(Bodacious ta-tas, his father would undoubtedly have said, it's what his father always says about what Jake's mother calls A Certain Type Of Girl)
screams her lungs out, and Jake luould scream too if he could but his chest is locked down with terror, o here is Discordia incarnate! In the monster's eyes he sees the utter nothing that means the end of everything, for pleading won't work with such a monster and screaming won't work with such a monster, it's too dumb, all screaming does is attract the monster's attention, and does, it turns toward the Daisy Mae with the bodacious ta-tas and then it charges the Daisy Mae with the bodacious ta-tas, and in the kitchen (the mighty kitchen) he hears the Tokens, gone from the charts but not from our hearts, they are singing about the jungle, the peaceful jungle, and here in front of the little boy's huge horrified eyes is a jungle which is anything but peaceful, and it's not a lion but a lumbering thing that looks sort of like a rhinoceros only bigger, and it has a kind of bone collar around its neck, and later Jake will find out you call this kind of monster a triceratops, but for now it is nameless, which makes it even worse, nameless is worse. "Wimeioeh," sing the Tokens, "Weee-ummm-a-weh," and of course Cesar Romero shoots the monster just before it can tear the girl with the bodacious ta-tas limb from limb, which is good at the time, but that night the monster comes back, the triceratops comes back, it's in his closet, because even at four he understands that sometimes his closet isn't his closet, that its door can open on different places where there are worse things waiting.
He begins to scream, at night he can scream, and Mrs. Greta Shaw comes into the room. She sits on the edge of his bed, her face ghostly with blue-gray beautymud, and she asks him what's wrong 'Bama and he is actually able to tell her. He could never have told his father or mother, had one of them been there to begin with, which they of course aren % but he can tell Mrs. Shaw because while she isn't a lot different from the other help-the au pairs babysitters child minders schoolwalkers-she is a little different, enough to put his drawings on the fridge with the little magnets, enough to make all the difference, to hold up the tower of a silly little boy's sanity, say hallelujah, say found not lost, say amen.
She listens to everything he has to say, nodding, and makes him say tri-CER-a-TOPS until finally he gets it right. Getting it right is better.
And then she says, "Those things were real once, but they died out a hundred million years ago, 'Bama. Maybe even more. Now don't bother me any more because I need my sleep."
Jake watches The Lost Continent on Million Dollar Movie every day that week. Every time he watches it, it scares him a little less.
Once, Mrs. Greta Shaw comes in and watches part of it with him. She brings him his snack, a big bowl of Hawaiian Fluff (also one for herself) and sings him her wonderful little song: "A little snack that's far and wee, there's some for you and some for me, blackberry jam and blackberry tea." There are no blackberries in Hawaiian Fluff, of course, and they have the last of the Welch's Grape Juice to go with it instead of tea, but Mrs. Greta Shaw says it is the thought that counts. She has taught him to say Rooty-tooty-salutie before they drink, and to clink glasses.
Jake thinks that's the absolute coolest, the cat's ass.
Pretty soon the dinosaurs come. 'Bama and Mrs. Greta Shaw sit side by side, eating Hawaiian Fluff and watching as a big one (Mrs. Greta Shaw says you call that kind a Tyrannasorbet Wrecks) eats the bad explorer. "Cartoon dinosaurs," Mrs. Greta Shaw sniffs. "Wouldn't you think they could do better than that."As far as Jake is concerned, this is the most brilliant piece of film criticism he has ever heard in his life. Brilliant and useful.
Eventually his parents come back. Top Hat enjoys a week's run on Million Dollar Movie and littleJakie's night terrors are never mentioned.
Eventually he forgets his fear of the triceratops and the Tyrannasorbet.
SEVEN
Now, lying in the high green grass and peering into the misty clearing from between the leaves of a fern, Jake discovered that some things you neveriorgot.
Mind the mind-trap, Jochabim had said, and looking down at the lumbering dinosaur-a cartoon triceratops in a real jungle like an imaginary toad in a real garden-Jake realized that this was it. This was the mind-trap. The triceratops wasn't real no matter how fearsomely it might roar, no matter that Jake could actually smell it-the rank vegetation rotting in the soft folds where its stubby legs met its stomach, the shit caked to its vast armor-plated rear end, the endless cud drooling between its tusk-edged jaws-and hear its panting breath. It couldn'tbe real, it was a cartoon, for God's sake!