Monsters
/Betty Martin
In the moonlight, the pinecones glowed white against the patchwork of the forest floor. Their seeds had long ago sought refuge beneath the ground. It was going to snow, a thick muffling snow, the first heavy snow of the season. It was the last chance for collecting pinecones before they, too, would become hidden.
“Just a few more, Best Beloved,” said her Papa.
“Be careful to brush them off,” said her Papa.
“Oops! That was close!” said her Papa when Best Beloved almost stumbled over a bulging tree root. He righted her. It was more difficult to collect pinecones with his daughter along but little by little, it was time to teach her about living in the pinecone forest, about the seasons and how to prepare for them, about what creatures were good to eat and easy to catch, about the mushrooms that were tasty and those that would make her sick. Watching her bend over to pick up a pinecone, her winter fat and thick fur causing her some difficulty, a surge of love mixed equally with parental fear. Best Beloved opened her muzzle and emitted a small yawn, tipping the scales away from fear, back towards love. “I think we have enough pinecones to keep us warm,” said Papa.
They started the long march home. Soon Best Beloved fell behind. The afternoon of pinecone collecting had taken a toll on the little one’s endurance. Papa set her onto his shoulders, accepting the burden of her bag of pinecones and the pleasure of carrying his little charge. This was how they traveled, father and daughter, full-grown monster and sleepy monster daughter, all the way home.
Before entering their den, Papa checked the entrance for signs of invaders. It wasn’t unusual when winter came to find another creature, a lazy creature, who had decided to move in instead of digging a home for itself. When that happened, Papa would have to draw out his claws, bare his terrible teeth, and give out a forest-quaking roar. Then the creature would run, and he would laugh. Best Beloved would laugh, too, although her laughter was a little hesitant, a little tinged with uncertainty.
This time the den showed no sign of being disturbed. The edges of the dug-out hole and the pathway leading up to it marked only with Papa’s sturdy paws and no others. Soon the snow would cover even those, helping to camouflage their refuge.
Mama was hunting, so Papa prepared a simple, protein-rich meal, not too bloody. After they ate, Best Beloved’s bedtime routine began. Papa cleaned Best Beloved’s teeth with a sturdy twig and brushed her pelt until all the leaves were out and it shone with a velvety softness. The pair settled in together on a crude rocking chair. A few tattered books rescued from abandoned campsites sat on a piece of wood wedged into one of the den’s dirt walls. Papa reached for a book, but Best Beloved squirmed on his lap.
“I don’t want a reading story, Papa. Give me a telling story.”
“A telling story?” asked Papa.
“You know, one that doesn’t come from a book but in here,” said Best Beloved, pointing to her fuzzy head. Her father gave it a pat.
“Alright, but you have to go to sleep right after I tell it,” said Papa.
“I will. But it’s got to have tigers in it.”
“It will have tigers.”
“And a girl and a boy. And a soldier.” They had read The Steadfast Tin Soldier recently.
“It will have all those things,” said Papa.
“And it’s got to have a happy ending,” said Best Beloved.
“Yes, a happy ending. That’s best for a bedtime story. Now let me think.”
#
Once there was a girl and a tiger and a boy who were all friends. How they came to be friends is anybody’s guess.
(“Would they have gotten to know each other on a campout?”
“It’s possible, but shhh.”)
On a day of heat and dust, the three friends lay down under a tree to rest.
(“What kind of tree?”
“A Banyan tree.”
“Is that like a pine tree?”
“No, it’s the kind of tree they have in stories with tigers.”
“How do you know, Papa?”
“I read about them in books. Now hush, my love.”)
Not one of them, not the boy, not the girl, not the tiger, could think of anything to do. So they continued to lay there. Soon they fell asleep as all tired creatures must. The end.
Best Beloved roared a tiny but fierce roar. “That’s not a story!”
“Why isn’t it?”
“Nothing happened!”
“Of course things happened. Creatures get tired, and then they rest. It’s a realistic story.”
“There wasn’t a soldier.”
“You’ve got me there.”
“Start over!”
“Yes, your majesty.” Papa gathered his wits, shaking his head until the fur between his horns parted. He made a funny noise that set Best Beloved laughing and began again.
#
One day, when it was so hot that the sun sweated, a boy, a girl and a tiger went for a swim. The river was cool and inviting, and many other creatures had the same idea. A hippopotamus wallowed up to its muzzle; snakes competed with each other to see who could make the longest ripples. The shallows frothed with the growing crowd. On the bank, watching the creatures, was a soldier.
(“Was the soldier also a friend?”
“I’m sorry to say that he wasn’t.”
“Oh!”)
The soldier was dressed from top to bottom in a hot wool uniform. As he watched the creatures frolic, his mood, already in a low state, began further to sour.
(“He was mad?”
“Getting there.”)
He wanted to get some relief from the heat, too, but he didn’t trust the creatures in the water not to eat him. All of a sudden, he noticed there was a boy and girl in the water.
(“So he thought it was okay to swim?”
“Wait and see.”)
The soldier thought he best not get in the water. He didn’t want to get killed himself. But he wanted to rescue the boy and the girl, as he thought they must be in danger. So he crept nearer to the bank. As he did so, he took out his shooting stick.
(“But the boy and girl weren’t in any danger, were they?”
“No. The soldier was just assuming.”
“I don’t like the soldier.”
“Nor should you.”)
More creatures came. Everyone in the water was having a good time, splashing and making noise. The soldier really didn’t want to get in the water. It was altogether too crowded with dangerous animals, but he thought the boy and girl were in even more trouble with all the extra creatures. He took off his foot coverings and rolled up his leg coverings, preparing to get in the shallows.
(Best Beloved’s little body tensed. Papa gazed at her with his large black eyes. Best Beloved had only recently seen a boy and a girl. It happened like this. Papa and Best Beloved were eating the remainders at a campsite. A boy and a girl came out of a hiding place and stared at them. Before any harm could befall Best Beloved, Papa scooped her up, escaping into the forest. He had saved her then, but perhaps he had been too hasty? Ever since the encounter, Best Beloved had asked for stories with a boy and a girl in them. This soldier character represented a chance to set things right, a teaching moment.)
The soldier stepped into the water, and with his shooting stick, he killed all the creatures in the water, even the boy and girl, because soldiers and even boys and girls are not to be trusted. The end.
Best Beloved began to whimper. The whimpering became a sob which gave way to bawling. Her crying rang through the forest, reaching all the way to her mother, who was at that moment bundling her kill into dripping packages. She cocked her head and raised a large, pointed ear up to the night sky, listening. She determined it was the distress call of a youngling, perhaps her youngling, but in emotional, not physical pain. She finished up with her kill and headed back at a reasonably fast trot.
At home, Papa was trying to comfort Best Beloved. He patted her shoulders. He offered her his arm to wipe her nose. He was on the point of heating up a comforting bowl of viscera when Mama came back from her hunting trip. She dropped the lumps of bundled food into a hole that served as a larder and came over to the rocking chair.
“What’s all this then?” asked Mama in a murmuring growl. Best Beloved reached up. Mama lifted her off Papa’s lap.
“She wanted a telling story,” said Papa, shrugging his hairy shoulders.
“And I’ll bet you scared her with a tale of the big bad world,” said Mama.
“Something like that,” Papa admitted. He relinquished the rocking chair. Mama took his place, settling Best Beloved on her lap. She soothed and petted her daughter until she quieted.
“I’ll tell the story,” said Mama.
#
A young tiger was walking in the woods one day. It was spring and many of the smaller creatures had already had babies. She hoped that some of the babies would come outside into the sunlight, for she was getting hungry.
Her mind filled with thoughts of mice and voles, hopping squirrels, quacking goslings...
(Papa waved a paw in the air. “Yes?” said Mama.
“There wouldn’t be geese and baby squirrels in the places where tigers live,” he said. Mama glared at him. Papa quieted. He was wrong, for tigers live in many places, but that is for later and not part of this story, Best Beloved.)
Since her mind was occupied with these thoughts, the tiger didn’t notice a boy and girl walking in the shadows. They were with their father, a soldier, who was carrying a shooting stick. The three human creatures were on a hunting trip. The tiger was on a hunting trip, too, but had forgotten that sometimes the hunter is also the hunted.
(Papa gave Mama a look that said, “Oh! I see what you’re doing.” Mama acknowledged the look with a slight nod, one that Best Beloved didn’t see.)
The tiger shifted her head from left to right, setting one paw quietly down, then another, looking for food. The boy and the girl and their father tip-toed, keeping slightly behind her. The tiger would have smelled them, but she had a cold coming on and so her usual sharp senses were dulled.
She was so hungry! All she wanted was to find some tender little creature, three to five mice would do it. She was not a greedy tiger, just a tiger with an empty stomach to fill and not a big one at that. She was only a year older than you are right now, Best Beloved. This was her very first hunting trip without her parents. She wanted to prove to them that she could feed herself. She wanted to make them proud of her.
The leaves shifted. A creature twittered. Was it a mouse? The tiger thought so. She pounced, and at the same time, several hot and shiny objects whizzed over one of the tiger’s stripes on her head. Had she not pounced at that very moment, the hot shiny objects would have given her a very terrible pain.
(“Eep!” said Best Beloved. She covered her mouth with both paws, her eyes as big as pie irons.)
It was something that came from the soldier’s shooting stick, something called bullets. Well, the soldier was very disappointed he had not shot the tiger. He was a grown human, and grown humans are very angry and violent. There’s never any predicting what a grown human will do. The sounds of his disappointment could be heard through the forest. But then the tiger heard other sounds in other, higher voices.
“Too bad you didn’t get that nasty ol’ tiger,” said the boy.
“Yeah, too bad. I wanted a part of that tiger’s skin to make a muff,” said the girl. “Oh, what a perfect muff it would make. Betty and Janie would be so jealous!”
“And I wanted one of its paws, so’s I could show all my buddies,” said the boy.
“Wouldn’t Tommy and Joey be impressed!”
“Don’t worry, children. Your Daddy isn’t done yet.”
So, that’s how it is, thought the tiger, who liked her skin and paws to stay just where they were. She wasn’t very big, but she was still a tiger, the fiercest, fastest creature in the forest. She was clever, too, just like you are, Best Beloved. She knew the forest and all its ins and outs better than any creature, or at least better than the soldier and the boy and the girl, who only had their heedless noses and their clumpity feet instead of paws. And so she thought of a plan to lure the three human creatures deep into the forest where who knows what would happen to them.
(Mama could see she had made a tiny mistake as Best Beloved’s brow muscles contracted, her eyes threatening to tear. It wouldn’t do to have her small daughter feel sympathy for the small humans.)
The boy and the girl and the soldier continued to talk about what they would do to the tiger once they had killed her. For that was their intention, I’m sorry to say, to kill her and chop her up to make various human ornaments from her body parts.
(Best Beloved’s expression whipped away from fear towards anger. The mistake was corrected. Mama continued.)
Meanwhile, the tiger continued to creep further and further into the forest. At one point, she added a limp. The humans noticed, making ugly chuckling noises. They were convinced the tiger had been injured somehow along the way and never noticed how much further into the forest they were going.
(Papa harrumphed. “The human creatures are stupid,” he murmured.
“Hush!” said Mama.)
Once they were very deep into the forest, the tiger made a few sounds. To the humans, they sounded like cries of pain. They were really calls to all her brothers and sisters, aunties and uncles, and her mother and father, too, to come out of hiding.
The little tiger lay down and panted in a small clearing, still pretending to be hurt. The human creatures crept closer. The tiger stretched and rolled over, playing almost dead. The human creatures crept even closer. The tiger opened her jaw and let her tongue loll. When the soldier bent down to inspect her head, thinking that the injury he gave her there had finally killed her, the tiger’s family came out of hiding.
The human creatures jumped back in terror. They screamed and cried, pounding their fists against their chests and begging for mercy. The tiger’s family reared back in surprise, not knowing what to make of this cowardly behavior. The crying continued, becoming loud wails and choking sobs. The sounds annoyed the tigers, who would never act in such a spineless fashion, but after a while, the sounds began to soften their hearts.
The little tiger’s family made sure she was okay. After that, they had a huddle to decide what to do about the scared, crying, spineless human creatures.
The eldest female tiger held both her paws up in the air for silence. When she spoke, the human creatures dried up, so shocked were they to hear a tiger speak the poor guttural sounds of their own language. “Humans! We are not going to kill you. Please calm down.”
“You aren’t?” said the boy and girl together. Their father kept ahold of his shooting stick and said nothing.
“No. So long as you promise never to come here again.” said the eldest female tiger.
“Can you give us a moment?” said the soldier father. The eldest female tiger extended a gracious paw indicating that she would give them a moment.
The soldier and his boy and girl talked in whispers. When they were finished, the soldier said, “We agree.”
“Very well. We will guide you back to the path,” said the eldest female tiger.
A very strange band of humans and tigers walked through the forest, the human creatures at the front, the tigers directing them this way and that from behind. When they were almost out of the forest—
(“They said goodbye?” said Best Beloved. Papa gave Mama a look of dissatisfaction. She nodded her head slightly to reassure him. Without answering Best Beloved, she continued.)
When they were almost out of the forest, a large group of soldiers with many, many shooting sticks met them. You see, while they were in the huddle, the soldier had contacted his soldier friends with a special metal talking object, and they had come. The soldier father said to his children, “Run!” They ran to the awaiting soldiers who quickly hid the boy and the girl behind them. Before the tiger and her family knew it, the large group of soldiers fired their shooting sticks and killed all the tigers. The End.
Best Beloved’s eyes began to fill, and her throat constrict. “But what about the promise?” she wailed. “They promised never to come into the forest again!”
“Well, you see, darling,” said Mama. “They didn’t come into the forest.”
“But that’s not what eldest female tiger meant!”
“Human creatures believe what they want to believe. You must never trust a human creature,” said Mama She handed Best Beloved back to Papa and stood. Bending over so that Best Beloved could see, she pulled aside a patch of fur, revealing thick ropes of angry red flesh dotted with darker marks. The wound had healed but badly. It bore the look of pain, violence, and a close escape from death, for it was all these things.
“It wasn’t a little tiger,” said Mama in a hushed voice. Best Beloved’s eyes widened with sudden awareness. She hid her face in her father’s furry chest and began to cry. Papa resumed rocking and petting her, while Mama fussed in the back of the den. Soon a fire crackled. The scent of roasting meat wafted towards the front. In a little while, Mama brought the pieces of cooked meat out on a tin camping plate, a little dented, from being tossed around a human campsite, but still serviceable.
“There, there, my little one. Have a bedtime snack,” said Mama. She handed around the small pink fingers and toes she had cooked, and everyone ate their fill. With bellies replete, the three monsters grew sleepy. They lay down, Best Beloved snuggled between Mama and Papa. The whole family slept soundly while the snow fell, a deep, dreamless, reassuring sleep that lasted until the storm was over.
The End
Author’s Note: Five years ago my daughter was nearly beaten to death by her boyfriend. This story comes from an unhealed place. The desire to protect my children goes on forever. The ability to do so does not.
Betty Martin holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA in creative writing from Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania. Her stories have appeared in Breakwater Review, Make Literary Magazine, Cagibi, and in other literary journals.
