CHAPTER ONE
A reptilian creature with eight legs and the ability to camouflage himself like the chameleons of our world lurked in the shadows of a chain link cage in the bowels of the Everglades. The creature was intelligent, angry, banished, and named Randall Boggs. Randall had been pitched through a miracle of technology that had allowed many another monster to creep beyond the borders of their own universe into the human's world to collect the screams of children for electrical energy. The technological wonder was a copy of a human child's closet door, hence children's worldwide fear of monsters hiding in their closets. Randall had been thrown through one such door where the stupid kid had mistaken him for an alligator. Then Randall's already bad situation got worse. You see, the family collected alligators to sell for a living, and, currently lacking a tranquilizer, had resorted to knocking him out with a shovel.
When he returned to consciousness, he found himself being stared at by a dozen pairs of ancient eyes with the eagerness of satisfying instincts for catching live prey near at hand. Randall, unaware of their primitive lack of intelligence, had attempted to address them as equals into giving him assistance in escaping. "Hey! Will you fellows help me out?" he queried, soon to have his tail chomped on by the nearest beast with an unexpected lightning- fast strike.
"Yow!" he hollered, cradling his injured tail gently in two of his hands. "Okay. So you want to play rough, huh?" he threatened, still not quite catching the alligator's stupidity. "I'll play rough!" And with that, he launched into the stinking pond to extract a small revenge from his attackers.
The twelve gators decided to compete for what they considered a free lunch. Randall soon found himself struggling for something he had never struggled for before in his life: survival.
And he had never struggled harder in his whole life, including when he had struggled to be top scarer in Sullivan's place.
When his human captors noticed how badly Randall was " getting' along with his kin", they immediately moved him into a separate enclosure. He only slept on the first night. All other nights he tried to escape his bizarre prison, just so he could go home. But the humans somehow caught him at it every time. And each time, they figured out how he had gotten out and fixed the problem. I should have given these human things more credit, he frequently found himself thinking.
On the other hand, he learned that humans were the only truly intelligent beings in their entire world. He also formed more questions than he ever had about this place he was trapped in, such as: "How can humans tell each other apart?" and "Why are these alligator thingies all called the same thing? And what are these infernally annoying things that keep biting me when I'm not looking? These bites ITCH!"
Depressed, he was there for three months, and then was auctioned off as an exotic pet. It wasn't for another week that he got through his homesickness enough to realize how humiliating being a pet was.
Randall's owner was Gill Bates, the owner and CEO of the computer company Macrosoft. Gill had bought Randall so he could frighten his subordinates into complying with all his orders. This worked with amusing efficiency. The secretary or the head of the marketing department or whoever would come into the office and ask to change something. If Gill approved, it happened without question. If he didn't approve, however he would threaten to set Randall loose on them. This worked so well that even good ideas were quickly "forgotten".
This may have worked well for Gill, but Randall, who Gill referred to as Stinky, hated the situation more than Gill's company men did. He was bored and humiliated. If the department of animal control had ever stopped by, Gill would have been arrested for animal cruelty. Randall got kicked, yanked, stepped on and sometimes ignored. He had thought the cage in the Everglades was bad, but this was far, far worse.
CHAPTER TWO
Randall wasn't the only one who suffered from some form of depression in those months. The very monster that Randall despised the most was sick with missing the cute little human girl he and his best friend had rescued from Randall Boggs. James Sullivan, better known by the warmer nickname Sulley, had become a hero with the aid of his one- eyed green pal Mike Wazowski. Together they had not only rescued an innocent girl from nothing short of torture and found an alternative source of energy while they were at it. Despite being a hero in the eyes of the city Monstropolis for fixing the energy crisis so efficiently, Sully misses the tiny human girl so much he had a hard time concentrating on his job as the new owner and CEO of the power company, Monsters, Inc.
The solemn sadness of his seven-foot tall furry blue- and- purple buddy was not lost on Mike. He had worked for nearly a year on the perfect surprise to bring his roommate and friend back to the emotional top.
"Close your eyes," Mike told the close companion that he longed to see happy again. "No peeking,"
When Sulley finally did get Mike's permission to open his eyes, he realized just how well Mike knew him. It was the door of the little girl that had won his heart, carefully pieced together after having been shredded to pieces.
"Sorry it took so long," Mike said. "It was a lot of wood to go through."
Sulley couldn't find any words to express his gratitude. Instead he smiled at his best pal and slowly opened the precariously reassembled door. There was a warm light like that of early morning streaming through the white curtain trimmed window, and the birds were chirping up a storm. But Sulley only had eyes for the small brown- haired figured that called him by a nickname that only she could get away with.
"Kitty?" a small, hopeful voice called, not bothering to hold back her overwhelming joy at seeing her hero again.
"Boo?" the furry thing called Sulley replied with equal hope and joy.
"Kitty!" Boo answered, scrambling as fast as she could out of her bed. Sulley tried to rush to Boo, but was stopped by Mike's voice behind him.
"Aren't ya gonna let me see her, fur ball?" he said in mock anger.
Before Sulley could say a word, Boo cried, "Mike Wazowski!" and rushed toward the unusual pair. She wrapped one arm around Sully's leg, and wrapped the other around Mike's head, which also happened to be his body. Mike made some comment, but it was severely muffled by Boo's joyful hug.
"What did you say, Mikey?" Sulley asked when he managed to pry Boo off Mike to pick her up.
"I said that she's taller than me!" Mike said, his tone of voice implying something like awe.
Boo leaned out of Sulley's arms a little towards Mike, held her finger to her lips and said, "Shh. Mommy's sleeping."
Mike's mouth dropped open, exposing his green gums. Sulley nearly dropped his beloved Boo.
"Boo, you talk!" he said, disregarding her warning.
She just looked at him, nodding her head, with an expression that seemed to say, Yeah, I talk. Didn't you know that, Kitty? The little reunion was split up by a sound not too far down the hallway that was outside Boo's bedroom. The little girl, knowing all too well what was coming, whispered frantically, "Go go go go!"
"Why?" Sulley asked her, still not being quiet.
"Mommy!" she hissed, and pointed toward her bedroom door.
Now Sulley got it. Boo's mother was awake, and Boo didn't want Sulley and Mike to get caught. Sully put his dear friend down, and ushered his roommate toward the fragile closet door.
"What- Why are we leaving?" Mike asked, his one eye lolling up at his comrade. "We just got here!" He said this loudly.
"Sh. Boo meant that her mother was coming," Sulley said in a quick tone that had an underlying fear.
"Oh!" Mike said, understanding. He bolted toward the closet door and gave it a good hard yank.
The company was briefly visible before the collapse of the delicate door caused the view to dissolve. The door had fallen apart, trapping Sulley and Mike in the human world!
CHAPTER THREE
"Oops," Mike muttered, looking sheepish and smirking nervously. "Hee hee. I forgot to glue it together."
"Mike!" Sulley exclaimed, frustrated by his friend's absentmindedness.
"I thought I could do it later!"
"Like your paperwork?"
"Don't you dare bring that up now, pal! Paperwork was low priority!"
"Go!" Boo hissed, pushing them into her closet as the noises in the hall built up a crescendo.
She pushed the protesting pair into her closet and shut them in. She then scampered into her bed, pulling the covers up to make it look like she was still asleep. Not a second after an adult female human, the likes of which Sulley and Mike had never seen before, entered the room groggily. Her auburn hair was severely disheveled after a night's uneasy sleep. Still clothed in her pajamas, the short woman bent over to the seemingly sleeping figure and gave her a slight shake. "Mary, little Fluzzy, its time to get up. We're going on a trip," she said.
"Where are we going?" she said, blowing off her "I'm asleep and have been all night" act.
"To Uncle Gill's,"
"Oh," she said, put out.
Boo's mother simply shook her head. She headed toward Boo's closet to pick out something for her youngest daughter to wear. Still not fully awake, she shuffled over to the door and opened it. What she saw was not what she expected to find in a closet at five in the morning on the day before Thanksgiving. In fact, she wouldn't have expected to see what she saw any day at any time, except for perhaps midnight on Halloween. Sulley and Mike were equally stunned. They had never seen a human older than seven. The human that stood in front of them now was clearly much older. She didn't scream or run away. Instead, she just stood in front of them, staring like a deer in headlights.
"Uh, hi," Sulley said uneasily. "I'm James Sullivan, err, Sulley, an- and this is my buddy, uh, Mike Wazowski." He introduced them, hoping to keep her from thinking the two were escapees from the local zoo or funny farm.
"Sull, what on earth is wrong with you? We get stuck here, shoved in a closet like some sort of criminals, and then you introduce us like two regular shmoes at a dinner party! Sulley, I swear, you're insane!" Mike blurted out, having one of his little panic attacks.
"There's two creatures that look like they came out of a toddler's T.V. show standing in my daughters closet calling each other insane. I think I'm the one who's insane!" Boo's mother said, laughing nervously. "I think I must be experiencing side effects from that new medication. Yeah, hallucinating is one of the side effects; I think I should call my doctor."
She rambled, trying to reassure herself. She turned around as to walk out, but a new voice erupted down the hallway.
"Fred, you dope! The only reason I'm calling you is to see if you can pet- sit our guinea pig! My uncle has an eight-foot long alligator for a pet that could swallow the Hulk in one bite! I need you to sit him!"
A blonde human girl in her early teens came past Boo's open bedroom door, yelling at someone through a white portable phone. She looked into the room while the person on the other end complained to her. She glanced at Sulley and Mike, disregarding them.
"Fred, sitting Hulk is not going to interfere with your project. All you need to do is fill the dish with food, fill the bottle with water, and keep your dog from chewing on him. Is that too much to ask?" She looked in the room a second time, and did a double take. She stared at them a moment, and smiled at the peculiar beings in her little sister's room. Then she frowned. "You can't take him? Fred, you've got to! I can't! All right, fine, I'll try Amber across the street. Thanks for considering. Have a happy Thanksgiving. Bye."
The girl hung up the phone and walked into the room. "Where'd these guys come from, Mom?" she asked. "They're so cool!"
"We got stuck," the lime colored sphere called Mike said moodily.
"This is so awesome!" she said, surprising every human and monster present. "Hey, can you take care of our guinea pig while we're gone? I don't want him to get eaten."
"Jade!" the adult human snapped, scolding. "You're asking total strangers to take care of our pet!"
"Sorry, Mom. I just thought it would be better for total strangers to take care of Hulky than an alligator in its digestive tract." The blonde named Jade stated.
"Oh, we'd be happy to take care of your pet if we could, miss," said Sulley. "But we're kind in a situation where we have to worry about taking care of ourselves."
"Sulley, we don't even know what a guinea pig is," Mike said, wondering if his buddy was feeling okay.
"Pardon me for asking, but where did you come from?" the girl's mother inquired.
"From our world, stupid! We rescued Boo from being slurped on by a huge machine and put her back. When we tried to put her back, Sulley here got attached to her, and wanted to see her again, so I put her door back together and it fell apart, trapping us here!" Mike explained, as though the answer was immediately obvious.
"Wait! Did you say you came from your world? As in a parallel universe?" Jade queried.
"Yeah, kid, that's what I said!"
"Mom, we're looking at living proof of the theory that there are multiple universes! This is amazing! My favorite theory has been proven!" Jade hopped up and down, excited.
"That's all good, but what do we do with them now? Should we call animal control?"
"No!" Boo exclaimed and ran to Sully and Mike, clinging to them defensively.
"Boo, you don't have to do that!" Sulley said and picked little girl up to hug her.
"I still don't get this!" Boo's mother complained. "And I still don't know what we do with them!"
"Don't worry. I've got an idea. You know how Uncle Gill will get mad if you show up without that new boyfriend you mentioned? Well, what we do is...."
6
A reptilian creature with eight legs and the ability to camouflage himself like the chameleons of our world lurked in the shadows of a chain link cage in the bowels of the Everglades. The creature was intelligent, angry, banished, and named Randall Boggs. Randall had been pitched through a miracle of technology that had allowed many another monster to creep beyond the borders of their own universe into the human's world to collect the screams of children for electrical energy. The technological wonder was a copy of a human child's closet door, hence children's worldwide fear of monsters hiding in their closets. Randall had been thrown through one such door where the stupid kid had mistaken him for an alligator. Then Randall's already bad situation got worse. You see, the family collected alligators to sell for a living, and, currently lacking a tranquilizer, had resorted to knocking him out with a shovel.
When he returned to consciousness, he found himself being stared at by a dozen pairs of ancient eyes with the eagerness of satisfying instincts for catching live prey near at hand. Randall, unaware of their primitive lack of intelligence, had attempted to address them as equals into giving him assistance in escaping. "Hey! Will you fellows help me out?" he queried, soon to have his tail chomped on by the nearest beast with an unexpected lightning- fast strike.
"Yow!" he hollered, cradling his injured tail gently in two of his hands. "Okay. So you want to play rough, huh?" he threatened, still not quite catching the alligator's stupidity. "I'll play rough!" And with that, he launched into the stinking pond to extract a small revenge from his attackers.
The twelve gators decided to compete for what they considered a free lunch. Randall soon found himself struggling for something he had never struggled for before in his life: survival.
And he had never struggled harder in his whole life, including when he had struggled to be top scarer in Sullivan's place.
When his human captors noticed how badly Randall was " getting' along with his kin", they immediately moved him into a separate enclosure. He only slept on the first night. All other nights he tried to escape his bizarre prison, just so he could go home. But the humans somehow caught him at it every time. And each time, they figured out how he had gotten out and fixed the problem. I should have given these human things more credit, he frequently found himself thinking.
On the other hand, he learned that humans were the only truly intelligent beings in their entire world. He also formed more questions than he ever had about this place he was trapped in, such as: "How can humans tell each other apart?" and "Why are these alligator thingies all called the same thing? And what are these infernally annoying things that keep biting me when I'm not looking? These bites ITCH!"
Depressed, he was there for three months, and then was auctioned off as an exotic pet. It wasn't for another week that he got through his homesickness enough to realize how humiliating being a pet was.
Randall's owner was Gill Bates, the owner and CEO of the computer company Macrosoft. Gill had bought Randall so he could frighten his subordinates into complying with all his orders. This worked with amusing efficiency. The secretary or the head of the marketing department or whoever would come into the office and ask to change something. If Gill approved, it happened without question. If he didn't approve, however he would threaten to set Randall loose on them. This worked so well that even good ideas were quickly "forgotten".
This may have worked well for Gill, but Randall, who Gill referred to as Stinky, hated the situation more than Gill's company men did. He was bored and humiliated. If the department of animal control had ever stopped by, Gill would have been arrested for animal cruelty. Randall got kicked, yanked, stepped on and sometimes ignored. He had thought the cage in the Everglades was bad, but this was far, far worse.
CHAPTER TWO
Randall wasn't the only one who suffered from some form of depression in those months. The very monster that Randall despised the most was sick with missing the cute little human girl he and his best friend had rescued from Randall Boggs. James Sullivan, better known by the warmer nickname Sulley, had become a hero with the aid of his one- eyed green pal Mike Wazowski. Together they had not only rescued an innocent girl from nothing short of torture and found an alternative source of energy while they were at it. Despite being a hero in the eyes of the city Monstropolis for fixing the energy crisis so efficiently, Sully misses the tiny human girl so much he had a hard time concentrating on his job as the new owner and CEO of the power company, Monsters, Inc.
The solemn sadness of his seven-foot tall furry blue- and- purple buddy was not lost on Mike. He had worked for nearly a year on the perfect surprise to bring his roommate and friend back to the emotional top.
"Close your eyes," Mike told the close companion that he longed to see happy again. "No peeking,"
When Sulley finally did get Mike's permission to open his eyes, he realized just how well Mike knew him. It was the door of the little girl that had won his heart, carefully pieced together after having been shredded to pieces.
"Sorry it took so long," Mike said. "It was a lot of wood to go through."
Sulley couldn't find any words to express his gratitude. Instead he smiled at his best pal and slowly opened the precariously reassembled door. There was a warm light like that of early morning streaming through the white curtain trimmed window, and the birds were chirping up a storm. But Sulley only had eyes for the small brown- haired figured that called him by a nickname that only she could get away with.
"Kitty?" a small, hopeful voice called, not bothering to hold back her overwhelming joy at seeing her hero again.
"Boo?" the furry thing called Sulley replied with equal hope and joy.
"Kitty!" Boo answered, scrambling as fast as she could out of her bed. Sulley tried to rush to Boo, but was stopped by Mike's voice behind him.
"Aren't ya gonna let me see her, fur ball?" he said in mock anger.
Before Sulley could say a word, Boo cried, "Mike Wazowski!" and rushed toward the unusual pair. She wrapped one arm around Sully's leg, and wrapped the other around Mike's head, which also happened to be his body. Mike made some comment, but it was severely muffled by Boo's joyful hug.
"What did you say, Mikey?" Sulley asked when he managed to pry Boo off Mike to pick her up.
"I said that she's taller than me!" Mike said, his tone of voice implying something like awe.
Boo leaned out of Sulley's arms a little towards Mike, held her finger to her lips and said, "Shh. Mommy's sleeping."
Mike's mouth dropped open, exposing his green gums. Sulley nearly dropped his beloved Boo.
"Boo, you talk!" he said, disregarding her warning.
She just looked at him, nodding her head, with an expression that seemed to say, Yeah, I talk. Didn't you know that, Kitty? The little reunion was split up by a sound not too far down the hallway that was outside Boo's bedroom. The little girl, knowing all too well what was coming, whispered frantically, "Go go go go!"
"Why?" Sulley asked her, still not being quiet.
"Mommy!" she hissed, and pointed toward her bedroom door.
Now Sulley got it. Boo's mother was awake, and Boo didn't want Sulley and Mike to get caught. Sully put his dear friend down, and ushered his roommate toward the fragile closet door.
"What- Why are we leaving?" Mike asked, his one eye lolling up at his comrade. "We just got here!" He said this loudly.
"Sh. Boo meant that her mother was coming," Sulley said in a quick tone that had an underlying fear.
"Oh!" Mike said, understanding. He bolted toward the closet door and gave it a good hard yank.
The company was briefly visible before the collapse of the delicate door caused the view to dissolve. The door had fallen apart, trapping Sulley and Mike in the human world!
CHAPTER THREE
"Oops," Mike muttered, looking sheepish and smirking nervously. "Hee hee. I forgot to glue it together."
"Mike!" Sulley exclaimed, frustrated by his friend's absentmindedness.
"I thought I could do it later!"
"Like your paperwork?"
"Don't you dare bring that up now, pal! Paperwork was low priority!"
"Go!" Boo hissed, pushing them into her closet as the noises in the hall built up a crescendo.
She pushed the protesting pair into her closet and shut them in. She then scampered into her bed, pulling the covers up to make it look like she was still asleep. Not a second after an adult female human, the likes of which Sulley and Mike had never seen before, entered the room groggily. Her auburn hair was severely disheveled after a night's uneasy sleep. Still clothed in her pajamas, the short woman bent over to the seemingly sleeping figure and gave her a slight shake. "Mary, little Fluzzy, its time to get up. We're going on a trip," she said.
"Where are we going?" she said, blowing off her "I'm asleep and have been all night" act.
"To Uncle Gill's,"
"Oh," she said, put out.
Boo's mother simply shook her head. She headed toward Boo's closet to pick out something for her youngest daughter to wear. Still not fully awake, she shuffled over to the door and opened it. What she saw was not what she expected to find in a closet at five in the morning on the day before Thanksgiving. In fact, she wouldn't have expected to see what she saw any day at any time, except for perhaps midnight on Halloween. Sulley and Mike were equally stunned. They had never seen a human older than seven. The human that stood in front of them now was clearly much older. She didn't scream or run away. Instead, she just stood in front of them, staring like a deer in headlights.
"Uh, hi," Sulley said uneasily. "I'm James Sullivan, err, Sulley, an- and this is my buddy, uh, Mike Wazowski." He introduced them, hoping to keep her from thinking the two were escapees from the local zoo or funny farm.
"Sull, what on earth is wrong with you? We get stuck here, shoved in a closet like some sort of criminals, and then you introduce us like two regular shmoes at a dinner party! Sulley, I swear, you're insane!" Mike blurted out, having one of his little panic attacks.
"There's two creatures that look like they came out of a toddler's T.V. show standing in my daughters closet calling each other insane. I think I'm the one who's insane!" Boo's mother said, laughing nervously. "I think I must be experiencing side effects from that new medication. Yeah, hallucinating is one of the side effects; I think I should call my doctor."
She rambled, trying to reassure herself. She turned around as to walk out, but a new voice erupted down the hallway.
"Fred, you dope! The only reason I'm calling you is to see if you can pet- sit our guinea pig! My uncle has an eight-foot long alligator for a pet that could swallow the Hulk in one bite! I need you to sit him!"
A blonde human girl in her early teens came past Boo's open bedroom door, yelling at someone through a white portable phone. She looked into the room while the person on the other end complained to her. She glanced at Sulley and Mike, disregarding them.
"Fred, sitting Hulk is not going to interfere with your project. All you need to do is fill the dish with food, fill the bottle with water, and keep your dog from chewing on him. Is that too much to ask?" She looked in the room a second time, and did a double take. She stared at them a moment, and smiled at the peculiar beings in her little sister's room. Then she frowned. "You can't take him? Fred, you've got to! I can't! All right, fine, I'll try Amber across the street. Thanks for considering. Have a happy Thanksgiving. Bye."
The girl hung up the phone and walked into the room. "Where'd these guys come from, Mom?" she asked. "They're so cool!"
"We got stuck," the lime colored sphere called Mike said moodily.
"This is so awesome!" she said, surprising every human and monster present. "Hey, can you take care of our guinea pig while we're gone? I don't want him to get eaten."
"Jade!" the adult human snapped, scolding. "You're asking total strangers to take care of our pet!"
"Sorry, Mom. I just thought it would be better for total strangers to take care of Hulky than an alligator in its digestive tract." The blonde named Jade stated.
"Oh, we'd be happy to take care of your pet if we could, miss," said Sulley. "But we're kind in a situation where we have to worry about taking care of ourselves."
"Sulley, we don't even know what a guinea pig is," Mike said, wondering if his buddy was feeling okay.
"Pardon me for asking, but where did you come from?" the girl's mother inquired.
"From our world, stupid! We rescued Boo from being slurped on by a huge machine and put her back. When we tried to put her back, Sulley here got attached to her, and wanted to see her again, so I put her door back together and it fell apart, trapping us here!" Mike explained, as though the answer was immediately obvious.
"Wait! Did you say you came from your world? As in a parallel universe?" Jade queried.
"Yeah, kid, that's what I said!"
"Mom, we're looking at living proof of the theory that there are multiple universes! This is amazing! My favorite theory has been proven!" Jade hopped up and down, excited.
"That's all good, but what do we do with them now? Should we call animal control?"
"No!" Boo exclaimed and ran to Sully and Mike, clinging to them defensively.
"Boo, you don't have to do that!" Sulley said and picked little girl up to hug her.
"I still don't get this!" Boo's mother complained. "And I still don't know what we do with them!"
"Don't worry. I've got an idea. You know how Uncle Gill will get mad if you show up without that new boyfriend you mentioned? Well, what we do is...."
6