Gods & Monsters

I’m not afraid of monsters.

I never was. Not even when I was little and my mom used to say that if I ate chocolate before dinner, the monster under my bed would come get me.

Well, I always thought, why would he come get me if I ate chocolate? Why would he care what I ate? Did he want my chocolate for himself? Was he hungry? Because if he was I could totally share.

So, when I was five I decided that if I ever met a monster, I’d give him a piece of my chocolate and tell him to stop trying to be scary.

It won’t work on me, I’d say.

I don’t think that monsters are all bad or evil, actually. I think what they have is a story, and I like stories more than I like anything else in the world. I may like stories more than I like chocolates – Toblerone, specifically.

Anyway, I’m twelve now. I still stand by it and eat chocolate before dinner no matter what. In fact, I’ve got a secret stash right here. My treehouse.

It’s my favorite place in the world. It’s small and cozy, with floor cushions, one of which I’m occupying right now, and a multi-colored rug. But the most awesome part is the color of the walls. It’s sunny, painted yellow all over. My dad did it himself last summer for my birthday. It matches the color of the sun, and also my hair. My most prized possession is an old chest that sits right next to me. It carries all my secrets: my Toblerone stash, lots and lots of books and my journals.

I’ve been writing in journals for as long as I can remember. I think I’m going to be a writer one day. I don’t know what I’m going to write about, though. For now, I write about my life, about what I do every day. And one day when I’m a grown-up, I’ll go back and make a story out of it.

One day people will read what I wrote sitting inside my sunny treehouse, eating my Toblerone and playing with the loose strands of my yellow hair. They will read my stories, re-read them. Maybe they will love them, hate them or maybe they will feel nothing at all. But they will remember me, and maybe even talk about me for years.

Wouldn’t that be the best? Living forever and ever.

Usually, I can sit up here for a long time but today I can’t get comfortable. My butt has gone numb and I’m having to shift and adjust my position every five seconds.

Ugh.

I hate this. I hate that I’m a woman now. That’s what my mom called it when she came into my room to wake me up today and saw my flowered bedsheets stained with blood.

It was sticky and smelly and in my grogginess, I thought I was going to die. That someone had come during the night when I was sleeping and cut up my insides, and I was bleeding out. Tears ran down my cheeks as I thought about all the fun and wonderful things I wouldn’t get to do this summer. I was going to die without writing my story. I needed to write it. That was the one thing I’d always wanted.

“Mommy, I’m gonna die, right?” I whispered.

My mom threw me a stern look and told me to wipe my tears off. “You’re not a baby anymore, Evie. Don’t be so dramatic. It’s just your period.”

Period.

Ah, okay. Things clicked into place after that. Of course, I knew that.

I know about periods. Who doesn’t? But blood can make you stupid and think about awful things. Though I wish I knew how uncomfortable it felt, wearing a pad. It’s like walking with a constant wedgie. I hate being on my period. Detest. Loathe. Despise. Abhor.

Okay, that’s it. That’s all the words I know that describe hate. I love synonyms. I even have a thick dictionary inside my chest that I read every summer just for fun.

“Can you stop moving for a sec?” Sky, my best friend, snaps. “I need to focus.”

I look up from where I’m sitting and settle my eyes on her. Her name’s Skylar but everyone calls her Sky. Like my name is Evangeline but everyone calls me Evie. She’s my closest friend in the whole wide world.

Right now, she’s busy tying the tubing around her fork-shaped tree branch. She’s making a slingshot. Her weapon of choice, she says.

Yeah, Sky is a kind of girl who needs weapons in her life. I would be afraid of her if I wasn’t her friend. Because she’s bloodthirsty and hates almost everyone, and she has a long list of people she wants to kill. Her face is dipped and I can only see her black, messy hair as the chin-length strands flick across her face.