A Monster Calls

That night, Conor has to sleep on the settee while Grandma takes his room. He falls asleep and has the nightmare “With the wind roaring and the ground shaking and the hands holding tight but still somehow slipping away” (44). He wakes up at 12:07am and finds the monster waiting for him outside in the backyard. The monster has come to tell Conor the first story, although Conor has too much on his mind to want to listen. The monster is amazed that “Nothing [it does] seems to make [Conor] frightened of [it],” but the monster also realizes that Conor has “worse things to be frightened of” (50). The monster reminds Conor that he was the one who called for it to come, although Conor does not remember doing so. Conor is disappointed that the yew tree monster just wants to tell him stories instead of actually helping him, but the monster replies that “Stories are wild creatures,” (51) and that his stories teach valuable lessons. He wants to tell Conor the story of “the end of a wicked queen and how [it] made sure she was never seen again” (51).