Croakies Monster by Sam Cheever

Author:Sam Cheever
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Electric Prose Publications

11

Please call me Archibald

The spider was mostly gone by the time we got back to Croakies. It was little more than a gooey stain on the carpet.

My cat was draped over the windowsill of the big front window. He meowed when he saw me, his tail waving lazily below the sill, but he didn’t jump down to greet us. He was no doubt enthralled by all the comings and goings across the street.

What’s happening out there? The frog asked. I can’t see.

I looked down to find him squatting, green and squishy at my feet. His bulgy black gaze fixed on me with earnest curiosity. I scooped him up and placed him on the wide marble sill next to Wicked. “Just don’t hop off this windowsill,” I told him. “Let me know when you’re ready to get down.”

Slimy hopped over and wedged himself against Wicked’s warm body. My cat lowered his nose to gently nudge his green best friend in greeting. I smiled wearily. It had been an exhausting day and it was good to be home.

Unfortunately, there were at least a hundred songbirds in the bookstore, sitting in tidy rows at the top of the shelves, throats throbbing on a constant stream of song.

I looked at the hobgoblin, who stood near the spider with a grin on his face and that blithering birdbrain of a magical hand vac clutched in his spidery fingers. “I cleaned it up, Miss,” Hobs said, looking so pleased with himself I didn’t have it in me to scold him for all the birds.

“Well, at least you won’t need to buy birdseed any time soon,” Sebille offered.

I nodded. “They look pretty fat and happy up there.”

A pretty blue and yellow songbird fluttered down from the shelf and landed on Hobs’ head, breaking into a Spring-worthy melody that inspired the others to redouble their efforts. The entire store throbbed in a chorus of happy bird ballads.

Sebille groaned. “All this sap-happiness is giving me a headache. I’m going to go put this stuff away.” She headed toward the dividing door with her magically miniaturized possessions in a small box, her feet dragging with unhappiness.

Hobs took off running after her, slamming the dividing door behind him.

I was so distracted by the birds that it took me a minute to realize what she’d said. Sebille was going to put all her stuff in my apartment again.

Horror slicing a track through my belly, I started after her. There had to be another solution to her housing issue.

There just had to be.

I couldn’t stand even one night of falling over her unending collection of furniture, losing out to her on the TV remote, or listening to her whistling snore all night long while sleep evaded me.

Unfortunately, before I could stop her, my cell phone rang. I looked down to a number that was becoming all too familiar. I really gave some thought to not answering. But something inside wouldn’t let me do it.

Apparently, I was one of those people who’d stand, riveted, as two trains headed right at each other at breakneck speed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.