Neo's MonStar Spray

MonStar Spray

Neo's grandmother always told her that monsters were not real. Neo knew better - any kid does. Monsters were real even if grown-ups don't usually think they are. Grown-ups only believe in things that they can see. They're pretty stupid that way.

Kicking, squirming, and hollering had eventually gotten Neo what she wanted any other night. Grandma would tiredly and reluctantly allow Neo to sleep at the end of Grandma's bed as long as Neo slept at the end of the bed. Somehow Grandma would still wake up with feet in her face. Although she was tired of being kicked upside the head in the middle of the night, Grandma tried to stay patient with her granddaughter this night. She really did.

"Baby, do you think I'd let anything happen to you?" Grandma said, as she hung her flabby arm around Neo's scrawny shoulders. Grandma was sitting on the edge of Neo's bed and Neo was standing beside it.

"Yes," Neo said immediately.

"Neo, please!" Grandma said. "You're going to sleep in your bed tonight. Your OWN bed. Do you understand?"

Although Neo didn't really understand, she nodded her head anyway. That old lady could be pretty darn scary for an old lady, even scarier than any monster from any fairy tale. So she let her grandmother tuck her into bed, tell her that nothing would ever happen to her on Grandma's watch, and kiss her on the forehead. Neo is a pain in the neck and another place, but she is also Grandma's baby even though the pajama pants she was wearing had become shorts. She'd still be Grandma's baby even when her legs grow so long that the pant legs do not even reach her knees anymore, so Grandma will "accidentally" lose the pants the next time she washes clothes while Neo is at school. Neo will still be Grandma's baby even when she's grown up and has to take care of Grandma like how Grandma takes care of her now. Although Neo will always be Grandma's baby, she has not been a baby for a few years now. She isn't an adult yet either, so she cannot understand that Grandma is doing what she thinks is best for her the best she can, until Neo becomes an adult and can decide what's the best for herself. Grandma is an adult so she cannot understand that monsters are real, nor will she ever. It's not Neo's fault she's a kid, it's not Grandma's fault she's a grown up. So Grandma had no choice except to think that she had acted as a parent tonight, Neo had no choice except to think Grandma had betrayed her one and only grandchild.

Neo was sure anytime before Grandma would close Neo's still open bedroom door and after, the monster in her closet would c***k the door open, poke its ugly head out and look both ways in case it had been wrong about there not being any adults in the room anymore (believe it or not, monsters are as scared of adults as kids are scared of monsters). Once the coast was clear, it would move across the room in one terrifying leap from the closet to Neo's bed. It would s***h her throat before its feet could even touch the ground. Blood would shoot in an horizontal spray from the center of Neo's neck to the wall on the other side of the room. Neo would still be alive, barely, but alive. But the monster's stomach would get impatient. With a talon, the monster would make a new cut on Neo's belly and start to feast on it and everything Neo ate for the past few days (which wasn't much. She was a terribly picky eater.). As she passes away, she'll think about how sorry Grandma will be when she sees her bones lying in a red circular stain on the white carpet that Grandma always insists should stay clean.

Neo told Grandma all of that before she went for Neo's door to shut her in the dark for the rest of the night. Grandma only smiled and said that monsters prefer little girls who take baths, so Neo should be safe.

"Good-night," Grandma said from Neo's doorway, with her hand still on the doorknob. The light from the hallway had been the only light in Neo's room. It created a rectangle on the floor that began at the bottom of the door frame, went across the floor, up the side of Neo's bed that was facing the door, across the face of the bed, down the side of Neo's bed that was facing bare wall, across the slim space of floor between the bed and wall, and went up the wall, meeting its destination at the ceiling. The room was pitch black behind the sides of the intricate rectangle.

"Goodbye," Neo muttered. Grandma didn't hear her anyways, she had closed the door mid-word. The rectangle of light disappeared into darkness.

The monster didn't kill Neo that night, but it was Grandma who nearly trampled her own granddaughter the next morning. Neo was sound asleep on the floor in the hallway at the foot of Grandma's door, bundled in the blanket that Grandma had tucked her in last night, like a fruit roll-up and with her head laying on a pillow.

That night Grandma left Neo's closet door open before she left. Still, she almost stepped on Neo again the next morning. This time it was because the monster started living underneath Neo's bed, because he knew Grandma would start checking the closet sooner or later. Sometime after Grandma left the closet door open and left, Neo had jumped off the bed (with her blanket wrapped under an arm and pillow clutched in a hand of the opposite arm) and got the heck out of the room before a slimy tentacle could reach from under the bed, grab her by an ankle (sending her falling forward face first on the floor, knocking her wiggly tooth out) and yank her underneath the bed.

Finally, one day, Grandma gave her "MonStar Spray." That's what it said in blue ink on loose leaf lined paper wrapped around a normal spray bottle, the folds taped up. A tag line was written on the line underneath the line where it said "MonStar Spray":

One spray a day keeps the MonStars away!

There were even instructions written on the side of the bottle:

Spray 1-3 times during the morning in areas where the MonStars are at night.

A fine print was written on the line below:

P.S. Taking Baths is recommended when using MonStar spray. MonStars don't only dislike DIRTY children, but also the scent of lavender.

Neo said, "They had five chances to spell 'monster' right."

"I heard it was an artistic choice," Grandma said quickly. "Now, I could get my money back if you want to be ungrateful."

Neo kept the bottle. She loved the lavender scent it emitted, and it seemed to calm her down. Every morning, she would spray the MonStar Spray around her bed and closet, and she would also drink a warm cup of cocoa milk.

One night, Neo dreamed of the monster again. It was large, & more terrifying than before, but this time, Neo was armed with the MonStar Spray. She sprayed it at the monster, and it screeched in pain and disappeared. Neo woke up, feeling safe and sound. Since then, she never had nightmares about monsters again. Neo grew up, and went off and away from her grandmother for highschool. Now we never knew if she was ever scared of monsters again. Perhaps she simply forgot, or decided they weren't real. But we do know one thing. She always kept a MonStar Spray in her pocket.