A Monster in My Cereal Read online

I had no choice.

  So I ran to Dad’s arms. Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I told him everything.

  It’s incredible. He didn’t laugh. What’s more, he actually believed me.

  “I don’t want you to disappear, Dad. I want the monster to disappear!”

  Big tears started to run down my cheeks: I swear I wasn’t even faking.

  Dad thought and thought, all the while wiping away my tears.

  “This monster will do whatever you want, is that right, Poppy?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t mean it when I said I wished I didn’t have a father.”

  Then Dad came up with a brilliant idea. When he puts his mind to it, my dad can be amazing!

  “Poppy, if the monster does whatever you tell it to do, then all you have to do now is ask the monster to disappear.”

  It was so obvious! Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  But I didn’t just nicely ask the monster to please go away. At the top of my lungs I yelled: “Monster, go away!”

  No sooner said than done. It was incredible.

  I knew right away that the monster had disappeared because the television began to play sports again. Suddenly my pockets were empty, and when Dad opened his wallet it was full of money. And the bedroom furniture was all back where it used to be.

  Was I relieved! I felt like I’d squeezed out of a very tight bottle just before they put the lid on. All the same, part of my mind kept thinking that maybe there might have been a way I could have kept the cartoons, the money, the big bedroom … and Dad. If only!

  CHAPTER 7

  CROSS MY HEART AGAIN

  YOU PROBABLY think I made this all up, or that it was only a dream. So do I!

  My dad always says, children do let their imaginations run wild.

  Finally, Mom and Pip came home. Hugs and kisses all round!

  Dad and Mom carried the suitcases into their room.

  “Pip was so brave at the hospital!” reported Mom. Blah blah blah.

  Then Pip stole up to me and, raising his big eyes to mine, confided: “When I got scared, I thought of you, Poppy. And I said to myself, even if Poppy were scared, she wouldn’t act scared. So I didn’t run away or anything.”

  And he put his little arms round my neck and gave me one of his famous sloppy kisses. I’m telling you, when my little brother wants to, he can be something else!!

  All of a sudden, I heard Mom asking if some animal had been in the house.

  “Look, there are long white hairs everywhere!” she exclaimed.

  Pip was excited: he ran off to check it out. Dad smiled, looking straight at me. So I snuck up beside him and whispered: “Don’t tell Mom. She wouldn’t understand.”

  He winked at me. Then he promised: “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Just like the monster … !

  Marie-Francine Hébert

  Marie-Francine Hebért started to write for children by chance and now can’t do without it. This is probably because, like all children, she loves kisses, craziness, physical exercise, little birds, questions, bedtime stories, ice cream and still has so many things to learn, like how not to be afraid of the dark. She has been writing for many years — television scripts, plays, and children’s books. A Monster in My Cereal is her first novel for children.

  Philippe Germain

  Since the age of ten, Philippe Germain has loved sculpture and painting. These days, among other things, he illustrates textbooks and books for young people.

  His dynamic style infuses real life with a sense of colour, spontaneity and, always, plenty of humour.

  When he’s not drawing, he enjoys taking apart and putting back together jukeboxes and other things from his collection of 1950s objects.