My Monster

I had a monster that lived under my bed.
(You know the one, he had horns on his head.)

Well, he’s gone! Vanished. Poof! Into the sky.
He’s left me alone and I think I know why.

It was all that kerfuffle that went on last night
I’m sure that it gave him a terrible fright.

He was minding his business, just picking at fluff.
He’d arranged my old gum –‘one more chew’ or ‘too tough’.

He’d sorted my socks, had them neatly in pairs…
When he heard a big bump on the tread of the stairs.

He curled up in a corner and he tucked in his knees.
He lay very still and he held in a sneeze.

If Mum hadn’t looked where she shouldn’t have peeked,
If she’d left my gum wrappers, she wouldn’t have shrieked.

And if she hadn’t screamed and gone off her tree,
There’d still be us…my monster and me.

Mum says that the monster had never been there,
It was just an old pillow that gave her a scare.

She said it had been there for weeks-“What a sight!”
-and it was that, not a monster, that gave her a fright.

Well, I’m not coming out from under these covers
Till my monster comes back, despite meddling mothers.