"In Shadows" - a Max and Mara story

 

“Max.”

“Max.”

“Max.”

Mara stood at the edge of Max’s bed, nudging him every ten seconds.

“Whaaat,” replied Max groggily as he pulled the covers up over his head.

“Max!” Mara said a little more sharply.

Max groaned and peeked out from the covers at his sister standing next to his bed.  Even half-asleep, he recognized the look on her face.

“Did you hafe another curry nightmare?” he asked.

“What?  It’s called a ‘recurring’ nightmare, stupid.  You don’t even know what curry is.” For a moment, Mara forgot why she came into Max’s room and stood there with her hands on her hips, staring at him with the authority of a twin who was nearly eight minutes older than her little brother.   

“Do too.  It’s that yucky stuff mom and dad eat.  And don’t call me ‘stupid.’ You’re the one who came into my room,” grumbled Max as he rolled over away from his sister.

“Oh yeah!” Mara was quickly reminded and cast a quick glance behind her toward the hallway.

“Scoot over” she told her brother as she crawled into bed beside him.  Max made room for her but grumbled as he did so.  “You sure are a scaredy cat.”

“Well, you would be too if you dreamed what I just did,” said Mara.

Max through his hands up in the air and said in his most exasperating voice “what happened THIS time?!”

“Well, THIS time – ” she glared at her brother in the dark “ – we were in Miss. Tanner’s class and we were lined up waiting to be s’cused for naptime, that’s when I heard it laughing.”

“It was laughing this time?” Max turned his full attention to his sister.  It never made noise in her dreams before.

Mara nodded solemnly.  “Yeah, a scary, evil laugh.  I asked Jenna behind me if she heard it too.  She didn’t hear it.  NOBODY heard it except me.  Like always!  It was coming from the back of the room, in shadows behind the piano.”

“On the back shelf with the other puppets?” asked Max intently.

Mara nodded again.

“Stupid puppets,” muttered Max,

“But you know it wasn’t the puppets – they’re cute and friendly.  It was - ” Mara brought her voice down to a whisper “ – it was the clown.”

Max shivered at the image in his head.  “What did you do!?” he asked.

“Well, just then Miss Tanner s’cused us into the other room and I ran to get my mat and I squeezed it between Jenna’s and Marcus’ on the far-away side of the room.  Then when everyone was laid down Miss Tanner turned off the lights and told us to close our eyes and go to sleep.  But I couldn’t sleep.  I couldn’t even closed my eyes.  I tried to pretend and fake sleep, but Miss Tanner knew I was faking.”

“Teachers always know when you’re faking stuff,” agreed Max.

“Well, yeah, ‘cause they’re teachers.  She told me to go to sleep and I told her that I can’t sleep.  She said ‘try’, and I said no, I ‘can’t sleep.  And she asked me what I meant and I said I didn’t want to say in front of everyone.  So she told me to follow her back into the classroom.”

“So then what did you tell her?” Max asked.

“She asked me again why I wouldn’t go to sleep, and I told her ‘I can’t sleep, the clowns will eat me.’”

Max forgot all about trying to sleep.  Mara had his full attention.  He sat straight up in bed.  “They were gonna eat you??”

“And you know what she said back?”  Mara raised the pitch of her voice to mimic her teacher.  “‘Mara, clowns aren’t going to eat you.’ Then she asked me what clowns was I talking about and I told her I heard the clown in the back of the room laughing.”

“Did she believe you?” asked Max.

“I think so,” replied Mara, “because her face got all serious.  Then she said that the clown and puppets weren’t real and said she’d prove it and told me to go with her to the back of the room.”

“Were you scared to go?”

“Yeah, I didn’t wanna go, but she grabbed my hand and made me walk with her.”  Mara didn’t say anything for a few more minutes, lost in thought.  Max waited with all the patience he could muster, until he could no longer stand it and prodded his sister.  “Did it laugh again, when you guys got up to it?” he asked. 

“No,” replied Mara quietly.

“Oh,” whispered Max.  “So she didn’t believe you then?”

“No,” Mara replied.  “That’s not it.”

“So she did believe you?” Max was confused now.

“No.”  Mara reached over and flicked on the bedside lamp before turning to look at Max.  He had his covers pulled up to his chin and was watching her intently.  “What, then?” he whispered.

“We got to the puppet shelf and Miss Tanner reached up to grab it, only…..it wasn’t there.”

Max scooched down under his blankets.  “What do you mean, it wasn’t there?”

“I mean it was GONE!” replied Mara as she, too, grabbed the covers up to her eyes and huddled underneath them.  “Miss Tanner just stood there looking around and said ‘well that’s weird; it couldn’t just get up and walk away…’.  And then that’s when I woke up.”

“It’s still out there,” whispered Max.

Mara nodded.  “It’s gonna come back.”

Both kids were silent for a moment.

“Wait, where did mom say we were going this weekend?” asked Mara.

Max bolted straight up in bed.  “The circus!” he cried.  They exchanged frightened looks before both jumping out of bed.

“MOM!” cried Max as he ran down the hall to their parents’ bedroom. 

“You can’t make us go!” Mara yelled, two steps behind him.

In their haste, they ran right past the hallway table and didn’t see the four circus tickets sitting on top, right next to the two new, gift-with-purchase clowns their parents had bought as a surprise…



 

This was written for Blogophilia

 Blogophilia Week 4.8 Topic:  In Shadows

 

Bonus Points:

(Hard, 2 pts)  Incorporate a recurring nightmare

(Easy, 1 pt)  Use a lyric or quote by Alice Cooper

(“can’t sleep, the clowns will eat me”)