It was hot under the covers. Stifling, even. As much as I wanted to sleep with my head safely enveloped in the bed sheets, I couldn’t stand it for very long. I pulled down the covers and took a deep breath of air, feeling the coolness tickling my face and neck. Ahhh…   Of course, as good as it felt, exposing my face like this was a reckless move. I kept my eyes squinched tightly shut, just in case.   Though it was infinitely safer to stay hidden under the covers, keeping my eyes shut would ward off most of the threat. You see, the monsters under my bed delighted in eating little girls only after they had frightened them out of their wits. If they came out tonight and found my eyes shut, or my head hidden, they’d stand awkwardly next to my bed and wait for me to sight them. I emphatically wouldn’t, and they’d stand there, shift their weight from clawed foot to clawed foot, scratch nightmarish heads, twiddle scaly thumbs, look beseechingly at my firmly closed eyes with their own red peepers, and eventually give up and sheepishly crawl back to where they came from.   How I knew their strategy is a mystery, but I knew it as surely as I knew that I had ten fingers, green eyes and an annoying little sister. I knew it as surely as I knew that there were monsters under my bed, and as surely as I knew that little girls weren’t actually their primary food…   ***   There were scads of stuffed animals on my bed. Oodles. A huge pile of them sat at the foot of the mattress, hidden at night under my quilted comforter. The thin bed sheet was all I kept for covers at night. I usually didn’t need even that much to stay warm, but I slept under it anyway. Sheets were always good protection from monsters.   The quilt over the stuffed toys was another safety measure. The monsters that lived under my bed didn’t actually eat little girls as their main food. The staple of this breed’s diet happened to be stuffed animals. They ate as many as they could find—they had a ravenous hunger for polyester stuffing.   This would have been distressing enough—I loved my fluffy animals—but, once tempted out by the smell of artificial fur, once sated on plush flesh, the monsters would be casting feverishly about for a suitable desert.   Me.   The quilt over the plush pile at the foot of the bed kept my toys from being exposed, and luring the famished beasts out of their lair.   Occasionally—and all too often—when I covered my animals at night, one would loosen from the pile and drop to the floor--right next to the bed.   This night, it happened again. The next few seconds are a blur of motion and terror in memory, as I leaned over an agonizing distance, barely able to breathe, and snatched Cubbie Bear back to safety. My heart swelled uncomfortably out of my throat and into my mouth as I did so—what if I was too late, and the monsters had already scented their prey? Worse, what if I leaned down and exposed myself over the edge of the bed just in time to see a dark hand grope out from the pitch black space under the bedskirt, and clutch the toy? Worst of all, what if IT came out while I was leaning over, completely exposed? IT would see me, and I would see IT, and IT might decide to go ahead and skip to dessert.   I reared back upright, stuffed they toy under the quilt, lunged over to the pillow and threw the covers over my head. I lay there, holding perfectly still, with my whole face painfully scrunched to keep my eyes closed, bleakly aware of how thin the sheet was, waiting to hear if IT came out. I didn’t know what IT would sound like, but I knew I’d know exactly what it was when I heard IT coming …   Scratch. Shuffle. Hiss.     How did I ever get to sleep back then?