The Monster under Building A

Lila Martin

Tenth Grade Practical Writing

Period 4

November 15th

Mrs. Williams, this essay is supposed to be about our Thanksgiving holiday plans but to be honest, my holiday plans suck. All me and my mom are doing is eating gross turkey with my grandma and grandpa the same people I live with. My dad won’t call. He didn’t call last Thanksgiving or the Thanksgiving before that or at Christmas or my birthday. He has a new house and wife and little girl in Arizona so why would he? So instead of writing about my holiday plans I’m going to write what me and Cody did last weekend. 

Do you remember how on Friday we were talking about what we were going to do this weekend and you said that no matter what you weren’t going to stay late in Building A? Because when you stayed the night before, you heard a noise below you. Kind of a scratching sound. There’s a space under Building A big enough for a person so you thought maybe a crazy homeless guy was sleeping down there. I’ll tell you right now it wasn’t a person. It was something else.

This is your first year teaching here so you might not know that Building A was once the original one-room schoolhouse for this whole town and it was where the mini-mart is now. They moved it here when they built the real high school and the rumor is that when they moved it they put it over a swimming pool kind of by accident. You go up three steps to get into Building A and you can’t see underneath it. So it might be over a pool. 

I think the story about the pool is stupid but Building A was definitely the original schoolhouse. All the other school buildings are concrete and glass and fast wifi, but Building A is slow and made of wood. So of course they put us into it—the school idiots. I know you don’t like us saying we’re idiots but come on. Look at our classes. Study skills? Math for life? You guys aren’t fooling anyone. 

When I was in elementary I was smart. My dad would help me but he took off for Arizona when I was in sixth grade and I couldn’t handle the work so—Bam! Special ed. The only thing I like about special ed is Cody. He is my friend and nothing else.

I don’t know if you know this but Cody’s brother shoots H and his mom is messed up usually. Cody used to smoke pot all the time. He stopped but that pot scrambled his brain and that’s why he takes the same classes as me even though he’s really smart and also why he’s always hungry and acts weird sometimes. When you said that about the scratching under Building A, Cody went nuts and bugged me the whole day—We have to check out the monster! And he wanted me to bring Barney. 

Barney is my dog. He’s big and brown part poodle and part something huge. My dad got Barney for me when I was little and would take us on walks by the river. Now Barney’s really old and stiff and he smells bad but I love him. I thought my dad loved Barney too but I guess not.

Cody kept bugging me to come and bring Barney so finally I said okay, fine. Whatever. At least I’d find out about the pool.

That night I waited until my mom left for her job and my grandma and grandpa fell asleep. I got Barney and we snuck out and went to Building A where Cody was waiting. He was all excited. He pulled back a bush by the stairs and showed me this triangle shaped hole. That hole is still there if you don’t believe me, Mrs. Williams. It was really dark under Building A and smelled like old pee. I get scared of the dark so I told Cody I would wait for him and he said okay. He turned on his flashlight and stuck it in the hole and then he crawled in! Barney wanted to go in after him but I held him back and we watched that light bounce around.

Mrs. Williams, you know when the power goes out at your house and it’s all dark and you walk around with a candle or something and you can’t see anything beyond that light? And then you see someone else’s light and it’s spooky but at the same time it’s kind of cool? Because that person is scared the same as you. It doesn’t make the dark go away but it’s not so bad. That’s what it was like under Building A. Awful and dark but we could see Cody’s light so it wasn’t so bad.

And then there was a thump and ow! and the light went still for a second. I was like Cody? He said he’d hit a beam or something. I asked if there was a pool. I can’t believe I asked him that. A pool. I’m an idiot I’m not kidding. Anyway he was like no. The ground was dirt but I should shut up because he’d heard something.

I kept quiet. Then—OMG—I heard it. This scratching. I thought oh no there was a homeless psycho down there. I was like Cody get out! Get out of there! then something—not a person—screamed. I jumped and I swear to God I almost peed my pants. The light was moving fast and Barney was barking and he pulled so hard I couldn’t hold him and he jumped into the hole!

So I was yelling and Barney was barking and there was that weird screaming and a whoosh-whoosh like a helicopter. And then everything stopped. Silent. The light was still.

I grabbed the biggest stick I could find. My heart was jumping around in my mouth but I did it I crawled into that dark hole under Building A because Cody was my very best friend and even if my dad didn’t want Barney anymore I did. 

I couldn’t hear anything except this soft shuffling sound or see anything except Cody’s light which hadn’t moved. I crawled to the flashlight with my head down so I wouldn’t hit any beams. When I got there I said Cody? 

He said over here. I put the light to his voice and there was Cody looking really pale with this big bloody spot on his head. 

I said where’s Barney? That shuffling noise came again and I put the light over to it and there was Barney with something white hanging out of his mouth. 

I said what is that?

Cody said a chicken. 

That’s exactly what it was, Mrs. Williams. Barney had a chicken hanging down out of his mouth with bright red near its neck but it wasn’t dead. One wing kept flapping and making the shuffling sound. 

I yelled Barney you idiot! Oh, my, God, Barney! I wanted to throw up. That poor chicken.

But Cody said don’t. He crawled over to Barney and told him to let it go boy. Drop it. And Barney did. Then Cody was holding that chicken with red bite marks on its neck and twitching and calling real soft.

I was like we have to call 911. We have to take it to an animal hospital. Maybe they can fix it. I was shaking and almost crying because it was just us there and no one else.

Cody said no. The chicken was hurt too bad. And he took it by the neck and twisted its head until it was dead and hanging in his hand like a rag.

Then I was crying. I said we had to find the owner and tell him how sorry we were. He would be mad that his chicken had suffered but maybe we could buy him a new one and everything would be okay.

Cody said no way. He said there were three big poultry farms near here and they had lots of chickens just like this one. It was nothing to them it didn’t matter at all.

I don’t know why but when he said that I started crying really hard. Like so hard I could barely breathe. Barney came and sat next to me like he used to when I was little. I told Cody we had to bury the chicken here under Building A to say goodbye. We should bring in some flowers and stuff and read from my mom’s bible. We could hold hands and sing it to heaven. 

But Cody looked at me and said are you kidding? It’s good food. Let’s eat it. 

Mrs. Williams, this sounds really weird but that was exactly what we did. We went to Cody’s house and he cleaned that chicken and pulled the feathers off and rubbed it with salt and oil and baked it. It was the best chicken ever the way Cody made it. Juicy and salty. The skin was crisp and the inside was like butter. I’ve never had something so good. Way better than turkey! 

So that’s what we did last weekend. Cody and me found the monster under Building A. And we ate it.