Stephen-King---The-Monkey

The Monkey
grinning down at him. But of course the soft weight had only been his pillow, clutched with panicky
tightness. His mother came in to soothe him with a drink of water and two chalky-orange baby aspirin,
those Valium of childhood's troubled times. She thought it was the fact of Beulah's death that had caused
the nightmare. So it was, but not in the way she thought.
He barely remembered any of this now, but the monkey still scared him, particularly its cymbals. And its
teeth.
"I know that," Bill said, and tossed the monkey aside. "It's stupid." It landed on Bill's bed, staring up at
the ceiling, cymbals poised. Hal did not like to see it there. "You want to go down to Teddy's and get
Popsicles?"
"I spent my allowance already," Hal said. "Besides, Mom says you got to clean up your side of the
room."
"I can do that later." Bill said. "And I'll loan you a nickel, if you want." Bill was not above giving Hal an
Indian rope burn sometimes, and would occasionally trip him up or punch him for no particular reason,
but mostly he was okay.
"Sure," Hal said gratefully. "I'll just put the busted monkey back in the closet first, okay?"
"Nah," Bill said, getting up. "Let's go-go-go."
Hal went. Bill's moods were changeable, and if he paused to put the monkey away, he might lose his
Popsicle. They went down to Teddy's and got them, and not just any Popsicles, either, but the rare
blueberry ones. Then they went down to the Rec where some kids were getting up a baseball game. Hal
was too small to play, but he sat far out in foul territory, sucking his blueberry Popsicle and chasing
what the big kids called "Chinese home runs." They didn't get home until almost dark, and their mother
whacked Hal for getting the hand towel dirty and whacked Bill for not cleaning up his side of the room,
and after supper there was TV, and by the time all of that happened, Hal had forgotten all about the
monkey. It somehow found its way up onto Bill's shelf, where it stood right next to Bill's autographed
picture of Bill Boyd. And there it stayed for nearly two years.
By the time Hal was seven, babysitters had become an extravagance, and Mrs. Shelbum's parting shot
each morning was, "Bill, look after your brother."
That day, however, Bill had to stay after school and Hal came home alone, stopping at each corner until
he could see absolutely no traffic coming in either direction, and then skittering across, shoulders
hunched, like a doughboy crossing no-man's-land. He let himself into the house with the key under the
mat and went immediately to the refrigerator for a glass of milk. He got the bottle, and then it slipped
through his fingers and crashed to smithereens on the floor, the pieces of glass flying everywhere.
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