By: Victoria Radnothy
The sidewalk along Honeydew Lane is a peaceful place. One where nothing strange or anything peculiar has ever occurred. Things are calm. Things are normal.
This is how it is until the arrival of a little girl named Lily. Marching from her house, she carries a brand new box of sidewalk chalk. 48 colors, with a built-in sharpener. It was a gift from her mom, and it’s very special to Lily. After all, she’s finally reached the age of a whole set of fingers. Well, on one hand anyway.
Sitting crisscross applesauce on the pavement, next to the crawling ants and skittering lizards, Lily gets to work. She draws a bright blue monster with jagged edges for fur and lime green horns. And a rainbow tail.
“I’ll call you, Fuzz,” she tells the monster.
But then she gets an idea, remembering that every monster has a heart. She picks up the cherry red chalk and draws a messy shape on the monster’s chest. Then, she adds a blobby pink swirl for a brain, as we know monsters must have a brain, too. But when she adds these finishing touches on her colorful doodle, she notices something very strange.
The heart begins to seep into the monster’s spiked body, and disappears behind the fur. The chalky brain sinks behind the monster’s misshapen eyes. Her mother’s doodles of flowers and ladybugs always remain stationary on the sidewalk. But Fuzz starts to move. She jumps back, her painted toes right on the edge of the sidewalk, where her backyard grass touches. Fuzz yawns with his sunshine yellow teeth, as if just waking up from a nap
What was once such a mundane slice of their neighborhood populated by dog walkers, stroller moms and old ladies walking with bright pink hand weights, is soon to be tainted with chaos from the unlikeliest of monsters and the little one who created him.
“Uh oh,” Lily watches. Here come the stroller moms, their nonsense chattering sounding down the path. The moment their wheels cross the pavement crack marking Lily’s property line, Fuzz springs into action. He lets out a snarl and nips at their sensible walking shoes. The young moms yip, jogging with their strollers away from the horrifying chalky blue monster, checking their backs to make sure Fuzz doesn’t follow. But he stops. He’s marked Lily’s section of the sidewalk as his territory.
“Now this just won’t do,” she says, “You are not a friendly monster!”
Their next visitor is Mrs. Ruby, dragging her fat pug, Louie, behind her. They look strikingly similar, and completely unaware. Lily thinks about calling out to them, warning them about the wild monster. Mrs. Ruby gave out candy apples on Halloween, and it would be a shame to have her eaten alive.
Before she can do anything, Fuzz hurls himself at Louie. The pup yelps, yanking Mrs. Ruby’s arm. But before she turns to scold him, she spots Fuzz, in all his teeth-y ferocity, hurling himself right at her toes. Mimicking her pug, she jumps into the air with a scream. In seconds, they’ve shot into the other direction, doing a prance as if they’re stepping on hot stone.
“You meanie!” Lily yells at Fuzz. He responds with a shrug, then turns to the stray lizards on the pavement, waiting for his next victim. It will only be a matter of time before he strikes again.
Lily decides she must protect her sidewalk. Fuzz’s reign of terror has gone on long enough.
Deep in thought, a single drop of water splats on the top of Lily’s head. The neighbor’s water sprinklers. Fuzz bolts, dashing to the other side of the sidewalk, cowering and wiggling away from the droplets. Lily gets an idea.
“Daddy says I’m not supposed to touch his things, but saving the sidewalk is an important matter,” she tells herself. But first, she puts on her protective gear. Proper contact calls for a proper uniform. She yanks on her bright yellow gardening boots and her mother’s floral rain coat. She’s ready for battle.
Dragging the garden hose takes a bit longer than expected, it’s rather heavy for her twiggy arms. But she’s a little one on a mission. Soon, she reaches the battleground. Peering through the hedges, she sees Fuzz moving across the pavement, completely unaware of his lurking demise. Her eyes narrow, studying him.
The neighborhood cat watches from a tree limb above, it’s tail flicking with delight.
And then. Lily attacks!
She jumps from behind the bushes, the water hose positioned like a weapon. She uses all of her fingers to yank the hose’s trigger back and shoot water like a rain cloud.
“Take that!” she shrieks at him.
Fuzz tries to run but his edges start to blur. She chases him, dousing him with more and more water until he is nothing but a watery, powdery blob, seeping into the concrete and rolling away into the grass.
She releases her fingers, the water dripping to a stop. Seeing her destruction, she drops the hose with a thud.
“Lil Bud?” Daddy hollers out to her. “What are you doing with my hose?”
She jumps for joy in the puddle. “I slayed the monster!”
Daddy assesses the damage, seeing his once perfectly clean section of the sidewalk now oozing with chalk made into watercolor.
“Fuzz was scaring the neighborhood,” Lily tells him. “I had to protect the citizens.”
“Sounds like you’re a real hero,” he says, ruffling her hair the way dads do. “C’mon. Let’s go inside for supper.”
“I think I’m not gonna chalk anything living from now on,” says Lily. “Nothing with a heart or brain. That’s for sure!”
