calm enough, so maybe everything would work out after all. I hoped.
“So why don’t you tell me what it is?”
***
Mr. Monster sat across from me at the table, leaning forward as if he needed to hear what I was saying as clearly as possible. He had been so quiet throughout the entire exchange, so respectful of my father as he listened to the whole thing, I almost thought for a second that he believed every word my father had told him.
Except he wasn’t smiling or looking pleased, just curious. He even crossed his arms, like he was trying to figure out exactly what I was planning to say.
When I started talking, it took a few minutes for me to realize that he didn’t understand a single word I said. His gaze was locked on my mouth and my lips weren’t moving the same way they did when I spoke English. He couldn’t be sure how to pronounce any of the words, let alone the names of places or people. So he kept turning to my dad to ask questions, which I found frustrating.
Because I had planned to say a lot more to Mr. Monster than I’d managed to tell my dad.
The problem was, my father wasn’t the most patient person in the world, so if he caught onto the fact that Mr. Monster didn’t understand what we were saying, it might throw off my plan entirely. It was a gamble, but one I hoped would pay off once the truth finally came out.
“Do you have an email address, Mr. Monster?” I asked while keeping my gaze focused on him. The last thing I needed was for my father to see my eyes shift and notice how quickly Mr. Monster’s head moved back and forth as he tried to translate.
My dad had always been quick enough to catch on to the lies I’d told him, and I didn’t want to waste too many more moments explaining things to someone who already knew all the answers.
Mr. Monster hesitated for a second, then reached inside his shirt and pulled out his phone. With his thumbs, he typed out an email address and pressed send. I watched for the little envelope, hoping there would be a confirmation message. A moment later, the screen went dark, and Mr. Monster slid the phone back into his pocket.
“What did you write?” he asked, glancing at my dad for reassurance.
It took another second before Dad gave it to him. After typing in the information again and sending it, he stared at me with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s great news,” he said. “Now all we have to do is wait for the confirmation and then—”
There was a knock on our front door and my dad’s phone began to vibrate at the same time. The two events happened at almost exactly the same moment, making me think I was imagining them both, except that my dad was also staring down at his phone and shaking his head.
A glance at the front window showed a shadow standing in the rain outside, and Mr. Monster leaned closer to look past me. He must not have heard the knock, or thought nothing of it.
The phone stopped vibrating. It rang and rang without being answered, though, which worried me more than it should have. When it finally stopped ringing, the screen lit up again, displaying the text notification: “Message not delivered due to insufficient service.”
This time Mr. Monster grabbed his phone before I could reach it, and opened the message. He scowled at something I couldn’t make out in the darkness of the room; a frown that made me worry that he was going to call the police or worse.
He looked over at my father.
“Something is wrong.” He held out a hand to stop my father from getting up, but it took my dad a full minute to move back to the couch.
Finally, he picked up his phone and flipped through the list of messages until he got to this one he’d missed earlier, sent three minutes after he’d sent me and Mr. Monster away to get some rest:
Dude, I hope you’re okay! Please check your texts soon. You need to reply ASAP, or else I will start freaking out and calling every hospital emergency number in town. I’m so worried about you! We’ve never even met, so it’s strange how invested I am in seeing you safe. But please, I can’t handle another day without hearing from you!
I stared at the message, waiting for something more—anything more—from my father, but none of the other texts came. And neither did any responses from the hospitals I’d called.
So, I waited. For a long, tense hour, I sat across from Mr. Monster and watched the seconds tick by, counting down the time that passed before Dad replied and telling myself that everything would be fine. That he would find me.
Until finally the doorbell rang.
***
The rain fell harder against the windows and I shivered even though I hadn’t felt cold a moment ago. If anything, my body seemed to want more heat. As soon as I saw who was knocking on our door, I realized why.
It was Mr. Monster, just like he’d promised to be when we first found each other on the road. And his eyes were wide, his mouth drawn thin. His hands trembled as they gripped the door handle and he kept looking back at me as if wanting me to go outside with him and help him explain what had happened.
But instead, I stayed inside and closed the curtains against the storm. It wouldn’t do much good now that Dad had seen him and knew where he lived, but I still wanted to put as much distance between us and my father’s car as possible.
“Dad has gone home,” Mr. Monster said in a rush. “You don’t need to worry about him anymore. But I need to tell you that it was Mr. Trelawney who shot you. It wasn’t—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut in. “What matters is that the doctors said he hit me pretty bad, but they can fix most of it, and that I’ll live.” I forced myself to sound confident despite the pain and fear still pounding in my chest.
Mr. Monster stared at me, and the way his shoulders shook made me wonder how hard he’d tried to keep the news from coming out.
Then he nodded, his face falling into a relieved mask. “Okay, then. Thank God, right? It’s going to take me a while to figure out how to deal with this, but for now it seems we have enough to talk about here. So…can you open the door?”
His voice sounded different, softer somehow, and there was an edge of worry in it that told me that my father’s reaction to learning that Mr. Monster was really alive hadn’t been the only thing that had upset him.
I opened the door just enough for him to step inside and push the door shut behind him, and I followed close behind.
He glanced around the living room, then looked back at me. “We need to talk somewhere private. Where’s your bedroom?”
I led him through the house, trying my best not to look at any corners and hoping that no one else would come out of their rooms and catch sight of us.
The End