Stephen-King---The-Monkey

The Monkey
staring into space, cymbals poised. It was broken, but it grinned nonetheless. That night Hal awakened
from some uneasy dream, bladder full, and got up to use the bathroom in the hall. Bill was a breathing
lump of covers across the room.
Hal came back, almost asleep again . . . and suddenly the monkey began to beat its cymbals together in
the darkness.
Jang-jang-jang-jang---
He came fully awake, as if snapped in the face with a cold, wet towel. His heart gave a staggering leap
of surprise, and a tiny, mouselike squeak escaped his throat. He stared at the monkey, eyes wide, lips
trembling.
Jang-jang-jang-jang--
Its body rocked and humped on the shelf. Its lips spread and closed, spread and closed, hideously
gleeful, revealing huge and carnivorous teeth.
"Stop," Hal whispered.
His brother turned over and uttered a loud, single snore. All else was silent . . . except for the monkey.
The cymbals clapped and clashed, and surely it would wake his brother, his mother, the world. It would
wake the dead.
Jang-jang-jang-jang--
Hal moved toward it, meaning to stop it somehow, perhaps put his hand between its cymbals until it ran
down, and then it stopped on its own. The cymbals came together one last time --jang!--and then spread
slowly apart to their original position. The brass glimmered in the shadows. The monkey's dirty
yellowish teeth grinned.
The house was silent again. His mother turned over in her bed and echoed Bill's single snore. Hal got
back into his own bed and pulled the covers up, his heart beating fast. and he thought: l'll put it back in
the closet again tomorrow. I don't want it.
But the next morning he forgot all about putting the monkey back because his mother didn't go to work.
Beulah was dead. Their mother wouldn't tell them exactly what happened. "It was an accident, just a
terrible accident," was all she would say. But that atternoon Bill bought a newspaper on his way home
from school and smuggled page four up to their room under his shin. Bill read the article haltingly to Hal
while their mother cooked supper in the kitchen, but Hal could read the headline for himself--TWO
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