The Sock Monster
Christine Storgeoff
Finally off the rack, the excited shirt was brought home and hung up in the closet.
“Ooh who is that?” asked a belt, craning down from a hook. A drawer of socks giggled and a well-worn sweater sternly looked their way.
“Katie must like you—she hung you right in the middle,” smiled the sweater at the new shirt.
Everyone was pleasant; except those in the laundry basket. The shirt wondered why they all had blank, nervous faces. He asked the sweater if he had done something wrong. She said, “no, they’re just worried about getting washed.”
“But why?”
“The Sock Monster.” She paused, “clothes that go near him never come back.”
Later that evening, an elderly plaid shirt woke up.
“Oh that hanger is killin’ me! Why’d she go and put me on a wire one!?” He grumped and glared down at the jeans on the rack below.
The shirt asked about the Sock Monster. Plaid shirt glared suspiciously at him.
“He used to be one of us. He went through the wash and none of us saw ‘im for years. When he came back he had ‘em crazy eyes. Kids’d take one look at ‘im and start bawling. So he went back to the wash.”
Plaid shirt shivered.
“Well doncha got somewhere else to be?”
* * * * * *
The shirt jumped into the laundry. They were dumped into the warm, soapy water and the lid was shut. Everyone held their breath in the dark.
“EEEEEK! HE’S THERE!”
Two red eyes glowed in the dark up in a corner of the lid. The shirt was swept towards the eyes.
“So you think I’m pretty scary?” chuckled the eyes. The shirt peered through the dark. It was a sock and it did have red eyes: big button eyes coated in glow-in-the-dark paint!
The shirt was surprised—and asked him why everybody thinks he steals clothes. The sock looked surprised.
“They leave on their own! I was Katie’s sock-puppet when she was little. She works in a daycare now. If you stay up here with me she’ll take you there and kids will decorate you!”
The shirt asked if he wanted to come back. The sock declined politely but asked the shirt to see if any of the clothes wanted to go to daycare, and if they did, to tell them the truth about the Sock Monster.
And the shirt assured him he would.
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