CHUB PUT DOWN HIS BOOK. The glasses lady was talking to the lunch man. The lunch was on the plate with the green cover, just like before. Chub didn’t know what it was even though the glasses lady asked him could he guess. He said macaroni, but it smelled like chicken dinosaurs. Hailey made him chicken dinosaurs sometimes and he liked them and he didn’t like anything here. He didn’t like it here and he was scared a lot and he didn’t like to go to the bathroom in this bathroom. He didn’t like it here but now he had a mind-picture and he put down his book.
If the glasses lady knew, she would make him say but Chub didn’t want to say. It was the Monster Man and they were making the Monster Man play the bad games too. Not the same games because there was no hiding thing and the glasses lady wasn’t there. Chub couldn’t see who was there but someone was making the Monster Man play a game.
With numbers. There were numbers. Chub couldn’t see the numbers but he knew there were numbers. At school Miss Kathy said to count and Chub could count a lot. One two three four five six and more and more numbers. Sometimes you could put the numbers on the magnet board and sometimes you wrote the numbers on a pad. And the Monster Man had numbers too and he was hiding them inside his head.
Chub knew about that. Sometimes he hid things in his head. For a long time he hid his words there and nobody knew. They weren’t a secret, they just didn’t come out. Then Hailey helped him let the words out of his head and that was good but sometimes he still liked to hide things there. Sometimes it was for fun and sometimes he just didn’t want to tell.
The Monster Man didn’t want to tell before, but now he wanted to tell the numbers. The mind-picture went wavy and then it was gone and then it was back and Chub went by the bookshelf so the glasses lady didn’t see him watching the picture. They were doing something with the lunch. He put his book on the shelf and took another book down and put it on the floor. The Monster Man kept the numbers in his head but now he was telling the numbers. It wasn’t a game. No, not a game. He wanted to tell the numbers because it could help someone.
The Monster Man was a helper. He was so scary before but now Chub saw he wasn’t as scary. His face wasn’t a monster face now. Someone had fixed his face. He didn’t hurt as bad. He wanted to be a helper.
Helping was good. But Chub wasn’t going to tell the glasses lady. Helping was good, but she didn’t know that.