Monday 26th July 2010

Pulling my socks up, I run outside into the sun. Before me stands two older girls, both decked out in yellow staff t-shirts playing Frisbee with a teenage girl.
‘You coming to play?’ calls one of the girls. She has strawberry blonde hair, cheeks peppered with freckles and the name of Ally. I nod enthusiastically and sprint over, letting the dew from the grass seep into my extra fast running sneakers.
The game begins and as I sling the Frisbee into the air, I watch it slice through the blue, cutting pizza slices in the air, before trundling on the floor like the metre stick we once used to measure the field at school. Yet, before long, my excitement starts to wane and I’m about to return to my cabin when I see it.
My hearts beats wildly and I cast about, anticipating everyone else’s shock as they notice it too. Yet, they carry on, oblivious to the malevolent stare that surveys them from the top branches.
‘Ooof! What was that?’ cackles the other counsellor as the Frisbee ricochets off the tree and I simply can’t take it anymore.
‘You’ve got to hide!’ I yell. ‘It can see you, it’s coming closer!’
The girl closest to me, Chelsea, regards me with a smile and replies ‘and what would that be, missus?’ I know she’s just playing with me now but we’ve no time to lose. I can’t believe it’s found me again.
‘The monster! It’s coming for us and it’s in that tree there,’ I say, pointing. ‘You need to hide now!’
The counsellor’s exchange amused looks and I clench my fists at their ignorance.
‘There’s no monster,’ simpered Ally, ‘come and play Frisbee with us, you’.
‘There is! I see him, he’s moving closer. He can see all of us! You need to run and hide’.
‘But we are hiding,’ slips in Chelsea. ‘We’re in the shade, the monster can’t see us from here. We’re completely safe’.
‘You’re not safe! None of us are! I’ve got to use my powers!’
Chelsea peers under her sunglasses at me and says ‘but didn’t you know that all of us counsellors are trained to fight monsters? What did you think our training session was for? We were each given a special power to defeat the monsters so if we see one, we’ve got it. Don’t worry’.
‘But you can’t see them! Only I have the power to see them!’ I shake my head defiantly. How would she know how to kill a monster that she couldn’t see? How dare she put us in this danger with her blatant lack of knowledge. If I was the only one that could see it (and see it I could. It was seething at me from the lower branches, it’s red eyes twisting sadistically in its sockets) it was I that was going to have to stop him.
‘I’m going to get my powers from the cabin. Stay in the shade and don’t move. The monster only attacks those in yellow’.
I dart off leaving the two girls stretching their yellow t-shirts before them, letting a bemused smile lick around their lips.
Inside, my hands desperately clamber for my powers. I know they’re here somewhere- if only I hadn’t hidden them so well! My straying eyes dare to look outside and the monster is crawling towards the players, dragging it’s walloping arms behind it and exhorting flurries of putrid steam from its nostrils. I need to help them now.
At last, I reach into my trunk and my hand closes on my powers. I can feel the warmth of it as I clasp it in my grip and dash outside. The girls are waiting for me now as the monster peers over their shoulders; their hair flutters in its wake. It raises its claws to the top of Ally’s head. He’s about to strike. Barely daring to breath, I bring forth my hand, feeling my powers bursting with an ardent throb under my fingernails. The monster dips his head as he looks at me and I attack. The strobes from my hand hit it straight in the chest and panting, it rolls to the floor. With a tentative grown, it gets up and flees. Success.
Ally turns to me, finally realising that something is going on and whispers urgently ‘is he gone yet?’
‘Yes, I got him with my powers.’
‘And powers are these?’
I opened my hand to reveal the reason for my success: a minute statue of a goat. The girls stand agog and I smile boastfully, few also possess the powers that I have.
Chelsea beckons me forward, a sparkle in her eyes and says ‘is there only one person here to save us?’ 'Yes.' 'Is that person you?' and, drawing in all the breath in my lungs, I let out a sigh of exasperation and reply ‘yes. Yes I am.’