ME & THE MONSTER

dinner

"Kal, won't you have some more chicken? I made the cranberry sauce 'specially for you," Agnes Mellketh said, an injured note in her voice.

She was wearing violently pink eyeshadow. It made her look as if she was suffering from conjunctivitis.

"What's the matter with you, dear? Are you ill?" she added.

"Nothing's the matter, Auntie," Kal said with a sigh. He shoved a piece of meat into his mouth, feeling Nate's eyes on him. "I'm just not hungry, even though this is delicious. Thank you very much."

"I know what's up with him," Ronald Mellketh said. His eyes were glistening. "Isn't it obvious?"

Kal frowned. "It is?"

"Of course it is, haven't I known you since you were a little titch? I'll tell you what the matter with him is, Agnes," Ronald made a theatrical pause for emphasis. "This young man here has finally come to his senses and he's decided to become a martyr! Just like Cassandra, just like I was. Oh, the pride of it. I'm not going to lie to you, Kal, it's not going to be easy, but I promise it'll be worth it, every step of the way. "

He dabbed at his eyes with the grubbiest end of the tablecloth.

"What? I – no, Uncle," said Kal, in alarm. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't think I'm cut out for that sort of thing."

Cassandra sniffed over her potatoes.

"You're so thick, all of you. Can't you see he's in love?"

"Oi," Kal snapped. "Could you all stop talking as though I weren't even present?"

"Well, more accurately speaking, he's pining," Cassandra continued, ignoring him. "He broke up with his girlfriend only last week."

A small, stifled sound of surprise came from Eden, who was seated next to Kal and had been uncharacteristically quiet for most of the meal. She'd run into Agnes Mellketh in town the week before and the latter had invited the girl over to dinner. Eden had cut her waist-length hair short, and Kal couldn't get used to her blonde bob. It was as though she'd turned into a whole new person.

But then again, that had happened long before the haircut, hadn't it? The night they'd drunk too much and laughed in the streets and Eden had said – she'd said --

"Haven't you broken up?" Cassandra said.

"Er, yes," muttered Kal. "But how do you know?"

A look of grim satisfaction spread over his cousin's face.

"I knew I was right. Well, you see, trees are whispering things. Awful gossips, they are." She motioned at the window at her back with a wave of the hand. A weeping willow stood in the garden outside, sagging and grey. "Well, not her, all she does is sulk all day. She's a right pain."

Nate nodded. "Well, they don't call them weeping willows for nothing, I'spect."

"You broke up with her?" Eden said, A forkful of broccoli hanging in the air. "You didn't tell me."

Kal shrugged.

"What are you going to do, then?"

Kal opened his mouth, looking glum, but before he could speak, the shabby clock on the wall burst into speech, startling everyone.

"Kill time, kill time," it said in a shrill, sing-song voice.

"No," said Kal, glaring at the clock. "I've got to forget all about her. She was right; nothing good would've come out of this. Even the statues knew." His voice trailed off at the end of the sentence, shook with the force of a struggling emotion. "Or else fight back, for us. I-I don't know. I'm just so – lost."

"Losing time, losing time," the clock said, and there was a malicious edge to its voice now.

"Watch it," Ronald snarled to the clock, "or I'm taking you straight to the attic right after dinner, where you can gather dust and rot. You never even bother to tell the time, you just keep spewing rubbish. I don't know why we put up with it. Soft-hearted, that's what we are."

"Is she one of us, dear?" Agnes asked Kal, in hopeful tones. "Your girl. Is she an angel too?"

Kal hesitated, then said:

"Yeah. She's – she's a half-breed, though. Like Nate and I," he said.

What did it matter, if it wasn't true? It wasn't like he'd ever let Rae -- if he managed to win her back – when he managed to win her back – near any of them. At least the lie would make Agnes happy.

His aunt beamed. "As if that matters."

It was fleeting, but Kal saw it: the puzzled little look Eden shot his way. She knew he was lying, of course – she'd met Rae herself.

"I thought she was hum—"

"Is Eden going to be your girlfriend now, then, Kal?" said Nate.

There was a piercing silence around the table, and then –

"Wasting her time, wasting her time," taunted the plastic clock on the wall.

Eden gave a shaky laugh, the colour rising in her cheeks.

"Don't be silly, Nate," she said. "And you, shut up."

"Bidding her time, bidding her time."

"Enough! Attic for you, mister."