the keyhole with Play-Doh and hoped for the best.
Dad and Mum didnât notice what Iâd done because they were busy nailing all the windows in the attic shut.
Parents are so weird.
I wasnât surprised to hear from Nick the next day at school that his dog had disappeared during the night.
That doggy smell outside my door the night before came back to me.
I tried my best to stay awake that night, but it was hard and I didnât manage it.
In my dreams, I thought I saw a shadowy figure looking at me with eyes that I remembered from a face I used to know.
It was a weird dream, not scary, but it scared me.
Especially when I woke to find a human fingernail beside me on the pillow.
Did you know our fingernails go right down into our finger?
They have this bloody root that keeps them in place and stuff.
The fingernail on my pillow had a bit of skin attached to it, grey and knobbly with purply clots of blood gripping to the bottom like full stops at the end of someoneâs life.
I screamed and Mum came running.
When I showed her the fingernail, she said, âWhat fingernail?â and put it in her pocket.
I told her that I hadnât been imagining it.
And that I would keep on looking and poking around till she told me the truth, so she might as well get it over with and save us both the trouble.
She let out a big sigh and called my Dad.
They both held my hand and we climbed the attic stairs together, as a family.
We unlocked the door and there was Stephenâs bedroom, perfectly recreated in the attic. Except with chains.
There had to be chains, see, to keep Stephen from getting out.
It was his fingernail.
I knew because his finger was all bloody where the nail was missing.
He had dug it into Mum earlier, she said, when she gave him his dinner. It must have fallen on my pillow when she went in to check on me. She took it out of her pocket and showed it to me again.
It was still disgusting.
Stephen always gets a little bit excited around dinner time.
Thatâs because he is kept cooped up in the attic with nothing much to do.
Mum and Dad canât let him out any more, you see, because it would be dangerous.
People would be afraid of Stephen.
They wouldnât see past the green face, the flaky skin, the patchy looking hair. The smell.
The long curved nails and yellow teeth.
The eyes with red in the white bits.
The growling.
But we see past all that because we are his family.
We have to love him and take care of him because he is ours and nobody else will.
He is our little secret.
And if he likes to eat a dog or a cat or a rabbit, fur and bones and all, every now and then, isnât that a small price to pay?
I mean, why shouldnât we give him food when heâs hungry?
The sort of food he likes and deserves.
Live food.
Our Stephen has changed but heâs still my brother.
Brothers have to look out for each other.
Even if that means that Dad and I have to sneak out after dark once or twice a week and drive to a neighbourhood where the dogs are free to roam.
We kind of ran out of dogs in our estate after the first few months.
People donât buy pets around here any more.
Thereâs no point.
And the funny thing is that even though heâs my big brother, Iâm the one who has to mind him.
I mean, if I werenât there to help Dad, heâd get a lot hungrier than he does now.
Mum canât, you see. She has her work cut out keeping the smell inside the attic.
And like Dad always says, two pairs of hands are so much better than one.
Especially with cats.
Cats can be very wriggly.
THE END
There is absolutely no way I could sleep after that story.
I can still hear the clinking from the attic â¦
The only way to stop the shivers is to hear another tale.
So whoâs next?
Dublin UNESCO City of Literature
NIGHTMARE CLUB
DUBLIN PLACE NAMES
COMPETITION
Hey there, all you dead smart readers of my deadly books!
My demon
Dad and Mum didnât notice what Iâd done because they were busy nailing all the windows in the attic shut.
Parents are so weird.
I wasnât surprised to hear from Nick the next day at school that his dog had disappeared during the night.
That doggy smell outside my door the night before came back to me.
I tried my best to stay awake that night, but it was hard and I didnât manage it.
In my dreams, I thought I saw a shadowy figure looking at me with eyes that I remembered from a face I used to know.
It was a weird dream, not scary, but it scared me.
Especially when I woke to find a human fingernail beside me on the pillow.
Did you know our fingernails go right down into our finger?
They have this bloody root that keeps them in place and stuff.
The fingernail on my pillow had a bit of skin attached to it, grey and knobbly with purply clots of blood gripping to the bottom like full stops at the end of someoneâs life.
I screamed and Mum came running.
When I showed her the fingernail, she said, âWhat fingernail?â and put it in her pocket.
I told her that I hadnât been imagining it.
And that I would keep on looking and poking around till she told me the truth, so she might as well get it over with and save us both the trouble.
She let out a big sigh and called my Dad.
They both held my hand and we climbed the attic stairs together, as a family.
We unlocked the door and there was Stephenâs bedroom, perfectly recreated in the attic. Except with chains.
There had to be chains, see, to keep Stephen from getting out.
It was his fingernail.
I knew because his finger was all bloody where the nail was missing.
He had dug it into Mum earlier, she said, when she gave him his dinner. It must have fallen on my pillow when she went in to check on me. She took it out of her pocket and showed it to me again.
It was still disgusting.
Stephen always gets a little bit excited around dinner time.
Thatâs because he is kept cooped up in the attic with nothing much to do.
Mum and Dad canât let him out any more, you see, because it would be dangerous.
People would be afraid of Stephen.
They wouldnât see past the green face, the flaky skin, the patchy looking hair. The smell.
The long curved nails and yellow teeth.
The eyes with red in the white bits.
The growling.
But we see past all that because we are his family.
We have to love him and take care of him because he is ours and nobody else will.
He is our little secret.
And if he likes to eat a dog or a cat or a rabbit, fur and bones and all, every now and then, isnât that a small price to pay?
I mean, why shouldnât we give him food when heâs hungry?
The sort of food he likes and deserves.
Live food.
Our Stephen has changed but heâs still my brother.
Brothers have to look out for each other.
Even if that means that Dad and I have to sneak out after dark once or twice a week and drive to a neighbourhood where the dogs are free to roam.
We kind of ran out of dogs in our estate after the first few months.
People donât buy pets around here any more.
Thereâs no point.
And the funny thing is that even though heâs my big brother, Iâm the one who has to mind him.
I mean, if I werenât there to help Dad, heâd get a lot hungrier than he does now.
Mum canât, you see. She has her work cut out keeping the smell inside the attic.
And like Dad always says, two pairs of hands are so much better than one.
Especially with cats.
Cats can be very wriggly.
THE END
There is absolutely no way I could sleep after that story.
I can still hear the clinking from the attic â¦
The only way to stop the shivers is to hear another tale.
So whoâs next?
Dublin UNESCO City of Literature
NIGHTMARE CLUB
DUBLIN PLACE NAMES
COMPETITION
Hey there, all you dead smart readers of my deadly books!
My demon
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