The Sister Surprise Read online

  “Try again,” the boy told her.

  “I know how to press a button!” the little sister said indignantly. But she pressed it again anyway.

  Nothing.

  She pressed it three more times.

  “Maybe it’s broken?” the monster suggested.

  But just then, the door flew open and a voice said, “Stop that!”

  The voice belonged to a monster who looked quite a bit different than the monster in this story. (Well, now there are two monsters in this story. But I mean the monster who was already in this story. Before the door opened. I can see that this is going to get confusing. I’m sorry.)

  Fortunately, the monster who had just opened the door was wearing a name tag. It said JEFFRICK.

  “What do you want?” Jeffrick asked.

  “Candy,” said the little sister.

  “No more sisters,” said the boy.

  “We want to come in,” said the monster.

  “Well, which is it?” asked Jeffrick. He sounded annoyed.

  The boy and the little sister looked at each other. “We want to come in,” they said.

  “Yes, please,” added the monster.

  “You can’t,” said Jeffrick. “You don’t live here.”

  Now I shall tell you that another good way to remember things is to hear or smell or see something familiar. This is what happened to the monster. Seeing another monster reminded him about why he had wanted to bring the boy through the green door.

  “I used to,” said the monster.

  “Where’s your name tag?” asked Jeffrick.

  The monster knew that he didn’t have a name tag, but he felt all around his fur just in case he did have one but it was hiding.

  The little sister pointed through the green door. “He left it in there,” she said.

  Jeffrick bent down and looked very closely at the little sister. “Did he really?”

  The little sister did not move. She didn’t even blink. “Yes,” she said.

  Jeffrick stood up. “Okay, then! Let’s go!”

  The monster walked through the green door. The boy followed him. The little sister followed the boy, and Jeffrick followed her.

  “Wow,” whispered the monster. “That was scary.”

  “Yeah,” said the boy.

  “Your little sister is brave,” said the monster. “Is that because she’s little?”

  “No,” said the boy. “It’s because she’s her. She was born that way.”

  “Oh,” said the monster. “I wonder what your even littler sister will be born like.”

  The boy sighed. “Just keep walking,” he said.

  8.

  I am getting the feeling that the boy would really rather not have another little sister in his family. I wonder if he’d rather have a little brother. Or a big brother. Those are harder to get, though.

  It is not easy when your family changes. A family is like a solar system with a certain number of planets in it, and all the planets can fly around one another without crashing. But then, if a new planet suddenly shows up and wants to join the solar system, things have to change. The old planets have to make room for the new one. They can’t just travel along the same orbit they’ve always had.

  It’s very complicated.

  I bet baby planets are really cute, though.

  9.

  On the other side of the green door, there was a long hallway. The hallway was very bright, as if the sun was shining straight into it, but it didn’t feel like being outside. It was very quiet, and it smelled like warm cinnamon rolls.

  “What is this place?” the boy asked.

  “I don’t know, but I love it here,” said the little sister.

  Jeffrick led them farther and farther down the hallway. It seemed like the hallway would never end.

  “You know what’s strange about this hallway?” the monster said.

  “Pretty much everything,” said the little sister.

  “There aren’t any doors,” said the boy.

  “Exactly,” said the monster. “It’s more like a tunnel.”

  “Are we underground?” asked the boy.

  The monster thought about this. “I don’t think so. We went through the green door under your bed, so I think we’re … in your wall.”

  “But the wall goes side to side,” said the boy. “We walked straight through, and we’re still walking straight.”

  “Are we in a maze?” asked the monster. Suddenly he felt a little bit panicky. Even though it had been his idea to go through the green door, he was starting to worry that it had been a bad idea. Also, he was afraid of mazes.(All monsters are. Something to do with Greek mythology.)

  “We’re almost there,” Jeffrick said over his shoulder. Then, over the other shoulder, he said, “We’re almost there.”

  “Why did he say that twice?” the monster asked the boy.

  “Maybe he wanted to make sure we heard him?”

  “I think he’s just strange,” said the little sister, smiling. “This whole place is strange.”

  “Are you … happy about that?” the monster asked her.

  The little sister looked up at him. “Strange is more exciting than regular,” she said.

  But the monster liked regular. He had gotten used to things being exactly one way, and he liked the way they were. He liked talking to the boy in the morning while he got ready for school, and he liked watching for the boy to come home from school, and he really liked listening to the boy read to him at night until they both fell asleep.

  He did not like strange.

  Or change, which rhymes with it.

  “I like regular,” he told the boy.

  “Me too,” the boy said, smiling.

  The monster wondered if he and the boy could find a way to keep things from changing in the boy’s family. They had solved some pretty big problems together already. Maybe he could swallow the even littler sister and make her so tiny the boy could barely see her. Or he could learn a magic trick and make her disappear completely.

  “I have an idea!” the monster exclaimed.

  Well, he started to. All he really said was, “I have—!” Because just then, the hallway was over and they were standing in a large square room with dark corners. The dark corners had dark shadows, and one of them had something in it.

  Something that growled at them.

  Something that started to move toward them.

  “No, thank you!” shrieked the monster.

  The something gasped. “How dare you say such a rude thing to me!” it said.

  And the monster said:

  “Mom?”

  10.

  When you are going to visit someone, it is a good idea to call them first. You can make sure they are home and also that they want you to visit and also ask if they want you to bring a jar of pickles to share. That’s good manners.

  But you probably remember that the monster’s mother does not like to talk on the phone, so the monster could not call her first. Maybe if he could have called, he would have remembered why he was bringing the boy (and the little sister) through the green door. Maybe he would have remembered how to get through the green door, too.

  It’s no use wasting time thinking about could have and would have and should have, however.

  Granny Waffleton taught me that.

  She even put it on a needlepoint pillow for me.

  It’s a very long pillow.

  11.

  “What a lovely surprise this is!” said the monster’s mother. Then she added, “But your manners have become terrible. Don’t ever say “no, thank you to me again.”

  “Sorry,” the monster mumbled.

  “Is this really your mom?” the little sister asked.

  “Yes,” said the monster.

  “Wow,” said the little sister. “I wish my mom had horns and curly hair. My mom has curly hair and no horns. And I think she’s been eating all my candy because her belly is huge.”

  The monster mother patted
her curly hair. “Don’t feel bad, dear,” she said. “I’m sure your mother has her own gifts.”

  “Oh, she does,” said the boy. “She makes the best pancakes in the universe. And she can run faster than anyone else.”

  “Not lately,” said the little sister. “All she does now is fold tiny clothes and talk to her stomach.”

  “That sounds very odd,” the monster mother said. “Are all your other mothers doing that, too?”

  “We only have one mother,” the boy said.

  “What?” cried Jeffrick. Everyone jumped because they had all forgotten Jeffrick was even there.

  “Well, some families have more than one, but ours doesn’t,” said the boy.

  “Some families have two fathers and no mothers at all,” the little sister said.

  “Huh,” said Jeffrick. “Well, as long as there’s someone to take care of all the eggs.”

  The boy and the little sister looked at each other.

  Jeffrick became alarmed. “Someone is taking care of your eggs, aren’t they?”

  The little sister shrugged. “I’m pretty sure they’re safe in the refrigerator.”

  And with that, Jeffrick fainted.

  “Oh, dear,” said the mother monster.

  “Is he okay?” the boy asked.

  “Why is he so worried about our eggs?” the little sister asked.

  “I think I know,” the monster said.

  You probably noticed how quiet the monster had been for the last few pages. He had not been talking, but he had been listening. And he had been remembering many things about this place behind the green door. Now he turned to his mother.

  “I think we should show them the nursery,” he said.

  12.

  After reviving Jeffrick—and assuring him that everyone’s eggs were just fine—the monster’s mother led them down another hallway. Unlike the first hallway, which had no doors, this one had lots of doors. Each door was a different color. They passed a yellow door and then a blue door and an orange door, and finally they came to a purple door.

  “Are you sure?” the monster’s mother asked him.

  The monster thought about three things. He thought about how the boy shared his room and everything in it with the monster. He thought about how the boy’s little sister had helped him calm down outside the green door. And he thought about how much he had learned from the boy and the little sister. “Yes,” the monster said. “I’m sure.”

  She nodded, and Jeffrick pulled a ring of very large keys out of his fur. He unlocked the purple door, and they all stepped through.

  They found themselves in an enormous room. The room was full of three things. It was full of gentle, soothing light. It was full of monster mothers. And it was full of very large eggs.

  Each egg was about the size of a pillow, and each one was a different color. Sky blue, eggplant purple, leaf green, butter yellow, sunset orange, and ruby red. The most beautiful colors there are.

  “Ooh,” said the monster.

  “Ooh,” said the boy.

  “Whoa,” said the little sister. “Are those … candy?”

  The mother monster laughed. “No, the candy is in a different room. These are our babies.”

  The boy was amazed. “Monster babies hatch out of eggs?”

  “Of course,” said the mother monster. “Didn’t you?”

  “I don’t remember,” the boy admitted. “I was very young.”

  All the monsters in the room were helping take care of the eggs. Some of them were reading stories to the eggs. Some of them were gently rocking the eggs. And some of them were bathing the eggs so their shells were extra shiny.

  “Do you think your new little sister will come out of an egg?” asked the monster.

  The little sister narrowed her eyes. “What new little sister?”

  The boy sighed. “Mom and Dad were going to tell you. But I guess I will. You know how Mom is pregnant?”

  The little sister shrugged. “She said she was, but I was in the middle of a game so I fibbed and told her I knew what that meant.”

  “Well, it means she’s having a baby, and they found out it’s a girl. We’re getting a new sister.”

  Then a strange thing happened. The little sister’s chin started to wobble. The little sister’s eyes started to water. And the little sister began to cry.

  “I don’t want to go!” she wailed. “I’ll be better! I’ll share the candy!”

  “What are you talking about?” the boy shouted. He had to shout, because the little sister was making quite a lot of noise.

  The monster put one furry arm around the little sister. He pulled her close to his body. His fur was soft and comforting. It was also good for muffling loud noises.

  “I think,” he said to the boy, “she’s scared.”

  “She’s never scared,” said the boy.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” Jeffrick said. “Granny Waffleton told me that.”

  The little sister sniffled. “I like our family,” she said. “Even if our mom doesn’t have horns.”

  “Getting a new little sister doesn’t mean we get rid of the old one,” the boy told her. “We’re adding. Not subtracting.”

  “I like adding better than subtracting,” the monster said. The boy had been trying to teach him about math. Subtraction was … not going very well.

  “Me too,” said the boy.

  “Me three,” said the little sister. Her belly grumbled.

  This reminded the monster of something he had wanted to know for a long time.

  “Mom?” said the monster. “What’s my name?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “Where’s your name tag?”

  “How can you not know his name?” the little sister scolded.

  The mother monster put her furry hands on her furry hips. “Listen, young lady! Do you have any idea how many monsters I’ve hatched? Thousands! Maybe thousands of thousands! I can’t possibly remember all their names. That’s why they get name tags. And their name tags are their responsibility.”

  The monster whimpered a little.

  “Wow,” the little sister whispered. “Moms really do all speak the same language.”

  The boy put his hand in the monster’s fur and scratched his favorite spot. “It’s okay,” he told the monster. “We’ll figure something out.” Then he asked the mother monster, “What’s your name?”

  She stared at him. “No one has ever asked me that before.”

  “Do you need to check your name tag?” the little sister asked.

  The mother monster raised a furry eyebrow. “No, I do not,” she said, “but you are welcome to see it.” She reached into her fur and felt around for a minute. “Ah, here it is,” she said.

  She held it out so they could read it.

  It said—

  13.

  You know, names are funny things, if you think about it. They’re really just words. They’re made out of the same letters as every other word, but only certain words get to be names. Why can’t any word be a name? Why can’t I name someone Word if I want to?

  Can I?

  You seem irritated that I interrupted the story when I did.

  But I had a good reason.

  You’ll see what it is in a minute.

  You trust me, don’t you?

  14.

  After the mother monster showed the monster and the boy and the little sister her name tag, she felt wonderful. It had been so long since anyone had looked at her name tag, and her name was so very beautiful that it was lovely to share it again.

  The monster felt less wonderful because seeing his mother’s name tag reminded him of how much he wanted a name of his own. And also that he had, apparently, lost his name tag, and he was therefore irresponsible.

  The boy and the little sister felt several different things. They felt lucky to have seen the place where monsters are born. They felt tired because it was the middle of the night and they—unlike monsters—were not nocturnal. A
nd they felt just a little bit anxious because they still didn’t know what to think about getting a new little sister, even though they had agreed that addition was better than subtraction.

  So there were many different feelings swirling around the room together. Then Jeffrick ran in and added another one.

  “You have to go home!” he yelled. “Right now!”

  15.

  It is true that something was happening at the boy and little sister’s house.

  It is also true that I missed most of it because I was still trying to figure out how Jeffrick knows Granny Waffleton.

  My apologies. I can tell you this much:

  16.

  After the monster and the boy and the little sister said goodbye to the monster mothers—all thirty-seven of them!—and came back through the green door, they heard heavy footsteps running toward the boy’s bedroom door and their father’s voice yelling, “Get dressed, kids! We’re going to the hospital!”

  While their father ran back downstairs and paid the babysitter, the boy and the little sister got big, but the monster stayed small so he could go with them to the hospital. (He was disguised as a stuffed animal. It was a very good disguise, except for when he needed to sneeze.)

  The hospital was very large and very white. It did not smell like warm cinnamon rolls, but it did have very long, straight hallways. The boy and the little sister (and the monster) followed their father down one hallway and then another and then another, until they came to an enormous window. On the other side of the window was a room.