Demon in High Socks

Conclusion

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With her hair awry and her face filled with rage Maggie took on the frightening. Thad sobered. He jumped to his feet and looked over the bank. Maggie appeared at his side. There was her brand-new, no-longer-shiny red bike, barely visible, submerged in six feet of muddy creek water.                                                                                                                                 excerpt form part 2

“We should go get your mom.”

“No!” Maggie forgot her usual bravado. “She’ll kill me and she’ll take my bike away for keeps.”

“But you can’t ride it if it’s in the creek.”

Maggie didn’t need Thad to be rational; she needed him to be heroic.

“I can’t swim. You have to go in and get it out.”

Thad didn’t like that idea, not at all. He didn’t want to ride her bike that bad. He backed away.

“You have to do it!”

Thad continued his retreat.

“I’ll make you!” Maggie hollered.

Thad stopped.

“I’ll … I’ll throw more apples at you.”

Thad looked around. There were none to be thrown.

“I don’t care. I’m not going in there.”

Thad didn’t like the creek. It was cold and slimy and he was afraid of the even slimier creatures that might live in its depths. He’d rather take a couple apples to the head any day than face the unknown. Besides would Maggie really risk another spanking? He doubted it.

“I’ll tell your mom again,” he told her.

Maggie built herself up, puffing and yelling. She reached out and made a grab for his arm. He eluded her grip and turned to run. Maggie knew from making Thad chase after her that he was pretty fast. She’d never catch him. She calmed. Force and intimidation weren’t going to work and so she pulled out the big guns.

“Please!” she called, now with tears in her voice.

Her sobs stuck a lot sharper than any apple. Thad stopped and turned around. Maggie looked out with tear-rimmed doe eyes. Gone was the mean-spirited hellion that had raced on her red bike with the swiftness of a Valkyrie, in its place a curly-haired cherub. When she wasn’t bullying anyone Maggie was very pretty.

“If I don’t bring my bike back, my mother will spank me again,” she blubbered on. “She’s real mean sometimes.”

Thad melted. Against the manipulation of sentiment, he was defenceless. Now it was his turn to be transformed. At the tender age of six, he became the fair-haired knight, willing to submerge himself into the darkest and dirtiest depths to rescue his fair maiden’s steed and capture—he hoped—her regard. But there would be no shiny armour for him. He stripped down to his undies, blushing; Maggie didn’t. He looked down at the creek and back at her.

“You can do it,” she urged. “I know you can.”

Thad crouched in a reverse crawl and made his way down the steep slope. Wearing only his white boxers, he resembled something between a crab and a babe wrapped in diapers. There would be no wading into the deep creek. It was all or nothing. He took a deep breath and threw himself in. He gasped, struggling against the cold and revolting against the slime. Getting the bike up was difficult, but his scrawny arms managed to first upright the bike and then pull it through the water. Finally it re-emerged on the steep bank, covered with creek-scum. Thad pushed it up the slope which required continual slips back down into the water. From above Maggie pulled it back onto dry land. Together, they did it.

The bike was a mess. But if Maggie could find a place to wash it, her mother would never know what had happened. She looked at Thad and laughed. He’d need a wash too, but to her, he’d never looked better. She threw her arms around his thin, muddy frame and laid a solitary kiss on his cheek. The kiss struck them both with full force. His heart swelled with happiness and love for the girl who had up until moments ago been his tormentor. In turn, her tight heart opened to let in the boy who was now her hero. No love had ever bloomed purer. At the very same moment, the caterpillar reached the safety of a birch trunk.

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If you missed them, here is Part 1 and Part 2

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Demon in High Socks was originally published in Monsters. Click on the photo below for more information.