of whatever is really wrong with me. And then I glanced at the mutant heroes in the glossy pages of my comic book and really went for it with the ridiculous, Or maybe I’ll even wake up and discover this exposure to PVZ has given me some sort of superpower! A moment later, reality set in and I started to worry about the far more likely scenario that the PVZ would give me hives or brain zaps or make me grow hair on my eyeballs.
It turned out I wasn’t totally wrong. It did give me something. Or some things, to be precise. But they definitely weren’t superpowers. And they definitely weren’t a cure.
The sound was the worst. Every morning. The BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP of my alarm clock ruined my day before I was even awake. Every morning I’d rip my eyes open, annoyed, and swear to destroy it. And every morning I’d totally lose the energy to do so as soon as it was off.
That morning was no different. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. I shot up in bed and swatted the clock, silencing it by knocking it onto the floor. Then I sneezed really hard – a giant “ACHOO!” that blew my head back onto the pillow, where I was determined to grab a few more minutes of shut-eye anyway.
But before I could even get comfortable, it started again – BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Without opening my eyes, I lunged for the clock, falling halfway off my bed in the process. I managed to find it and hit the snooze button – but nothing happened. Really annoyed now, I yanked the power cord out, but still, somehow, the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP kept going. Confused, I gave up on sleeping more and opened my eyes instead.
And there it was. I didn’t know WHAT it was. But it was there at the foot of my bed – a furry little potato sack with two arms, beady little eyes and massive ears that twitched around like satellite dishes. Its big, gaping, froglike mouth was spewing out this horrendous sound – BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
I fell out of bed, hitting my head on my nightstand when I tried to scramble away. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, desperate for this to be a bad dream, but the little purple creature just sat there, looking up at me with innocent eyes, almost smiling as it rhythmically droned on BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. It was awful. I covered my ears, but the little creature seemed pleased that I did that. As if it had accomplished a goal.
I jumped back up on my bed, grabbed the pillows closest to me, and threw them at it as hard as I could. But the creature seemed oblivious. It hopped up on my desk, happy as can be, and began to explore what seemed like a whole new world. It walked over my keyboard. CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK. It paused and stomped again. CLICK. It smiled.
CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK came out of its mouth as “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!” came out of mine. It hopped off the desk and approached the foot of my bed. I panicked and scrambled across the bed to grab my Wolverine gloves off a shelf. SNIKT! The plastic claws popped out with the pre-programmed sound effect.
SNIKT! SNIKT! SNIKT! SNIKT! the creature said, hopping up on my bed as if I’d asked it to follow me. I jumped off the other side, swiping my claws at it, but it just kept coming closer, seemingly excited by the sound of it alone. My foot got tangled in the dirty laundry on the floor and I fell with a THUD.
THUD THUD THUD THUD it said, smiling, as it stepped closer.
“Get back. Get away. STAY AWAY!” I shouted, swatting the air in its general direction.
THUD THUD THUD THUD. It was almost on me. I clenched up and did the only reasonable thing left.
“MOM!” I yelled. What else was I supposed to do?
She came rushing into the room. “What is all the racket up …” and then she stopped short, her eyes wide in horror at what she saw. “I don’t believe this,” she said, stomping in like she was ready to take charge and shut the creature up. “Slim, I’ve told you a hundred times that the floor is not a laundry basket.” And she walked right past the noisy, potato-sack-looking creature and picked up the clothes I had just tripped over.
I must have been in shock because I couldn’t really form another word. I just pointed with a confused and freaked-out look on my face. In response, the creature opened its mouth. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. “We need to keep this place neat for clients so I can actually afford these clothes you toss on the floor,” she continued, talking right over the noise as if she couldn’t hear anything.
She must have seen the colour drain from my face because she sat me down on the edge of my bed and felt my forehead. “Honey, you look pale. Are you sick? You’re sweating. Do you have chills? It’s not a fever. Did you sleep okay?” Mom never seemed to run out of things to ask me, even though I never have enough answers for her. Especially while staring at an incredibly loud and furry monster that seemed to not exist to her at all. “I really hope you aren’t coming down with something,” she continued. “Is this about yesterday? Are you still worked up over it? Or are you just angling for a mental health day here?” I didn’t feel sick, but I did feel super annoyed at the onslaught of questions when the only relevant question anyone should be asking was, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” And then, without warning, I sneezed again.
“Maybe it’s just allergies. Do you think it’s allergies? You don’t usually have allergies, but sometimes they develop,” she pointed out. And as she kept talking, I saw something else develop.
My sneeze had taken me by surprise, so I didn’t have time to cover it up. And right on the floor where it had sprayed, I saw the tiny, clear drops start to pull together into a translucent glob of goo, almost like a booger … but bigger … and it moved! It stretched and expanded and started to form a mosslike film on its surface that quickly turned into a bluish fur. Then a pair of eyes popped through, looking all around like it was fascinated at everything it saw.
“Slim, honey, just breathe. You don’t want a panic attack now,” Mom said, attempting to calm me down. “Remember what your therapist said about breathing through it?” I nodded, trying to breathe, hoping she was right. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the new little monster.
The fur ball with eyes rocked back and forth until POP – a pair of arms sprang from its sides, and it pressed its paws against the floor and pushed itself up, stretching its potato-sack body until it was standing on two little feet. It rubbed its head until a pair of pointy ears flicked out. And now this second furry little creature was looking up at me with the biggest, most curious eyes I’d ever seen – like it wanted to know all it could about every single thing it saw. A few crooked little teeth jutted out from its head as its furry face formed a mouth. When it opened, I was expecting another round of beeping noises, but that’s not what this one did at all; instead, it asked, “Am I an allergy?”
That was enough to send me skittering off the bed and on top of the noisy creature on the other side. I could feel it squish below me, like a deflating air mattress. It was a weird, unpleasant sensation, and when I rolled off, the noisy thing was flattened on the floor. I crab-crawled away as far as I could get from the creatures I had somehow sneezed into existence. As I tried to gain control of my breathing, the flattened one re-formed, seemingly unharmed, and started beeping again. I tried to get away but I was pinned against my dresser. My one-thousand-and-forty-seven piece Lego Batman set that took me three days to assemble fell off the top and shattered on the floor. I’d never get it back together again. Mom had thrown out the directions in the move. I wanted to scream. The noisy one’s satellite-like ears twitched in my direction. CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH it repeated like my Lego masterpiece would never stop breaking, while the other creature picked up my scattered Lego pieces, asking rapid-fire, “What are these? Why did you do that? Where are you going?”
I backed away from the mess and over towards Mom, who was visibly frustrated by my freak-out. “Slim, for heaven’s sake, what are you so upset about?” she asked.
“You don’t see them?!” I