The umbrella had either been designed by an idiot or a sadist.

         It had a map of the city on the top, rendered in a charming sepia, and a map of its intricate tunnel system on the bottom, all moody blues and purples. This was all well and good, until you actually attempted to use the thing. If aboveground, you would need the aboveground map, which would be inaccessible, as it would be pointed toward the sky for the benefit of no one. The intuitive next step is to turn it upside down, but with this comes the unfortunate drawbacks of shielding oneself from a downpour by holding a bowl over one’s head. As you held the map, head craning, it would steadily become heavier and heavier, until it began overflowing, at which point you would be encircled in a curtain of rain. How you would return from this state is a matter of your own ingenuity. There’s little to be said about its utility underground, except as a uniquely unwieldy map, and an attractor of odd looks. 

         Though, Lettie reflected glumly, to have bought it, I must either be an idiot or a masochist, and I’m not a masochist. 

         She was searching for the name of the street she was on, and doing so quickly, because the umbrella was filling. The street was Ravenscroft, and she had no clue how she’d gotten there, though she was trying to find out. She didn’t get to, though, as the building water suddenly and thunderously tore through the umbrella, dumping onto her with a mighty splash. This was unfortunate on two counts. On the first, it wasted her efforts in forcing the umbrella to function for what was ostensibly its primary use. On the second, she had been devising a much more painful and graphic end for this umbrella once she no longer had use for it. The map was still intact- the fiber of the umbrella had merely been torn away from its metal framework, which it had been attached to quite cheaply. She tore it the rest of the way off, and, letting the skeleton drop to the grass beside her, held it up to read as best she could. She consoled herself by thinking she could still track down whoever designed it and give them that painful end instead. 

         The streets, warped to fit on their circular canvas, were becoming difficult to tell apart in the rapidly fading light. She had been hoping that she’d somehow know her way around, but that was silly. She hadn’t known her way around the city when she’d lived here either. She felt she had run entirely out of options by the time she saw a taxicab rounding the corner. All her misery turned to desperation as she began jumping, waving her map like a flag above her head. As the taxi drove past her, she got a view of three rowdy and transparently drunk teenagers in the backseat. She let her arm fall to her side. 

 

Red. White. White. Grey. Blue. Black. Grey. 

Grey. 

“You handled that very well, you know.” 

“Thanks.” Brown. 

“Really. Most kids your age aren’t nearly so mature as you.”

“Thanks.”

“I know I wasn’t that mature when I was your age.” We stop. Red, white, green, white. Lots of white ones. “You are okay, aren’t you?” I turn, and see she has lowered her sunglasses, and is peering over them at me. “You’d tell me if you were hurt, right?”

“Of course, mom,” I say, and give her an obliging smile before resting my head against the window again. TRI-9362. GHA4511. 

“Okay. I guess so, it’s just- and I know you hate this. Like Ah! Mom! Shut up! I get it. But it’s my job, you know.”

“I don’t mind,” I tell her, but I kind of do. I can tell she’s going to be talking for a while, probably the whole ride home. I was hoping she would keep not talking about it.

“You’re just so self-sufficient! I don’t know what to do! I guess I’d just feel better if I were able to do something. To know I was helping you somehow. But that’s just me being selfish, huh.”

“You’re not being selfish,” I say promptly. If I let her insult herself, she’ll get worked up, and act like I’m insulting her. 

“Thanks, hun,” she says, and I can tell from her voice she’s smiling. “Leticia,” she says playfully, and I smile a little, too. We’re moving again. 

“You do have someone to talk to, though, right? Like, a friend who you can talk about things with, things you don’t want to talk about with me?” 

“Yeah,” I say, like I do every time she asks this. It’s also kind of true. I have a friend, even if she doesn’t go to the same school as me anymore, and we haven’t talked in… four months? More? But it isn’t like we’ve ever had any of the sort of talks Mom is imagining. Does anyone talk like that? I don’t think kids do. Why can’t she just believe I’m fine?

I’ve always been fine. People oversell everything. I was hoping that maybe starting middle school would be when important things started happening, when things worth caring about and taking seriously started happening, but it wasn’t really any different than before. It was just more school. Every grade has just been more school. I feel like I could get used to anything, and then it would feel the same as everything else. Even Mom cheating on Dad. It doesn’t really matter. I’m fine with not seeing Dad again. I’m also fine with not seeing Mom again, if it goes that way, but I don’t think it is. Her lawyer told a good story- I couldn’t help but be a little interested. Still, I mostly just read my book. 

I’ve learned that if I do only what’s expected, things turn out in an expected way, endlessly. At first I was surprised when Mom was caught cheating on Dad. What I would have done that night, as they shouted at each other, if it had just been another night, would be to read a book in my room. And since that’s what I did anyway, it was just another night after all. 

And the more I thought about it, the cheating didn’t challenge my theory. People in love cheat on each other all the time. More often than not, maybe. They also break up all the time. Even if my parents divorced, that’d still just be a common occurrence. Once I’d figured that much, I calmed down a lot, and stopped thinking about it. So when my Mom sat me down and told me that’s what was happening, I was ready. It didn’t affect me at all. I liked the feeling, though, when she was surprised at how calm I was, and when it made her worry.

Hot pink. That’s unusual. And they’ve attached little foam antlers to the front. It’s almost summer.

“You know,” she continues, “I’ve been reading this little self-help book. The… well, I don’t remember the name. But it’s really amazing stuff. Really, really insightful stuff. I just read this last chapter, it’s about stoicism. A very wise philosophy, you know. All about not letting things bother you, keeping perspective, being, like, immoveable. I’ll lend it to you sometime.”

“I’ll read it.” I won’t. She’ll forget about it. Grey. Grey. 

“Stoic. I’ll bet that’s it. You’re a very special kid, you know that?”

“Mm.” I know that. 

“You should be proud of how you handled yourself today.”

Green. White. Blue. White. 

“Very special. And so smart and talented, and such good grades. You’re going to grow up to be a very respectable person, I’m sure. And you’re so good at soccer! Makes me feel like I ought to have been doing more when I was young.”

I smile to myself. It’s silly, but it’s the kind of talk that gets to me. I feel warm, thinking about it. I am kind of special, aren’t I? Of course, everyone thinks that a little, but I know it’s true. I imagine the kids in my class think it, but I can see the difference between them and me like night and day, and so can the teachers. Shouldn’t special people be fine with admitting to themselves? 

That’s right. I’ll just keep doing what’s expected of me. When I do the expected thing, expected things happen. And I know what’s expected for people like me. A smart kid in a well-off-enough family, and one who doesn’t get caught up on all those things people are always complaining about. From fumbling with keys to divorce, I can’t understand what moves them to the kinds of rage or frustration I see in the people around me. I’m one of the kids who ends up in a decent house with a comfortable job and some money to work with. I’m quite sure of it. I don’t need much at all to be fine, so that’s plenty. So why care about anything so much you get mad over it? Everything between here and there, time will wash away. 

I wish, though, that for once, things would be something other than fine, and something unexpected would happen. But nothing ever happens here. Nothing happens anywhere. 

Grey. Grey. Grey. Grey. Grey. 

 

Lettie stood before her old home with a metal umbrella frame in one hand and a cheap circle of canvas in the other. 

How long exactly the house had been in the family was anyone’s guess. It was a great mass of precarious skyward extensions, each made by different hands, and each the product of different eras of architecture. The ambition of the procession of Dinheimers responsible was unfortunately not matched by their skill, though their repeated engagements in brinkmanship with the force of gravity had not yet caused utter catastrophe. When Lettie’s father had resolved to leave his own mark on the ancient house, its state was that of a Jenga tower at the end of a game which, by the accounts of all but the players, ought to have ended many turns ago. 

A house divided will stand just fine for as long as you let it. Maybe I’ll tear it down, then. Can I burn it? Wouldn’t be arson, but probably still illegal somehow or other. Unfair.

Lettie regarded the doors, and dropped the umbrella frame. She held onto the canvas because that would blow away in the wind. She took her key from her coat pocket and forced it into the lock. It didn’t want to turn for her, but it turned soon enough.

Inside, she wasn’t sure what to do right away. First, she closed the door behind her and dropped the map to the floor. She took off her backpack. Then she sat in her father’s chair. There, he’d fussed to her mother that it wouldn’t be right- that it wasn’t his right- for him to add an extension to the Dinheimer house. Her mom thought it was perfect that the man she’d fallen in love with had turned out to be a carpenter and a builder, and could immortalize their union in her family’s house. It was her way of saying You’re one of us. We accept you. We are destined for each other. It was also the main reason his lawyer was able to swing it that he got to keep the house when they split, that and a few other reasons. It would be left to Lettie when he was gone, so it would stay in the family. And now he was gone. 

 

I never fall asleep before 2 a.m.. I lay in bed and sleep doesn’t come, so I just think. And sometimes, I manage to slip my mind into this little groove. When I do it, I go from knowing that I’m going to die someday to really, truly comprehending it, I think. For five to ten seconds, I feel this desperate panic that I want to run through the streets screaming about, telling everyone, “You’re going to die! You’re all going to die!” I also feel this total powerlessness, because I know nothing I do will help or change anything, and doing anything at all is the same as doing anything else. So quickly it disappears. When it does, I keep on thinking the words over and over, in different combinations. You’re going to die someday. You won’t exist. You’ll be dead. Your consciousness will end. You won’t experience anything. There’ll be no you. Sometimes I manage to get the feeling back to back. It used to be I could manage it about once a week. As I’ve gotten older, there’s been more and more time between each success, which I don’t like. It’s still the strongest emotion I’ve ever felt. 

I wonder if I’m a sociopath. 

 

         “You know, there’s a monster under your bed.”

         I really hate my brother. When I was younger, I was really dumb and immature, and I did all kinds of embarrassing things. I believed dumb lies or messed up doing simple stuff. Now I’m twelve, and am much more mature. Everyone at school knows it. The problem with family is that they remember all the stuff from before you knew how to control yourself. I think everyone should be allowed to get a new family at twelve, so they can make a new first impression, now that they know how to get it right. It’s not fair otherwise. 

         “Shut up,” I say. “I’m not eight.”

         “Oh?” He leans over me, and I make a point of not looking up from my book. “Then how come you’re reading a picture book?”

         That’s a kids’ thing?! I had no idea. I’m about to say that it isn’t a picture book, it’s just a book with a few pictures in it, but I realize that there’s a better choice. “It’s assigned reading,” I lie, closing it. 

         “Tch. You’re so boring. I don’t understand why I got cursed with the most boring sister in existence.” 

         “I don’t understand why I got cursed with the most annoying brother in existence. I suppose being not boring would mean being easier to trick?” I give up not looking at him then, since with the book closed, there isn’t anything else believable to be looking at. 

         “It would mean all kinds of things. Don’t you want to have any fun? Maybe if you were more fun, I would have made you an accomplice in my raid on the candy for Halloween this morning.” He waggles his eyebrows and grins. 

         I stare at him in silence for a moment, then I go and grab our telephone off the wall and start dialing. 

         “...What are you doing?”

         “I’m telling mom. She said not to touch that.”

         “Wha-!” He snatches the phone from my hand. 

         “Hey!” I shout, and jump to try and reach it, but he holds it high above my head.

         “I was joking! Jesus, I was just trying to get a reaction. This is what I’m talking about! Why is that where your mind goes. Are you even human? Jesus,” he says again. “Look, I’ll put the phone back once you promise not to do that. I didn’t steal any of the Halloween candy. You can go look if you like; all the bags are still unopened.” 

         I think for a moment, and decide it isn’t worth it. Even if he did take some, it doesn’t really matter. “Okay,” I say. “I promise.” He sets the phone back on the wall with a click.  I watch the wire swing. 

         “There is a monster under your bed, though.”

         “Oh my go-”

         “No, listen! I really mean it. It’s one of those things that sounds wild, but is really real. Like Bigfoot, you know?”

         I hesitate. Is Bigfoot real? I don’t know much about it- him? I shake my head after a moment, though. “No. If there were a monster under my bed, I’d know by now.”

         “But you wouldn’t. They’re really sneaky, see? Like possums.”

         I eye him mistrustfully, and he gives me this really serious look. “Why would a monster want to sleep under my bed?”

         “I dunno. Maybe they like dark places. Small ones, safe from predators”

         “They’re… animals?”

         “Of course they’re animals! What else would they be, plants?”

         I feel my face color. They’d have to be one or the other. Is this really just something I didn’t know about? I want to ask more questions, but if I ask my brother, I’ll look even more dumb. I can ask someone tomorrow, when I’ll be back in school. I’ll also do some investigation tonight. Best not to tell him that, though. If he is lying, he’ll find it hilarious that I went looking for evidence. Is “monster” a species? Is calling someone a monster… a metaphor? Because monsters are nasty or scary? 

         “I’m going to read in my room so I can get some peace,” I announce, so he won’t know where I stand on the whole monster-under-the-bed thing one way or the other. 

         Once the door to my room is locked, I instantly feel better. I set my book down and collapse into my desk chair, spinning it to face the bed. I kinda hate the cartoon birds on the sheets, but I’m not going to ask for new ones, because it doesn’t actually matter. The space underneath is small, but not too small for me. I imagine a little possum staring at me from under it, its open mouth a pink triangle, its wide eyes catching the light. I lean my head back and close my eyes for a minute, soaking in the solitude.

         I imagine going and meeting a new family. I’d show up in front of their house, and they’d be waiting for me out front. “Hi,” I’d say. “I’m Leticia Eduard Dinheimer, but you can call me Lettie,” and I’d shake their hands. “Hi,” my new mother would say. “I’m Mrs….” Well, I don’t know what her name would be. It isn’t really important. What matters is that I wouldn’t have a brother, and me and my parents would handle things like adults. My new mother wouldn’t shout or cry or hold me as captive audience in the car. She’d just make me food and drive me places. All you need parents for, really. 

         Actually, at that point, why have parents at all? I bet I could do both of those things. 

         I suddenly decide it’s time to investigate, and spring to my feet. I spin around on my way to the bed, then let myself fall to the floor and catch myself. It’s dark under there, but not too dark, and I can make out the far wall. There are some tissues, some pencils, some hair, a couple coins… wait, hair!? I scrabble underneath, and grab the hair, then take it out to look at in the light.

         It’s a thin tangle of long, dark strands- dark brown. A shiver of excitement runs through me. It could easily be my own, but brown is a pretty common color for hair. I squint and think. This doesn’t rule anything out. Is this monster really real? I hope so. Everything’s so dull, I’d love to find a monster under my bed. Of course, it’ll probably end up being disappointing- everything is, once you understand it or get used to it. But I can hope, at least for now. 

I’ll have to check when it’s night, and the monster’s sleeping. That’s why it’d be coming here, presumably. A safe place to sleep. Thanks to what my brother said, I just keep on picturing it as a large possum. The most recent development is that it is now an entirely brown possum. For unrelated reasons, I don’t seem to be able to picture a possum with any expression other than wide eyed with its little mouth open. I must have seen a picture of that somewhere. 

 

I’ve changed into my PJs and brushed my teeth. I lock the door to my room, as always. I can’t relax when I know someone could open the door at any second. I’ll lay in bed for a few hours, and then I’ll sneak down and search under the bed for the monster. I can’t leave my lamp on to read, because then the monster might not come. I’ll just have to lay still and pretend to be asleep. 

Another hour and a half, as best I can figure, and the dull light of the moon is all that fills the room. I’ve been thinking, and I don’t know how the monster could be getting in each night, since I always close and lock the door. I’ll still check, since I might as well, but now that the excitement has worn off, I’m quite sure I know exactly what I’ll find. After this, I’m never going to believe another word my brother says.

Nonetheless, I stealthily slip out of bed, and squint underneath. It’s no good- there isn’t enough light to see anything. I wonder briefly if the monster might be dangerous, but dismiss it. Even if it is, I could use a little danger. I crawl under, and search about with my hands. I find nothing, and search some more. 

Nothing.

Feeling like an idiot, I crawl back out, and climb back into bed.  

 

Lettie sat in her father’s chair, contemplating murder- in the normal, cathartic, not-serious way. Anyway, her parents were already dead. She considered writing her fantasy down, but decided what she needed right now was not another totally unpublishable Google Doc. Even if she switched the names out, what did she expect readers to come away thinking? Thank goodness that elderly, divorced couple was murdered, and our protagonist got away with it! 

She got up and went to her room upstairs, locking the door behind her. Sitting on her bed, she removed her laptop from her backpack and opened a new Google Doc. After a few minutes of staring at it, she began. 

 

Feeling like an idiot, I crawl back out, and climb back into bed…

But as I do, my hand hits something warm and furry. I can just make out a dark mass on the bed, bigger than I am, sprawled out and asleep. At my touch, though, its eyes open, catching the light. They have elliptical pupils, like cats. And there are three of them. I stumble back, letting out a squeak. We both freeze and stare at each other for I don’t know how long. Then it begins to move and, not knowing what else to do, I make for the light switch and flick it on, and, and-

This isn’t my room. A vaulted ceiling covered in painted constellations and hanging model planets, ones I’ve never seen before, with crisscrossing rings and purple oceans. Outside the circular window beside me are two moons, one slightly smaller than the other, far apart in the dark sky. Posters cover the wall, featuring shaggy, three-eyed monsters with ray guns or swords, all covered in a language I can’t read- they look like movie posters. Figurines litter the desk and dresser, and clothes are piled up at the foot of the bed. Drifts of pencil shavings and fur are all over the carpet. Only one thing is familiar. The sheets are different, but- yes, I’m sure: the bedframe is the same as before.

The monster is wearing flannel pajamas, with four sleeves for its four arms. One of those arms reaches blindly for the bedside table as it refuses to take its eyes off me, and it puts on thick red-framed glasses. Its fingers are short and stubby, kind of monkey-like, and free of the long, shaggy fur that covers the rest of its body, save its pink, pig-like snout.  The arc between the two lower lenses supports a third lens above, for its third eye. A shaky, cautiously optimistic smile spreads across its face.

“Can you understand me?” it- she- asks. One bewildered moment later, I nod. “Where did you come from?” she asks next. I manage to point. She looks below her, and when she looks back up, the smile isn’t cautious at all anymore. She jumps to her feet and pumps her fists triumphantly. “I knew it!” she says. “I knew there was a monster under my bed!”

I work my mouth uselessly. The monster has come right up to me, and is circling me rather closely. She tugs at my ear, and that must have broken some kind of spell because I say “Hey! Watch it!”

“Oh! Sorry. I couldn’t help myself; they’re so weird. I mean- sorry.” The pig ears on top of her head twitch. I’m realizing that she smells rather bad.

“So, what were you doing under my bed?”

“I wasn’t! I was looking for a monster under my bed! I was in my room! I don’t know how I got here! I don’t-”

“Shhhhhh. My parents are sleeping.”

“I- oh.” I close my eyes, and take a long, deep breath before opening them again. Only then, I think- only after opening my eyes and seeing her still there, studying me- does it hit me. There’s a monster in front of me. I’m in another world, and there’s a monster in front of me. I can’t help it. A broad smile splits across my face. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s magic. 

 

“So there’s no magic in your world, either?” she asks, deflating somewhat.

“No,” I say. “None. I’m as shocked to find out my bed’s a portal as you are.”

We’ve discovered that the technology in our worlds is basically the same, and that it’s mostly plants, animals, and geography that’s different. Betheliz- who I’ve elected to call Liz- really wants my world to be like one of her stories. Nothing deters her excitement for long, though. All kinds of mundane things are exciting to her, things that would never occur to me as anything interesting. The name Liz, for example. I told her it’s short for Elizabeth, and she’s taken to it with great enthusiasm. “I have a nickname from another world!” she’d squealed. “I’m going to write it in all my journals and put it in my bio!”

We’re sitting on her- our?- bed at the moment, talking. I’ve already decided that she’s mine- my secret, something I get to know about that my brother will never get to see. He clearly didn’t know that this existed. He was just lying again. It means something, obviously, that I found this place, and not anyone else. “No magic,” she says. “That’s a shame. I was really hoping I could, like, go learn magic in another world! Even if it wouldn’t work when I came back to the real world. Is there at least some big, world-spanning struggle to go be the savior of? Or a chance your world might want to invade mine?”

I think for a minute. “No,” I say. “Not really. It’s pretty boring, actually.”

“Aw, shucks. Well, you must be wrong in some way. Obviously, this wouldn’t have happened unless there was some need for it. Like destiny, you know?” She leaps to her feat, flailing her arms around in a sorry approximation of fighting. “I’m gonna have to battle evil monsters or rescue someone or go and learn some big, valuable lesson and then, when I get back, everyone’s gonna be like, ‘there’s something different about her,’ and then, some bully’s gonna threaten me, and I’m gonna look ‘em dead in the eyes and be like ‘You don’t know what pain is,’ and they’ll be like ‘Oh, man, I don’t, do I?,’ and they’ll stop!”

I laugh, because the utter lack of shame on display has no other response. “How old are you?”

I mean it to be demeaning, but she says, “Thirteen! As of yesterday. See? It totally means something that this portal thing happened when it did.”

That’s a surprise. I figured she couldn’t be older than I was. “I’m thirteen, too.” That’s more truthful than if I said twelve, since I’m closer to thirteen than twelve.

“Awesome!” she says. “Then we should be friends!”

“O-oh!” She’s smiling at me, and I discover that I really don’t want to hurt her feelings. It makes me feel really special, to have someone as unique and novel as her like me. I’ve never really had friends before- I don’t talk to people much, and they don’t tend to notice me. “Ok,” I say, worrying that I’ve waited too long and been rude or made her anxious. Is “Ok,” too weak of an answer? I might be bad at this.

 

Lettie felt her face heating, and half closed her laptop. So this wasn’t an autobiography, then? She struggled with the temptation to delete everything after where she climbed back into bed. But then, where was the story supposed to go? She had no idea how to end it. Maybe I’ll finally have an ending to write once I’m dead. But I guess I can’t wait until then. 

But would a monster friend have really changed anything? Once it’s real, is it really magic anymore?

If magic were real, then the more you learned about it, the more you’d want to learn, and there’d always be more left. Your wonder would outlive your ignorance. Lettie had searched for something like that in the real world, but never found it. So she kept doing the expected at every turn, and time washed her life away. Except that she kept writing. 

Does that mean something? A way to do the unexpected without doing a single goddamned thing, without changing anything. But I guess I’ll just keep writing. 

Lettie set her laptop aside, and stood in her too-small room. Then she crawled under the bed. After a minute, she came out, seized her laptop, and kept writing.