Terror Under The Bed

• Steven Arnold, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2007

I want to kill my brother. He told on me for accidentally spilling a tub of yoghurt all over his bed, so mum told me that I have to clean up under my bed. “I can’t do that!! I think there’s living things under there.”
You see whenever mum asks me to clean up; I chuck the stuff under my bed. Everyone does that though, don’t they? I mean my granny went in my room, fell over and rolled under my bed. No one has seen her in 3 years! So now you know why I can’t clean under my bed. I begged mum but all she said was, “No!” so I pretended to have a fit, but no one believed me not even the Ambulance driver.
So now, still under protest I have to clean under my bed. I reached under and pulled out a naked action man. Yuk! I threw it across the room. It hit the wall with a thud. I reached under again and pulled out a teddy bear, with its head cut off. Again, I reached into the darkness and pulled on something stuck. It was fury. “Another teddy,” I thought but, all of a sudden, it bit me! Then my kitten, Snuggles whose been missing for 8 months ran out from under my bed and down the hall.
Yes, lunch time! After lunch I had to go and clean under my bed. This time I went for a new approach. I used mum’s tongs. This time, I pulled out a pair of undies, 2 broken game boys, a couple of books and about 5 million broken cars. Then I felt a hand…..A human hand! I screamed in horror, as then I thought, “it’s my dead granny,” but it was a dummy. Mum walked in and saw the humongous pile of toys and broken stuff. Mum said, “out with the old and in with the new.”
Then I heard a scream from under the bed. “Grandmas alive!” I frantically started pulling out toys and dirty clothes. “Granny, I’m coming,” I yelled. “I’m coming!” I finally felt her hand. She squeezed my hand. I started pulling out more toys. Then I thought, “flip the bed over.” I pulled toys away from granny and, at that moment, she was calling the Ambulance again. At the hospital, she told us she was living off jelly beans, minties and flat coke.
Granny went to live in a nursing home after that, and from now on, under my bed is spotless! Snuggles is going well. The vet said he was way too skinny but is okay. I think everyone should learn from my lesson. I sure have!