The Thing In The Corner

There’s a thing in the corner of my bedroom. Mummy says I’m not to worry about it. She says it’s not really there, and it’s my imaj… something. She keeps on using big words like that. Ever since Daddy left she calls me her ‘little man’ and gives me a funny look when she hugs me before I go to sleep. Anyway, I know the thing’s in the corner ‘cause I’ve seen it move. It’s only there when I try to go to sleep. I don’t think it likes the sunshine because it’s gone when I wake up. One time I wanted to have a tinkle at night, but I saw it there and I wouldn’t get out of bed. I waited for a long time. I screwed my legs together but I couldn’t help it in the end. I tinkled in the bed. I was so annoyed with the thing in the corner I almost got up to tell it off. Well, almost. I would have said: “Leave me alone!” And “Go away!” And stuff like that. Well, I think it won’t go away. I think it likes it there. In the morning Mummy was so mad at me. She didn’t call me her ‘little man’ for a long time. I tried to tell her it wasn’t my fault, that the thing in the corner wouldn’t let me go past, but she wouldn’t listen. Grown-ups don’t listen sometimes. She called me a baby! I’m not a baby. I’ll show her one day. Once I thought the thing in the corner was going to eat me or something. I reckon it’s got big teeth, and it’s all furry like that big rat Daddy caught when we first moved here. Only the thing in the corner doesn’t move much. When the door’s slightly open, it gets up really close to the opening, but when the door’s closed, it moves off to the corner again. I told my friend Wayne about the thing in the corner. I thought, if I tell him, he can let me know what I can do. He’s my best friend. Well, he was my best friend. He told me I was stupid to begin with. Then I told him the thing had big teeth and it was furry and it moved, and I think he got a bit scared. He doesn’t talk to me now.
Anyway, I’m writing all this down so I don’t forget. Nobody believes me – well maybe Wayne does, but I don’t know. I’m going to chase the thing in the corner away tonight. I’m fed up with being called a baby, and stupid, and stuff like that. I’m going to show Mummy I’m not her little man, I’m her big not scared man. Tonight.

Mrs Johnson watched as the kindly policeman finished reading the scribbled notes she’d found near the broken torch. She felt she was all cried out. “Where is he?” she asked plaintively. “We’ll find him, I’m sure, Mrs Johnson. Sometimes kids run off places. They come back. As for this….” holding up the letter, “I think we’ll keep it for a while if you don’t mind.”
When he’d gone, the woman sat in the darkened room for a long time. She looked in the corner. There was nothing there of course. Was there?