Little Girl Lost

“Mommy,” the little girl reached up and tugged on the sleeve of her mother’s robe.  “There is no such things as monsters right?”

“No sweetheart,” the mother said with a smile as she tucked her little girl under the cover.  “There are no such things as monsters... except for tickle monsters!”

The little girl squealed in laughter, as her mother leaned over her, tickling the girl through the blankets.  With a kiss on her forehead, the girl’s mother got up and left the room, turning off the lights before she closed the door.  The night light blinked on automatically, a feeble light, pale in the deep dark of the room.  All it did was create monsters made of shadows cast on the walls.  She reached under her covers and grabbed her battered and worn teddy bear.  Charlie was a talisman against the dark and shadows and the monsters that lived there.

“Any idea who the girl is?”

Officer Torres just shook her head.  “No idea sergeant.  I got the call and just found her wandering the mall.  Mall security said she’s been alone for several hours.  She wouldn’t tell me her name or where she lived, but said she was looking for her mommy.”

Sergeant Seeler looked past Torres and watched the girl sit on the bench, where she was happily kicking her feet over the side.  She had dark hair that had a slight wave in it and deep blue eyes that sparkled.  She squirmed with a giggle as if she were tickled and the patted something in her lap, saying something Seeler couldn’t hear.

“Hello there,” Seeler said crouching down in front of her.  “My name is Andy, can you tell me what your name is?”

The girl just looked at him with a frown and shook her head no.

“Why not?”

“Mommy said I shouldn’t talk to strangers.”

“But I’m a police officer.  You can trust me.”

The little girl looked up at the sergeant and thought it over with a frown.  Her eyes narrowed.  “No I can’t.”

Seeler sighed and stood up and went over to talk to with Torres, asking if she informed child protective services.  “If she’s in the system, a simple fingerprint test should let us know who she is.”  Torres said she called and then looked past Seeler at the girl, where she was busy eating a hot dog with mustard.  Seeler looked surprised.

“Honey, where did you get that hot dog?”

The dark haired girl swallowed and held her hot dog away from Seeler as if afraid he was going to take it away.  “Charlie got it for me,” she said as if that made perfect sense.

Seeler looked around, scratching his chin.  “Charlie?”

The girl frowned at him and took a big bite finishing her hot dog.  She chewed while staring at him with narrowed eyes.

Seeler shrugged, at a complete loss of what to do.  He rubbed his eyes, tapping on the bridge of his nose.  He then blinked in surprise as she took a drink from a carton of milk.  A carton of milk that was not there just two seconds ago.

“Did Charlie get you that milk?”

She looked annoyed.  “No.  Sir Puff did.”  With that said, she got off the bench and threw her empty carton away in the trash can.  Without sparing Seeler or Torres another look, she started walking away.

“Whoa!”  Seeler called out.  “Honey, you can’t go, you have to stay here.”

The girl ignored him and continued walking away, jumping in the air as if she were trying to catch a butterfly.  Seeler took a step and reached out for the girl.  The next thing he knew, he was flying through the air and crashed into a mall cart selling car window stickers.

The puppy was barking in the living room.  That is what woke her up.  She didn’t know why the puppy was barking, she was usually a very quiet puppy.  The next thing she knew her door was flung open and two policemen came in, followed by an old lady with thick glasses.  She screamed as one of the policemen scooped her up, blanket and all.  She kicked and yelled for her mother to come save her. As she struggled, Charlie slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor where the other policeman stepped on him.  She cried out for Charlie... she cried out for her mother... she cried out... she cried...

The little girl didn’t know the people she was forced to live with.  Some fat woman who always yelled and an ugly man who smelled like smoke.  There were two other kids too, a boy her age and an older girl.  They were strangers and she didn’t talk to them, like mommy told her.  The house she was forced to live with was dirty and smelled like cat pee, yet she never saw a cat.  The boy was mean always teasing her for not talking.  The girl was quiet and sad, the little girl could tell.  Sometimes she cried and when she did, she smelled like smoke.  Smoke must be bad.

There weren’t any nice toys to play with.  The boy always took them away when she tried to play with them anyway.  She didn’t even have any crayons to draw with, so she just stayed in small room she shared with the older girl, looking out the window, wondering why mommy didn’t come and get her.  She was so lonely she stared to cry and that is when she heard a bump on the window.  She looked up and her eyes went wide.  There was a bunny!  The cutest little bunny, with the cutest little wings bumping into the window, like a fly trying to fly through the glass.  She struggled to get the window open and when she did, the bunny flew into her arms and nuzzled her.  He was so soft and fluffy and snuggly.

“Hi,” she said sniffing back her tears.  “I’m going to call you Sir Puff!”  Sir Puff had a lot of friends and the little girl wasn’t lonely anymore... though she still missed her mother a lot.

She was dreaming of her mother.  They just had a picnic in the park and she was feeding her puppy a biscuit while her mommy asked her what she was gonna name her new puppy.  The puppy yipped happily and began gnawing on the biscuit.  The girl began to think but then felt something crawling on her knee and the first thing she thought was: spider!

The little girl woke up.  It was still dark.  There was a little light coming in from the window, casting long, faded shadows in the small room.  She froze, heart pounding furiously in her chest.  There was a monster sitting next to her on the bed, a tiny glowing red eye that flared brightly in the dark and faded like it was slowly blinking.  It had its hand on her knee under her blanket.  Mommy was wrong, there were other monsters then tickle monsters and this monster smelled like smoke.  Its hand crawled up her leg... she closed her eyes tightly and whimpered.

The monster yelled in surprise and then pain, its hand suddenly gone, taking her blanket away with it.  The little girl shut her eyes tighter and heard a terrible crash, of splintering wood and shattering glass.  It was a long moment before she felt something soft and fuzzy pick her up.  She cautiously opened her eyes and saw Charlie staring down at her.  She cried out in happy surprised and threw her arms around the battle-scarred teddy-bear.

“Where were you!” she cried out holding him tightly.

“Okay, I guess that’s a good reason.  But how did you get so big?

Charlie cocked his head and set her down.

“Wow!  Really?”

Charlie nodded his big fuzzy head, his left ear a flopped around losely where mommy had to keep sewing it back on.  The girl took Charlie’s hand and started to carefully through the splintered wall where Charlie threw the monster through.

The girl looked up at Charlie and nodded.  “You’re right Charlie.”  She turned around and went to the older girl’s bed, where she hiding under her blanket.  “Mandy,” the girl said tugging on the blanket.  “Charlie says you should tell the old lady with the glasses what the monster was doing.”  Turning back around Charlie picked her up and carried her over the splintered wood and broken glass.  He had to scrunch down to fit through the hole.  As they walked down the street, hand in hand.

“Lets go look for mommy, Charlie.  I bet you she’s really worried.”