Monstrous!

 

   I'm sorry to admit I didn't appreciate my parents when I was a kid.They asked me to do things that interfered with my leisure. I thought it was terrible that they locked me up in school all winter. That was bad enough, but they also extracted child labor from me in the good weather. One spring my father had me paint the picket fence alongside our house. This fence was about a half mile long.

   When I had finished the job he told me I had missed some spots, "holidays" he called them and said I had to go over the fence again. I rebelled when he wasn't around and downed tools. In geography class we had been studying about South America. Our teacher, Sister Eubestrabius, had been a missionary there and she said the best thing about South America was how nice the parents were to their children. 

   I had a little rowboat and decided I would row down the coast till I reached South America. At that point I'd look for a family to adopt me. It sounds ridiculous now, but it didn't look that far on the map in our geography book. I packed my sleeping bag and some food and a can opener and started rowing. 

   I headed to the lighthouse on Algaec Rock about a mile off the coast. As I approached the lighthouse I saw a figure waving to me. I rowed to a little pier and tied up my boat. The figure turned out to be Captain Stavropoulos. He told me his ship had been wrecked on the rock 60 years ago. He had been the cabin boy and was the only survivor. When the Coast Guard decided to build a lighthouse there, he stayed and helped. When the lighthouse was finished he was made its keeper.

   The captain asked if I would like to join him for lunch--tomato soup and saltines. As we ate, he said "Today is your lucky day, my boy." I asked why. "Today is the day the sea monster passes by these parts." He told me the monster had awakened from his bed in the sea a thousand years ago and discovered his wife was gone. The monster started swimming around the world looking for her, bellowing out "Bee-aw" as he went. It took him exactly a year to pass through all the world's oceans, and today was the day he would pass by here. “You can set your calendar by him,” the captain said.

   I decided to be on my way. I'd never get to South America if I stoped for every interesting festival and landmark along the way. But when we got outside, a thick fog had descended. "You better wait here till the fog lifts," the captain said. "Now you'll have a chance to hear the monster. We won't see him in this fog.”

   The foghorn had been going all this time. We walked up the spiral staircase inside the lighthouse. The captain said he could adjust the foghorn so it sounded just like the bellow of the monster. When I heard the sound, my feet went cold in my sneakers. "When the monster hears that, he'll think it's his wife. When he starts to get close, I'll turn off the foghorn and he'll go on his way."

   I was getting curious now. But as we waited I started to fall asleep, even with the loud "Bee-aw," sounding over and over. Then the captain shook me. "You hear that?" He said. I listened and heard a faint bee-aw in the distance. "That's him, my boy! It's your lucky day!" 

   The be-awing got louder and closer. It was more a Bee-aw, question mark, now. "Shouldn't you shut off the foghorn?" I asked.  He said, "If I wait a little longer we might get a look at him...Look! Look! There he is!" The monster looked like a huge snake. His head was as high as the lighthouse and his eyes were like searchlights. "BEE-AW! BEE-AW! BEE-AW! the monster bellowed as he sped towards us.

   The captain started turning dials and throwing switches in the control box, but the horn kept up its Bee-aws which was infuriating the monster. His eyes were turning different colors. Now the captain was hitting the control panel with a hammer and pulling wires out, but nothing stopped our horn. 

   Just as the monster reached the lighthouse, the captain and I started running down the stairs. Round and round we went. The lighthouse shook as the monster was slammed into it. Glass and metal fell past us to the floor, then granite blocks came crashing down. 

   When we got to the bottom, the captain threw open a trap door and said, Quick! Down here!" Then he closed the door over our heads. As he lit a lantern, we could hear granite blocks crashing above us while the monster BEE-AWed like crazy. After the crashing stopped we could hear Bee-aws, but they sounded sad now and then they stopped.

   We couldn't get the trap door open. "How about some saltines?" The captain asked. He had a little steam engine for making crackers. He poured flour and water in one end and the dough went through a little oven and came our baked. My job was to shake salt on them. As we ate saltines, the captain told me about his life. All the exciting parts were from before his ship was wrecked. The monster's visit was the high point of his year, besides the monthly visits from his wife who lived on shore.

   In the morning we heard sounds from above. Was the monster back? Soon the door opened and sunshine streamed in. It was the Coast Guard. The lighthouse was now a pile of granite, but my boat was ok. As the captain gave his report, I jumped in my boat and rowed home. When my father found me he didn't ask where I had been. He just handed me a paintbrush.

   About a year later I was out for a row. I had heard they built a new lighthouse so I rowed out to see it. A figure was waving to me, and when I landed, I saw it was my friend the captain. He invited me for lunch and as we ate he said, "It's your lucky day, my boy. This is the day the monster passes by these parts." I jumped up so quickly, tomato soup spilled all over my lap. I ran outside and jumped into the ocean to cool my scalded legs. Then I climbed into my boat and rowed home without saying goodby to the captain.  

   It turned out later I got quite good at painting: fences, exterior and interior trim, you name it. Stop by sometime and I'll show you my handiwork. We’ll have soup and crackers and I'll tell you the exciting parts of my life.