Princess Interrupted
The monster under the bed lay on his back and peeked out with bulging eyes, his purple-furred fingers trembling as they curled around the bed’s running board like it was his own set of covers he sought to draw up over his head.
Another figure loomed within the closet’s open door. His plump figure was covered in green fur, and his overly-large palms were raised in surrender as the tyrant paraded back and forth across her bed.
“This is highly irregular,” protested five-year-old Maggie. She had spun her unicorn blankie around to her back where it dangled like a cape, then marched back and forth across her star strewn covers while gripping a Teddy bear around the neck and shaking it towards the closet like it were a judge’s mallet.
The closet monster, Clem, gulped and massaged his own throat.
“How is anyone ‘posed to sleep in all this com... com...”
“Commotion?” asked the under-bed monster, Oogie, with a raised finger.
“Consternation and indecision,” she finished with a nod. “I’m a princess. Momma and Grandpa says so. And princesses need beauty sleep.” She tossed her hands. “Everyone knows this.”
“If you could just stay calm,” Clem suggested, gesturing with open palms. “You could wake—”
“I’m awake,” she interjected. “Where was this concern five-minutes ago? Did you not hear what I said about being a princess?”
“Well, yeah,” Clem complained. “We just needed an objective third party to decide who should scare you.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “Boys. I am five and a half. That’s basically a grownup. You haven’t scared me since I was three. All of my recent yelps were just for your benefit.”
“Wait, what?” Oogie protested. “You can’t just... Clem, tell her she can’t do that. There are rules, right?”
Clem sagged. “You could have said so. Now, what are we supposed to do?”
Maggie shrugged. “There’s always my brother.”
Clem met her gaze. “You have a brother? How old?”
“He’s two, and he’s terrible. Some good scares would do him a lot of good.”
Oogie excitedly thrummed his fingers along the bed’s running board. “Clem! A two-year-old! We can do that.”
“Maggie?” came a voice beyond the bedroom. A moment later, the door crept open, a hallway light spilling into the room to show Maggie standing on her bed with her blankie and Teddy bear pulled into an embrace. “Who are you talking to?” her mom asked, flipping on the light.
Maggie glanced to the open door of her closet, then down to the empty floor along her bedside. “The monsters. They was arguing and I told them it’s Sammy’s turn to be scared.”
“Oh,” her mom replied, her eyebrows raising. “Is that so?” She helped Maggie back under her covers. “Well, you know princesses need their beauty sleep and—”
“I told them, Momma.”
Her mom smiled, kissed her on the forehead, then moved to turn out the light on her way out. “No more speeches tonight, okay hun?”
“Yes, Momma.”
The light winked out and the door clicked closed.
“Thanks, Maggie,” Clem whispered from within the closet.
Maggie just glowered and rolled to face away.
Writing Prompt:
You wake up to the monster under your bed and the monster in your closet having an argument about whose turn it is to scare you for the night. Unable to reach an agreement, they want you to weigh in on it.
