5
Helena knew a bit about monsters, and the main thing she knew was that they ate little girls. Yes, these particular monsters seemed nice, and yes, it might be fun to have monster friends, but she still couldn’t forget that they were monsters and she was a little girl. Farmer Andy brought piglets to the earth day festival at her school, and he was nice to them too, even though they were really just food. The piglets probably thought Farmer Andy was their friend, but farmers eat pigs and monsters eat little girls. Too bad, but that’s just the way it is.
Helena wasn’t going to be breakfast lunch or dinner for any monster, no way. She had to escape. She couldn’t outrun them, that was for sure, but maybe she could outsmart them. If she could slip away and tell a grownup then these monsters would find out what happens to kidnappers. Maybe it would be like Little Red Riding Hood, the hunter with the ax, chop, chop, chopping up the big bad wolf.
Oh honey, don’t read that part, it’s too violent.
Well sorry mommy, these monsters just have to learn, and chop, chop, chop, is the only way to teach them. Helena wouldn’t do anything to stop the chopping. Friends are friends and food is food, and friends can’t be food and food can’t be friends as much as certain furry, smiling faces wanted to pretend different.
So Helena decided to keep on the lookout for an opportunity to escape. But for now she would smile at the big one, who smelled like the elephant cage at the zoo, and talk to him in their eyeball language if that’s what he wanted. If Mr. Elephant Cage thought she was dumb, she decided it was best to just let him think it. “You don’t have a thing to worry about little bird,” Rei was saying to Helena, “I’ll take good care of you.”
“When you bring me home everyone will say thank you, and they’ll give you food and money.” Helena said, thinking chop, chop, chop.
“What is money?” Rei asked her.
Helena thought for a second. “That’s what makes certain things too expensive.” She said. “Otherwise everyone would just grab everything and it wouldn’t be fair, right?” Helena’s mom and dad would often ask her questions that they knew the answers to, to test her knowledge, and that was how she took Rei’s question about money.
“Yes,” Rei said, “to measure how difficult something is.”
“What?”
“That’s money.”
Helena rolled her eyes. “No, wrong.” She said. “I’m cold, are you taking me to my mommy or not?”
“I can’t,” Rei said, “but I can warm you up myself.” He lifted her into his arms. “That’s better isn’t it?” Helena almost gagged from the smell, but then went back to fake-smiling at Rei. “I can tell that you want to get away from me.” Rei said. “But can I ask you some questions first? Would that be alright?”
“I guess.”
“Then I’ll get you back to other humans.”
“Okay, ask.” Helena said.
“Are sounds the only way that humans talk to each other?”
“Sounds? No,” Helena said, “there’s letters, texts, emails, Christmas cards.”
Rei didn’t know any of those words. “What is letters?” He asked picking the first example she’d given.
“It’s a piece of paper the mailman takes.”
“What’s paper?”
Helena groaned. “Paper is the stuff you write on.” Rei just looked confused. “Forget it!” Helena said. She looked down at the terrain around them. “I want to play a game, okay? Do you want to learn a game?”
“A human game?” He asked.
“Yeah, a human game. It’s a game called hide and go seek, ever heard of it?”
“No.”
“First, put me down.” She said. Rei put her down on the snowy ground. Helena’s shoes were wet, and she thought her toes were so cold they might fall off. “Okay, you’re it,” she said, “so you have to cover your eyes and count to um… Five hundred. While you’re counting I’ll go hide, and then you can come looking for me, understand?”
“Five hundred what?”
Helena sighed. “Fine, just cover your eyes for a long time. A really long time, and then come looking for me. And no peeking! That’s not allowed.”
“Alright.” He said. “Should I start now?”
“Yes.” Helena said.
As soon as he closed his eyes she ran. Boy, is he a dummy! She thought, vaulting a fallen tree and crashing through some tall grass. All I needed was a good head start.