Hiss and Susan

At first, I couldn’t see him. I only heard him. Coming from up under my bed was a hissing sound. There was also a rattling sound. I could never seem to find where it was coming from. I wasn’t frightened by it. I assume most kids would be, but to me it was soothing. I often couldn’t get to sleep unless I heard it.

I remember the day my parents took the night light out of my room. I told them that I did not fear the dark. They replaced it with one of those motion lights. They said that it was just for my safety. They didn’t want me to trip on anything if I got up in the middle of the night. I do admit that my room was junky back then. It was on that night, while I was listening to the beautiful hissing sound, that the light turned on. I was lying still in my bed. It was not me who activated it. Who or what did, I did not know. That’s when I saw it. Something slithered very quickly from under my bed into the closet. I wanted to catch it. It could have been a new pet. I wasn’t sure if Mom and Dad would have let me keep it.

I started setting traps. I used the old bird catcher trick. I set up boxes that would close when something enters. I even added bells to let me know if anything was caught. I tried this for several days. I tried to put food inside the box. Of all of the things that I tried. Chocolate is what worked. Just like other nights, the night light turned on. The box closed and a bell rang. I got up, opened the box to find a small garden snake. I was happy. It hissed at me. I thought it was cute.

“I’m going to keep you in the box tonight”, I said. “I’ll find something better tomorrow. I’ll call you Hiss.”

“No!”, said Hiss. “You can’t keep me here.”

“WOW!”, I said, almost shouting it out loud. I was so glad Mom and Dad didn’t hear me. “A talking snake.”

“I’m not a snake. I’m a Guardian.”

While inside the box, Hiss grew legs. Then wings. It started to grow and continued to grow over 6 feet tall. I was even more excited.

“Don’t scream. Please. It hurts my ears something awful. Also, your parents must never know we exist. Adults can’t handle the existence of creatures under kid’s beds.”

“Even better than a snake. But now I know they won’t let me keep you.”

“Guardians are sent to protect children. I’ve been watching over you since you were born.”

“Why have I never seen you?”

“We go through great lengths not to be seen. Most children don’t like us. They fear us. Most children call us monsters. We don’t like that too much. So, we stay hidden. But you’ve seen me now! How would you like to see my world?”

The first time I went into the monster world, I’m sorry, the Guardian world, I was treated like a queen. They fed me grapes and strawberries, gave me a gold crown. I still have it by the way. I’ve been to Guardian world many times since then. One time, the closet door was stuck. Hiss had to fly 15 billion light years through space to reach me.

“Come”, he said. “Let’s fly.”

I climbed on his back, and he took off flying. He went right through the roof without any damage. In mere seconds we were flying through space. We zipped pass mars. We made a slight left and landed on Ceres. The asteroid belt was beautiful. Hiss thought that I should see it. I was able to collect a few rocks. He knew that I liked rocks. How many kids could say that they had space rocks.

We continued to fly. Going through Jupiter, we did not stop. Hiss only wanted me to see that Jupiter do have a surface. The Jupiterians just don’t want people from earth to know. Because I was with Hiss, they didn’t mind me being there too much.

I was able to touch the rings of Saturn. I grabbed Ice from Uranus and added it to water from Neptune. The best glass of ice water I’d ever had. The people, well, fish, from Neptune were very polite. I promised I’d visit them whenever I could. I did make friends with a Jelly Fish and an Octopus. But I couldn’t stay long. We had to make it to the Guardian world as soon as possible.

The Plutonians were mad that Pluto’s status as a planet was removed in 2006. It’s been so many years. They thought that by now we would have realized that they were there. Humans are so far behind. I promised that I would say something as soon as I become president of Earth.

We reached the Alpha Centauri system a few seconds later. It was used to sling shot us pass the Milky Way. Past all other galaxies to the far reaches of the universe. Then we finally reached the Guardian world. All of the guardians greeted me with song and dance.

“Queen Susan”, one of them called. He kind of looked like a shark and a dog mixed. “We want you to meet the newest king.”

It was aways a good thing to meet the newest royalty. It let us know that another kid has realized that the so-called monsters are really our friends. Our guardians.

Before meeting the new king, they wanted me to help them set up a series of events to entertain him. It was my idea to have a Guardian race. After all, Hiss did travel the entire universe in a few seconds. There was also a pie and a watermelon eating contest. The funny thing was the ice-cream eating contest. Nobody had ever told the guardians about brain freeze. Their brain literally freezes. Their heads become engulfed in a block of ice. I had the chisel all of the ice away. They can’t fly if they are frozen.

I was completely shocked to see that the new king was my little brother, Tommy. I laughed at the idea of racing him. He was riding on the back of an alligator mixed with a zebra. Not really built for speed. He still beat me. And I congratulated him. He also beat me at watermelon eating. Don’t worry, I did get a few wins in there. Like the pie eating contest and the go-cart race. I knew that it wasn’t about winning. It was about having fun. We had a lot of fun. Peanut, Tommys guardian, would have followed me and Hiss back home but he had so much fun that he fell asleep. So, we all went through his closet.

We got back right in time. Peanut put Tommy in his bed. He did so right on time. Mom and Dad check on us every night. They were on their way to Tommys room when we got back. Time seems to slow down or even stop when we’re with the guardians. Hiss followed me to my room. We walked right past them, and they didn’t see us. It was like they were frozen in their place. I got in the bed. Hiss hid under the bed. As soon as I closed my eyes, my door opened. Dad kissed me on the forehead, I turned slightly and smiled. My eyes were still closed.

“Sweet Dreams sweetheart”, Mom whispered.

In the morning, I was able to fix my closet door. There was a lot of junk on the floor stopping it from opening. Hiss was able to quickly return to his world the normal way. Through the closet. I congratulated my brother one more time. It’s a shame. Our parents will never know the wonderful adventure we just had. I wonder if they had such adventures when they were children.