The alarm on Sarah's clock buzzed. "I don't want to get up," she
moaned, pushing herself to a sitting position. Glancing at the clock, she
realized that she didn't have to. "Oh, I should've remembered to turn it
off last night. Damn." She hit the OFF button and lay back in bed. It
was two weeks after Sarah had turned in her resignation letter, and for the
first morning since the history of time, or so it seemed to her, she didn't
have to be anywhere until she felt like it. Not that she felt completely
relaxed, as was apparently as she restlessly tossed and turned in an
attempt to get back to sleep. Little reminders of her past had been
showing up. She found an open copy of her old playbook on her bed, turned
to the page that held the line she's always forgotten: "You have no power
over me." Figuring that Toby had been pretending to read again, she'd
filed it back on her bookshelf. She couldn't help being scared at night,
though, when a flutter of owl wings on her window and caused it to burst
open. It was her imagination, of course, but still. .
The day passed like usual, and sunset came unwelcomed. Sarah sat out
in an old rocking chair on her front porch and stared at the suburban yard
that sprawled out in front of her. A voice creeped down to her from her
upstairs window. "Saaaaarrrraaaaah!" it called. A thunder of footsteps
came down the staircase, and Toby came hurtling through the open front
door. "Sarah, read to me, babe." He handed her his copy of Where the Wild
Things Are, and she held out her arms lovingly for him to crawl in onto her
lap. "Where the wild things are, by Maurice Sendak. The night-" "I know
it Sarah, I can read it to you," Toby said resentfully. "Oh, well, OK,"
she said and handed the book over to him. "The night," he began pointing
to the pictures, "J-John, well, he was in the dark, and the goblins were
mean, and they said, 'Give me your money,' and John said, 'No!' and-."
Here Toby flipped the page. "And the goblins were ugly, and they said,
'I'll eat you,' and John said, 'No you won't,' and - Sarah, are you
listening? - the goblins decided to eat John, and John's mother didn't
believe that they would and she didn't like him so she said - Sarah, look!
- and she said, 'John, I wish the goblins WOULD come and take you away
right now,'" He giggled and jabbed Sarah in the ribs. "And the Joh-."
But a flash of light silenced Toby's ramblings and glitter fell from the
sky as the Goblin King appeared.
