After she had gone and he was safely alone, Nick slid his hand beneath the mattress and pulled out the notebook. He had been dreaming about it all night, imagining the pages white as snow, the ink turning to blood red. Hold it close, he decided, bury it under his overcoat, beneath his hoodie sweatshirt, keep it next to the skin.
Nick smuggled in the monsters. While his mother was engaged at the door with Mr. Keenan, he managed to sneak past them both and scurry off with Jack Peter. At the top of the stairs, Jack Peter whispered, “Wait here” and ran into the bathroom. Nick loitered in the hallway, spying through the open door to Mr. and Mrs. Keenan’s room. The unmade bed looked like a crime scene, a red quilt flowing to the floor and tangled sheets the dreadful evidence of their recent presence. He was not sure why, but the disorder unnerved him. He listened for a flush from the toilet, but heard only laughter coming from the kitchen. Jack Peter burst from the bathroom and they crept into his room. Behind the closed door, Nick slipped the notebook from beneath his sweatshirt and handed it to his conspirator.
For the whole week, he had been busy dutifully following the instructions to keep his creations bound in a secret notebook, and on lined paper stood one monster per page. With a mix of nerves and pride, he watched Jack Peter peruse them one by one. The first few creatures imitated their pop culture counterparts: the old movie Frankenstein complete with flat top and neck bolts, and his Bride with the electric beehive hairdo, a cloaked vampire with brilliantined hair and bared fangs, a mummy in peeling wrappers, a skeleton with dancing bones. He had copied the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a winged monstrosity labeled Mothman, a witch and her flying monkeys. There were a stylized werewolf and floating Dementors straight out of Harry Potter, an orc from the Lord of the Rings, and a fire-breathing dragon patched together from a dozen movie dragons. Jack Peter raced through the images like a critic, vaguely dissatisfied with the work, searching for something that was not there. When he reached the last page, he flipped back to the beginning to scrutinize each drawing, tracing with a fingertip the path of certain lines, muttering beneath his breath. He did not speak directly to Nick but rather seemed lost in the process of seeing.
When at last Nick understood what was taking place, he could no longer bear to sit and watch. He took a turn about the bedroom, inspecting for the hundredth time its attractions. On the other side of the closet door, he imagined, one of their monsters, snarling quietly to itself, peered through the keyhole, waiting. On the bookcase carefully arranged treasures gathered dust. Toy cowboys and Indians and colorful plastic soldiers from many wars tangled in a knot inside a clear jar labeled Sebago Pretzel Co. Next to that contained jumble stood a stack of puzzles and board games—chess and checkers, backgammon and Parcheesi, marathon Monopoly and Risk that could occupy entire afternoons. He touched the box of a German game called Waldschattenspiel that they had played all the time last winter, a game requiring candlelight in darkness, where trolls in pointy felt hats hid behind wooden trees, moving away from a relentless seeker, winning by keeping to the shadows.
On the floor between Jack Peter’s old toy box and the desk, a mousetrap had been baited with a chunk of hard cheese, its killing bar poised to snap. Nick squatted on his haunches to inspect, resisting the urge to spring the mechanism with a quick finger. “What’s this for?”
From the bed, Jack Peter did not look up from the picture. “My mother thinks we have a mouse.”
“Have you ever seen it?” Nick sat on the toy box, remembering when it held their childish treasures.
Jack Peter bent closer to the drawing. “I’ve never seen it because it isn’t a mouse.”
As usual, the desk was clean and ordered, schoolbooks piled on the back right corner, paper stacked neatly on the left. The single drawer in the middle sealed in a mystery he dared not release. Atop the bureau, the mirror reflected the falling snow and the ocean through the window on the opposite wall. Nick idled away a few moments, transfixed by the waves caught in the silvered glass. The melody of his mother’s voice rose from below, joined by the nervous reply from Mr. Keenan in the breakfast nook. Theirs was a different rhythm from the muffled sounds his parents made, and he was distracted by its music.