🔊 Storytime with Katy: "Little Susie and The Cookie Monster"
Audio Transcript:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the first of hopefully many recordings of me reading various works I’ve written or am in the process of writing. We’ll call it Storytime with Katy. This first reading is a tale from a collection in progress called Tales from the Floorboards. For those who don’t know, Tales from the Floorboards is a collection of twisted tales inspired by characters I started seeing in the wood grain of my hardwood floors of my home. I consider these characters a bunch of misfits whose stories don’t always end happily. Enjoy one of my favorites based off true fears I had as a kid.
“Little Susie & The Cookie Monster”
Little Susie was the kind of kid who stepped over cracks, leapt from her doorway to her bed at night to avoid having her ankles grabbed by the wicked witch who lurked below, and NEVER slept with her back to the cracked, would-never-close, closet door. One thing she didn’t know how to avoid, though, was The Cookie Monster.
Every night, she heard him rummaging around downstairs in the kitchen as he sought yet another morsel of cookie from the cookie jar atop the fridge. Susie worried that one night, he’d reach into the jar, find he’d eaten all the cookies, and come for her. And when that night came, she wasn’t wrong.
The night went like any other night – bathroom, brush, hug mom and dad goodnight, and rush quickly down the dark hallway to leap on her bed and watch the crack in her closet door until she fell asleep.
And then the clanging from the kitchen began. It was different from the usual rummaging. It felt urgent. Frantic. Desperate. The Cookie Monster had found no cookies. Susie’s brother, Sam, must’ve eaten the last one today. Now The Cookie Monster had to settle for the next best thing – a kid.
His footfall up the stairs landed in Susie’s ears like the deep throbbing of her heartbeat.
Thwump.
Thwump.
Thwump.
Susie pulled the covers up below her nose.
Thwump. Thwump. Thwump.
Then below her eyes.
Thwump. Thwump. Thwump.
Susie shook as the thwumping stopped. The Cookie Monster was at the top of the stairs. Susie’s breathing quickened and her heart pumped faster as The Cookie Monster thwump thwump thwumped down the hallway. She pulled the covers over her head and held her breath. He was surely in her doorway now.
She laid still and wished hard for him to disappear when she suddenly realized she wasn’t watching the crack in her closet door and that her feet were way too close to the end of the bed. She pulled into the fetal position, giving herself away.
Thwump thwump thwump and The Cookie Monster was now at the foot of her bed!
If this was the end, she wanted to see him before she was eaten. Susie pulled the covers down below one eye, and as she locked eyes with The Cookie Monster, her closet door flew open and out sprang The Closet Monster in the shape of her least favorite outfit! It wrapped itself around the top half of The Cookie Monster and blinded him. He flailed trying to remove the barrier from his eyes and toppled backward to the floor.
Susie pulled the covers down under her chin and leaned over the bed to see if The Cookie Monster was still breathing. Two warty hands shot out from under the bed, wrapped their gnarled fingers around The Cookie Monster’s ankles, and pulled him into the darkness below. Susie screamed into the night, but what fell from her mouth wasn’t a sound – it was cookie crumbs.