Lottie is a UK-based author. She has an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in English Literature with Creative Writing from Aberystwyth University. In 2014, she came fifth in the BBC Opening Lines competition and her stories have appeared in multiple university anthologies. She has also had articles published on PCGamesN and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Lottie runs a blog and is currently working on her first novel.
Headfirst
There are creatures living under Michael’s bed. They wait until Mum has gone down the stairs, her steps rumbling throughout the house, before pattering across his bedroom floor with far too many feet. The metal bars of his bed rattle as they poke the underside of his mattress. Sometimes talons creep onto the bottom of his duvet, pulling and tugging it, so Michael has started sleeping curled up in a tight ball like a hedgehog. He has tried talking to them, but they always vanish back beneath his bed after the first word.
Mum doesn’t believe him. She tells him that only spiders and empty space live underneath his bed. Michael looks and sees that she’s telling the truth. Only to remember that these are night-time creatures he’s dealing with and they will be invisible during the day. When he explains this to Mum, she shakes her head and tells him she’s not leaving his bedroom door open anymore—nine-year-olds sleep with the door shut. She also makes him promise not to tell Dad about the creatures; he wants to rest when he’s home, not listen to Michael’s stories.
Michael knows he has to prove that the creatures are real.
One day in school, head heavy from lack of sleep, Michael decides to draw one of the creatures. If he showed Ms Carpenter the picture, then she could find the creature in a book and, maybe, tell him how to get rid of it. A photo would be better, but he doesn’t own a camera. Anyway, when his class visited the art museum, Ms Carpenter said that a picture tells a thousand words.
The problem, he realises looking at the white paper, is that he had only ever seen one of the creature’s hands. He can’t make the rest up or Ms Carpenter might pick the wrong creature. Maybe, Michael thinks, the hand will be enough. In his mind, Michael sees the long, thin fingers, which are the same inky, black, colour as the night shadows that dance across his bedroom wall. Picking up a pencil, he begins to draw.
Someone pokes him in the cheek so hard it hurts his teeth. He looks up from his drawing and finds Poppy grinning down at him. She asks him what he’s drawing. Michael tells her to go away. Poppy says he won’t tell her, because he knows his picture is gross. Michael looks at the drawing.
The fingers aren’t exactly right—he can’t draw straight lines—and the skin is a little too bright, but it’s not bad. It’s not gross. Poppy is fairy tale pretty with shining blonde pigtails that bounce when she runs. She thinks she knows what gross is because she’s pretty. Michael likes his drawing though, so he grabs one of her pigtails and pulls.
Poppy cries.
Ms Carpenter makes him stand outside the classroom. Michael knows he can’t ask for her help now, because her face has turned tomato red. Ms Carpenter says he has to apologise. She tells him to make a card—they always have to make sorry cards. He gets another piece of paper and folds it in half. Inside he writes ‘I’m sorry Poppy’ in big letters and draws a flower on the front with pink petals.
Poppy laughs when he gives it to her in the playground. Digging her fingers into the paper, Poppy creates holes in his card, before tearing it in half. She sticks her tongue out at him and runs away, pig tails following her.
Mum won’t help him. Dad can’t help him. The picture is missing when he returns to the classroom. Asking Ms Carpenter will only get him another talk about not being mean to girls. Michael is alone now, but he won’t give up.
When he gets home that day, instead of watching cartoons, Michael goes to his room and begins to plan. At first he tries to think of a way to trap a creature, but he doesn’t own a net. He needs to do something easy, but still sneaky. If he wants to see a creature he’ll have to trick the creatures by pretending to be asleep.
Michael spends all his time practising, because he might only get one chance. He tells Mum he’s pretending to be a cave explorer, so she won’t make him stop. He learns how to roll onto his stomach without making the metal bars of his bed ring. By jumping up and down, he finds the non-squeaky floorboards and teaches himself how to find those boards without looking.
Michael high-fives himself when he does this silently ten times in a row. This glee vanishes, however, when he wonders if the creatures will hide when they see his feet. They always vanish when he gets up to go to the loo at night; why would this be any different?
There is only one solution—Michael will have to go headfirst.
It takes a while, but he figures out the right position for his body to be in—flat on his belly, with his legs in the air. Michael practices reaching for the bottom bar of his bed frame one hand at a time, until his arms ache. Most importantly, he finds the right speed for lowering his head, so he won’t get dizzy.
Finally, after a whole week, Michael is ready.
He picks his night carefully, waiting until the moon is shining brightly through his window, because Mum won’t let him use the torch. Michael pretends it’s just an ordinary night—argues with Mum about his bedtime, reads, grumbles when she turns his light off and pretends to sleep.
The floor creaks when the creatures arrive.
Michael rolls onto his stomach and raises his legs slowly, so the duvet won’t fall off his bed. His breath is hot and the duvet feels heavier, but he still manages to grip the metal bar. It’s cold—freezing—and his fingers begin to stiffen.
Michael pauses. Maybe it would be better to go feet first. The creatures have never tried to be friendly; what if they attacked him? Although, he is only looking with his eyes and not his hands, which Mum says is the best way to look. This, he thinks, could be the act of bravery the creatures have been waiting for. Maybe they’ll be his friends once he shows them how smart he can be. Slowly, Michael lowers his head down.
Looking beneath his bed, Michael realises that he was wrong.
You can find more of Lottie’s writing via her website, Snippets of Tales.