Jiggle Jangle

Back when I was a little girl, around the age of eight, I think I would spend the night at my grandparents’ house whenever my parents worked late or needed some quiet time away. I loved going over to their house and spending the night. Hell, I think I asked every week to stay over, and I usually did. Being a parent now, I can understand why my parents appreciated some alone time away from me.

My grandparents had a big two-story house that sat alone on a few acres of land. Their neighbors were half a mile down one way and a full mile down the other. A thickly wooded area backed the backyard up that, occasionally, would have deer coming out to munch on some of their grass. The inside of the house was very well kept and looked to be your stereotypical grandparents’ house. Pictures of grandkids, old black and white photos of people I never knew who they actually were, and decorated china plates spread out around the walls. I’m just setting the scene to illustrate how homely and welcoming their house truly was.

Whenever I stayed the night or a weekend, my grandmother would make the best dinners which were from her pile of old receipts that were passed down from generation to generation. In the morning she would make the most delicious pancakes I have ever had, still to this day. In the afternoon we went for a hike through the woods and had a picnic at this small little pond that was tucked away between my grandparents’ home and a farmer’s wheat fields. At night after dinner we would sit down on their big green couch and I would pick out one of the many Disney VHS movies that came in those big soft white plastic cases, and my grandpa would cook up some popcorn on the stove. Those were happy times that I still remember vividly to this day. I can even remember the smell of the food.

Then, my grandpa died suddenly on a chilly November night. That’s when the happy times ended and they would soon cut my time with my grandmother short as well. But not for a reason you would think.

After my grandpa’s passing, I didn’t stay over with my grandmother for a while. She took my grandpa’s passing really hard, and my parents wanted her to cope without having to worry about me or any of my cousins. My Mom worried about her but tried not to show it around me. I remember overhearing a conversation my Mom and dad were having one night while I should have been in bed.

Mom said that grandma was talking to herself when she went to check on her one day. My Mom went over and had to let herself in because grandma never answered the door after she knocked for several minutes. While searching for her, she found her in the cellar talking to someone… but all my Mom could see was my grandmother, all alone in the center of the cellar, having a full on conversation with no one else. When my Mom got my grandma’s attention, she said, “Hi” to my Mom and asked my Mom if she had seen a maroon box with gold plated etching on it. She was looking for it and couldn’t find it now. This prompted my dad to say we should put her in a home and my Mom quickly rejected that idea. “She’s just coping in her own way. Just give her some time and she’ll be fine,” my Mom said.

A few months went by and I turned nine. My grandma came to my birthday party, and she seemed back to normal. She brought me the usual birthday cookies that she had always given me and said she had another gift for me, but she would give it to me the next time I stayed the night. This excited me. I had missed staying over and having those delicious pancakes in the morning. If she was feeling better now, I wanted to stay the night again sometime soon.

That time came a week later. My parents needed the night alone and my Dad’s parents — who were great, by the way. They just were not as fun as my Mom’s parents — were out of town and no other baby-sitting options available. My parents decided my grandma would do. She had been acting normal recently and at the party she even apologized to my parents about her strange behavior. Let’s just say it overjoyed me to get to stay with her again. My grandpa wouldn’t be there, and that made me sad, but being with my grandma again would make up for it. I couldn’t wait.

The day came, and we headed over to my grandma’s house. Everything was like it was before. We went for a hike, skipped rocks on the pond, did a little bird watching in the woods, and had a very delicious chicken and dumpling soup my grandma cooked up. We sat down on the big green couch and watched the Little Mermaid. As Under the Sea was singing in the background, I noticed a box sitting on the recliner my grandpa used to nap on. It was the size of a briefcase. The color of the box was maroon, and it had gold etchings all around it. My mind went searching for the memory of that night my Mom told my dad about my grandma talking to herself in the cellar and trying to find the same box I had my eyes on at that very moment.

Suddenly, I noticed my grandma wasn’t sitting next to me and was up next to the TV and VCR. I didn’t feel her get up, so it threw me off when she paused the movie, and said she noticed me looking at the box. She then asked if I wanted to know what was inside. I said yes. My grandma said that was good because it was my birthday gift she told me about on my birthday. I had forgotten about that since it was a few weeks before and I was just so happy to see her and could spend some time with her.

She walked over to the box and lift two latches on the sides. It was like ones you would have on a shed with a padlock. Once it was open, she moved her face almost completely into the box and whispered something. I couldn’t make out what it was, but she then reached in and grabbed… it.

Jiggle Jangle.

It was a doll. Not a baby doll or any of her porcelain dolls she had in the office. Jiggle Jangle was made of wood and wore what appeared to be a combination of a sailor’s outfit and a jester. The clothes were made of silk; the top layer jacket and pants were maroon, just like the box it came out of, and the shirt underneath was white with black stripes like a sailor. Each piece of clothing looked cruelly pieced together, like animal paws made it instead of human hands. It had a maroon and black jester hat with metal hooks on the ends where bells or soft cotton balls would usually be. Its wooden face, scratched up horribly; the eye was not in line with one another and the sockets appeared to be stabbed inward to make holes for the glass eyeballs instead of carefully carved out. Those glass eyeballs were golf ball size, chipped, and were different colored irises; one was blue, and the other was purple. Its nose was a big moon-shaped hook with the tip being chipped off, leaving wooden splitters sticking out. The mouth was again just a hole that looked to be stabbed inwards in an o-shape. Around the mouth were two triangles carved out on the side to make it appear to be smiling. It had no teeth, just a bizarre attempt at a human mouth.

But that was not the worst thing about it.

The arms and legs were thin and long; hands and feet were just flat wooden knobs with no attempt at making fingers or toes. The best comparison I have for it is Slender Man.

As I tried to register what the fuck I was looking at through my nine-year-old mind, my grandma just held it out with a gigantic smile on her face. His name was Jiggle Jangle, and he was her best friend growing up, and after being locked away for years, now she had found him again and that both her and Mr. Jangles thought it would be for the best that he became my new best friend.

Her mouth hung wide open as she waited for my answer. I remember her eyes didn’t blink at all as well, and that was the first time I had felt uncomfortable around her. Those loving eyes she once had were now looking at me with intense glee of something I still can’t figure out to this day.

I reached for something to say and the best I could do was say, “OK.”

She skipped to the couch and sat Mr. Jangle down next to me and went back over to the VCR to start the movie again. The rest of that evening was me sitting next to my grandma and Mr. Jangles, which was incredibly awkward and creepy.

I wanted to go home, but I told myself, which I still think to this day was very mature for a nine-year-old, that this was a coping mechanism for my grandpa’s death. Maybe she made Mr. Jangles out of loneliness and grief, hence why he was so cruelly put together. She was an amazing baker and cook, while my grandpa was the woodworker between the two. This had to be a way for to come to terms with his death by making something out of wood. Something he could have made for her; even if it was scary as shit to look at.

The only thing I couldn’t figure out was the backstory she told me. Why make up that, why say that ‘Mr. Jangles’ was an old childhood friend of hers. I mean, he looked old, but that could have been because of the wood she used. All of this was running through my nine-year-old mind while I sat there, not even watching my favorite movie.

When the movie was over, my grandma told me to get ready for bed. I went upstairs and took a bath, which I did something I hadn’t done before; locked the bathroom door. After getting dressed in my PJ’s, I got into bed and waited for my grandma to come up, bringing me a cup of water that she always did, and kiss me goodnight. As I sat there, I heard her talking to… someone. No one responded, but she was definitely talking. When she finally came up, she had a glass of water and that fucking thing in her other hand.

Jiggle Jangle.

She sat the glass of water down on the nightstand and sat Jiggle Jangle on the middle of the bed at my feet. It could keep its top half upright somehow. I couldn’t tell how that was possible, but it did. My grandma then said for me to kneel next to the bed with her like we were going to pray. My grandparents were church going folks but weren’t hardcore enough to pray before each meal or bed time so this was strange to me.

I got off the bed and kneeled next to her. She told me that this was a poem she had to recite every night to Jiggle Jangle so he would protect her, and to make sure she would wake up in the morning. At nine, I even knew that sounded bizarre. I looked up and saw that Jiggle Jangle’s head tilted, facing us. I can’t remember for sure but his fucking head was facing forward when she first sat him down. But now it’s tilted down, facing at us.

Next, she recited the poem and I can still remember it, even to this day.

It goes like this:

Jiggle Jangle, Jiggle Jangle

It’s time for me to go to bed

Jiggle Jangle, Jiggle Jangle

Let me sleep like I’m dead

Jiggle Jangle, Jiggle Jangle

Protect me from the world’s evils

Jiggle Jangle, Jiggle Jangle

Because I am small and feeble

Jiggle Jangle, Jiggle Jangle

Comfort me if I lay here and cry

Jiggle Jangle, Jiggle Jangle

If I’m bad, make sure I suffer and die

As my grandmother is saying this, she has a big smile on her face while looking up at Jiggle Jangle. I’m horrified at this whole scenario. Then she looks over at me and wants me to say it as well. I do not want to say it but I’m now afraid of my grandma and if I refuse, what would she do?

A loud whistle comes from downstairs, making me jump straight out of my skin.

My grandma’s tea that she had apparently been making on the stove. She gets up and tells me to recite the poem when she goes to fetch her tea, and if I cannot do so, Jiggle Jangle will get upset. I am relieved as she makes her way out of the room.

I stare at Jiggle Jangle. He stares back at me. I do not recite that fucking poem.

When my grandma comes back, she asks if I recited the poem and I lie to her — for the first and only time, by the way — and tell her I did. She lets out a gleeful laugh and picks up Jiggle Jangle, and moves over to the corner of the room that a dresser sits at and places Jiggle Jangle on the top of it. She turns around and tells me he’ll protect me for tonight and forever as long as she recites the poem.

I get back into bed and under the covers as she comes over to me and kisses my forehead. Before she leaves and turns the lights out, I ask her if I forget to recite the poem, what would happen.

“Gina, honey,” she says as she looks down at me. Her smile is no longer on her face. “Let’s just hope you don’t do that.”

She turns the lights out and shuts the door, leaving me in a dark room with that fucking thing and I didn’t say that fucking poem. I’m so scared I just pull the blankets over my head and leave them there. I try to sleep that way, hoping the blanket has a magical protective shield around it. My imagination at nine years old was still in tip-top shape.

I hear something move then. Rustling from somewhere in the room, and my body freezes.

The sound stops and I hear nothing for a while. Maybe it was all in my mind and the house was old, so it could be anything.

Thud.

The sound of wood hitting wood breaks the silence. If I had a full bladder at that moment, I would have emptied in the bed. It wasn’t the house that made that noise. Not that kind of sound; it was if you would slam a two by four into a tree stump.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A new sound came. Little wooden taps across the wooden floorboards in the room.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I’m freaking out now. Still under the blankets, and still hoping it had a magical shield.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

My breathing is heavy now, making it hard to hide.

Tap. Tap.

The tapping stopped. I realized then that the tapping was heading towards the bed. I feel like I was going to pass out now.

Then, I could feel movement at the edge of the bed. Something was pulling at the sheets. I grabbed on tight to my blanket with a death grip that even Superman couldn’t pull from me. Or at least I hoped.

Something was now on the top of the bed, around where my feet would be if I did not pull them up into my chest cavity.

It moved slowly, almost methodically, with each step. As it got close to me, I shook and cry, I couldn’t help it. I was so scared, and I wanted to yell out for help, but now I don’t even know if my grandma would help. The last thing she said echoed in my mind, “Let’s just hope you don’t do that.”

Well, I did just that, and I was paying for it.

The movement stopped at the edge of my back. Nothing happened for a few moments.

Then, the breathing started.

A raspy wet sounding inhale of air followed by an exhale of air that sounded like it was on a verge of a coughing fit that never came.

In, then out. In, then out.

This would go on all night long. I was awake for the majority. Petrified that it would stop and it would harm me. I can’t remember when sleep finally took me. By the time I woke up in the morning, the breathing stopped, but I continued to lie under the blanket. My only savior I had at that moment. I was hot and sweating but I refuse to take it off.

When my grandma came to wake me, she had those delicious pancakes on a plate and at that I finally rose from under the blankets. My eyes darted over to the corner where Jiggle Jangle sat. He was there, In the same position as he was last night when my grandma put him there. She patted him on his head and asked if he was sleeping on the job. She laughed at that all the while I try to clean up my face of any signs of crying.

That morning I was quiet. Not enough to be suspicious, but enough to keep me alert of my surroundings. My parents would be there at ten A.M. to pick me up, and I was ready to go. I never wanted to go back and see her, which was something I never in a million years thought I would want; I loved it there. Now, I’m scared to death of my grandma.

My parents came and picked me up. They thought it was strange when I left the house and stayed in the car. It was a hot spring morning, and the car had no AC on as they talked to my grandma in the house. My Dad came to check up on me and asked if I had everything. I said I did and told him I want to go home right away. He realized something was wrong and agreed.

He went and got my Mom and as we were leaving, my grandma realized I was leaving my birthday gift. I told her to keep it there so whenever I come over I can play with it there. She liked the idea so much she talked about how we could have a tea party next time, with Jiggle Jangle being the guest of honor.

There was never a next time.

I told my parents as much as I could without sounding crazy. I told them that my grandma acted strange, and that I was not comfortable about going there and being alone with her. My Dad was furious about leaving me there alone with what he called an unstable woman, and my Mom was just saddened at the mental deterioration that her mother was going through. They brought Jiggle Jangle up and all I could say was that it was too creepy for me. Nothing untrue with that statement, I tell you what.

My grandma would pass away three months later. Died of a broken heart, my relatives would say, but on the death certificate it states a massive heart attack, so I guess they weren’t so far off.

I would never see her alive again from that last time I spent the night. In the wake, she looked peaceful while laying in her coffin. She looked like she did when times were happy. I wasn’t afraid of her then.

I miss this version of her and it’s the one I try to keep in my memories.

As for Jiggle Jangle, I do not know what happens to it. The family had an estate sale at my grandparents’ house and while I was there; I could brave it out and walk around. Memories rushed through my mind while I carefully searched. I didn’t want to keep it or even touch it. I just wanted to know where it was and to keep the fuck away from it. But I never found it. I asked my parents if someone bought it and they said they hadn’t seen it at all. They’ve looked all around the house to figure out inventory and they do not recall seeing anything that resembles Jiggle Jangle.

Maybe my grandma realized what a creepy ass doll it was and burned it. Or maybe it’s back in its hiding spot. The one that my grandma was looking for when my Mom caught her talking to herself in the cellar all those years ago.

I am 36 years old now and I still have moments while I am in bed, and even with my husband laying next to me; I jolted up out of sleep, thinking I heard that raspy, wet breathing. All these years later, and I’m still haunted by it. I’m also haunted by what happened to my grandma. Did she lose her mind, or was it something else?