Once there was a boy named Alex. He used to live in Colorado, but moved to Chicago. It was very different in Colorado, because it snowed so much. It even snowed in early spring. In Chicago, it was very warm, and in the early spring, it was about 60 degrees. On his first day of his new school, Alex tried to make new friends. He didn’t know anyone yet in Chicago.
He tried to make friends with a boy named Zack. Alex said, “Hi, would you want to be friends?”
Zack said, “Who’d want to be friends with a new kid?” Without another word, Zack walked away. Alex felt bad because Zack didn’t want to be friends with him.
When he went home, his mom was waiting for him at the door. She asked, “How was your first day at school?”
“It wasn’t that good,” Alex answered.
“Why?” she asked.
“This boy named Zack didn’t want to be friends with me.”
“Maybe you’ll make a friend tomorrow!”
After that, they had dinner. At dinner, Alex didn’t say a word then he brushed his teeth and went to bed. In the middle of the night, Alex saw something move out of his closet. He didn’t hear anything, though. He turned his night light on. In the light, Alex could see that it was a monster. He screamed, “HELP!!!” Alex ran into his mom’s room, and his mom said, “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” She was worried about him.
Alex replied, “There’s a monster in my room!” His mom screamed too. They both ran into Alex’s room. The monster had a round body, four eyes and it made squeaky noises. They lifted up the monster, put him in the closet and quickly shut the door and locked it. Then Alex fell back to sleep.
The next morning, Alex went to school and tried making friends with this boy named Joe. He walked away too, just like Zack did yesterday. What he didn’t know was that the monster was giving him bad luck. because he had just moved there. Nobody knew it, but when people moved to Chicago, monsters haunted them.
Then he went home and his mother asked him how his day was again. He said it was even worse than yesterday. His mom said “I feel so bad for you.” After, they had dinner and went to bed. Sure enough, in the middle of the night, the monster came out. It ran with its arms out to Alex’s bed. Alex thought he was trying to talk to him without using words. He wasn’t scared because he had expected the monster to do something like that.
This time Alex and his mom locked the door and put tape around the closet.
After, Alex’s mom said, “Alex, I think we have to move.”
Alex said, “But we just moved.”
Alex’s mom said, “There is a MONSTER in our house.”
Alex said, “Ok, you’re right.” Then Alex and his mom went back to bed.
When they woke up the next morning, they got all their things and moved to a different house next door. This house didn’t seem as haunted as the last one.
When they got settled in their new house, Alex’s mom took him to school.
Alex met this boy Joseph. Alex said, “Do you want to be friends?”
Joseph said, “Sure.” Alex felt happy. They played together the rest of the day. When Alex got home he told his mom that he made friends with Joseph.
Alex’s mom said, “I’m so happy.” Alex asked his mom if he could have a playdate with him. Alex’s mom said, “Sure.”
The next day, Alex and Joseph had a playdate. They had so much fun that after they had a sleepover!!! At the sleepover, Alex told Joseph about the monster. Joseph said in a shaky voice, “That’s so freaky.” Then they went to bed. In the middle of the night, even though they moved, the monster came out from the closet. Joseph and Alex screamed, “HELP!!!”
This time, the mom woke up and she screamed, “What’s wrong? Did someone get hurt?” She was breathing very heavily because she was so worried.
Then Alex’s mom saw the monster. “Oh, you scared me! It was the monster. Are we going to have to move again??” she said.
Alex said, “I don’t want to move again.”
The monster was just listening to them, like he didn’t know what they were saying. He speaks monster language, not English.
Alex’s mom told Alex and Joseph to stand back while she dealt with the monster. She locked the door, put tape on the door and glued the door shut. Then they all went back to bed. The mom was awake though, in case the monster came out again.
Joseph and Alex were in their beds and thought that they could name the monster.
“Maybe if we named him, he would listen to it and they could tell him to stop if he was doing something that they didn’t like or want him to do.”
Joseph said, “Do you have any suggestions for names?”
Alex said, “Well, I thought of four names, and they are:
- Four Eyes
- Logan
- Pizza
and
- Cookies.”
They chose Pizza. The monster heard this and he went wild in the closet because he was so happy that his name was Pizza. He was so happy that he went wild in the closet like he was making pizza.
Then he stopped. After that, Alex and Joseph fell asleep.
The next day, Alex and Joseph played together the whole day. At recess, they talked together about the monster. They went home and told Alex’s mom they wanted to let the monster out and see if all three of them could be friends. Alex’s mom said, “NO way I’m letting you do that.”
Joseph and Alex said, “But we’ll be careful! Can we please do it?”
Alex’s mom said, “Maybe.”
After that, Alex and Joseph thought of a few plans. They thought, maybe we can convince her by making pizza so he can smell it and then he’ll want to eat the pizza so he’ll come out. Then when he comes out, he won’t go crazy. They thought of a few more ideas, but they decided to make a cage for Pizza. They asked Alex’s mom if they could make the cage.
Alex’s mom said, “Okay, I think we can do that. But we need some wire.”
They went to the store and got pliers to cut the wires, and they got wire. Then they came back and built the cage.
Then, Joseph went to his house and asked his mom if they could have another sleepover. His mom said, “Sure, you can have another sleepover with Alex. Just be careful.” She said okay because she never knew about the monster. They didn’t tell her because she would’ve been really worried that Joseph would get eaten by the monster.
That night, Joseph and Alex had a sleepover. They had dinner and went to bed. At 12:00, they woke up Alex’s mom and told her they were going to let the monster out. They went to his room, but they forgot that they glued the door last night! They said, “Oh no! The door’s glued!”
Alex’s mom said, “What can we do?”
Alex said, “Maybe we can tell Pizza to bang on the door. We can unlock the door and we can try to turn the doorknob until it gets loose and we can open the door.”
Joseph said, “Or maybe we can laser the door out.”
“I don’t think we can do that either,” replied Alex’s mom. “I don’t think any of these ideas are good. Maybe we can think of something else.”
They sat down and thought of a bunch of ideas. None of them could work. After a while, Alex said, “Oh! Maybe we could get a few knives and cut the glue out of the door!!”
They each got a knife and got the glue out of the door. It was hard, but they did it in about 20 minutes. After, Pizza came out, and he wasn’t looking where he was going, and he walked straight into the cage.
Alex’s mom locked the cage to make sure he couldn’t get out. Then Pizza realized that he was in a cage. He said, “LALA!!!” That means HELP!!! in monster language.
Alex’s mom said, “It’s okay! You can stay in Alex’s room and we’ll let you out every day so you can play with Alex. We’ll put pizza in your cage three times a day because we know you love pizza.”
Pizza said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” He wasn’t scared because he knew that he was going to have a good time at Alex’s house.
“In the morning, every day, we’ll teach you English, and then you’ll be able to speak English with us,” said Alex’s mom.
“Then we can all talk to each other!” Pizza said.
After, they went to bed, and they built a little bed for Pizza in his cage.
The next morning, Joseph had breakfast with Alex, thanked Alex’s mom for such a good night, said goodbye to Pizza, and went home. It was the weekend. Alex had breakfast, took Pizza out of his cage, and played with him for the rest of the day. They played catch with pizza crumbs, they ate pizza together, and they had a one-hour lesson so Pizza could learn English. After doing that for a few days, Pizza could speak English.