The Worry Web Site Read online

  Luke whooped with laughter, but it was very high-pitched. Michael started biting his nails. The Monster started oozing up out of sinks and baths and even toilets. It devoured everything—dogs, cats, babies in buggies, screaming schoolchildren, frantic mothers, fighting fathers. The Monster even swallowed this huge fat man and you saw him being digested inside it, getting covered in bile, bits disintegrating before your very eyes.

  Luke stopped laughing. Michael nearly bit his fingers right off. I stared at the screen helplessly, unable to move. The Monster seemed to ooze right out of the television set into my head. It was there, pulsing inside my brain, ready to ooze its way into my dreams.

  They are the worst nightmares ever. I don't know what I'm going to do. I start feeling vaguely sick at teatime. I go out in the garden and play afterward but all the time I'm kicking a soccer ball about or running up and down with my skipping rope I'm thinking about the Monster. When I'm watching television It's there too, slithering into Central Perk and nibbling Phoebe and Rachel and Monica like sweets.

  Then Mum starts nagging that it's time for bed and the Monster is lurking on the stairs, in the bathroom, under my bed. Dad comes to read to Judy and me but the Monster paces the corridors of Hogwarts too, munching Harry Potter into mincemeat.

  After Dad tucks us up and puts the light out I whisper to Judy, desperate to keep her awake. I talk about all the boy bands she's currently nuts on and the new boots she wants in Bertie's and the boy on the bike who waves to her every morning and whether this means he really fancies her. This is all terminally boring, boring, boring but it means Judy will keep chatting to me. But no matter how I try to keep the conversation going, eventually she starts mumbling nonsense and then she sighs and gives a little snore. She is asleep, dreaming about boys and bands and bikes and boots.

  I struggle to stay awake because I know what I'm going to dream about. I hear Michael go to bed. Sometimes I even hear Mum and Dad go to bed. I play the silliest games to stop myself sleeping. I go through all my favorites.

  Hero: David Beckham, soccer superstar.

  Friend: Holly, and Lisa's OK too.

  Hobby: soccer.

  Teacher: Mr. Speed.

  Color: anything but slime green.

  But no matter which rainbow hue I choose this sickening slime green oozes over it and I'm dreaming the Monster is coming to get me. I dream it every single night.

  I waited to see if anyone typed in anything helpful on the Worry Web Site. There were heaps of comments. Everyone said they had nightmares too. I counted. There were thirty. That meant every single person in the class. No, wait a minute. I didn't comment on my own worry.

  Mr. Speed saw me scrolling down the screen, recounting.

  “I'm glad to see you practicing your math as well as your IT skills, Claire.”

  “Thirty! It is. Someone's messing about, commenting twice,” I said.

  “Not necessarily,” said Mr. Speed. “Not if we count the entire class, pupils and teacher.”

  “Did you put a comment, Mr. Speed?”

  “Now, you know perfectly well all contributions to the Worry Web Site are strictly confidential,” said Mr. Speed.

  I read them with great interest, trying to work out which was his.

  I dream I've lost my old teddy Cuddle and I search everywhere and once I woke up and I still couldn't find him because he'd fallen out of bed and I cried.

  I imagine Mr. Speed crying for his teddy. Perhaps not.

  I have awful nightmares too. Last night I dreamt about my mum and it should have been lovely but she turned into a wicked witch and cast a spell on me so I couldn't talk.

  I don't know if Mr. Speed has still got a mum but I can't ever imagine him not talking, even in his dreams.

  My biggest nightmare is dreaming that I'm with my dad and it's all happy, happy, happy at first but then he starts getting cross with me and my little brother and my mum so he storms off and I wait and I wait but he doesn't come back.

  That's quite definitely Samantha. So what did Mr. Speed put?

  Aha!

  I have this terrible nightmare that my feet develop throbbing bunions overnight and so I have to give up my brilliant career as a Premier-League soccer player and retrain as a TEACHER!!!

  I looked Mr. Speed up and down.

  “That's your nightmare, isn't it, Mr. Speed?”

  “The Worry Web Site insists on anonymity,” said Mr. Speed.

  “Yeah, but I know it's you! You weren't really a Premier-League soccer player, were you?”

  Mr. Speed crumpled a piece of paper into a ball.

  “Haven't you read about Speedy of United in all your soccer annuals?” He dropped the paper ball and then aimed a nifty kick at it. Only it wasn't nifty. It wasn't even a kick. He missed it altogether.

  I shook my head.

  “You should have seen me before my bunions,” he said. “So, Claire, we'll do a swapsie. You know my worst nightmare. Tell me yours.”

  “Oh, it's—it's stupid,” I mumbled.

  “But scary?”

  “Very, very scary.”

  Mr. Speed looked at me carefully.

  “You look like a little panda. Dark circles under the eyes. Are these nightmares so bad they stop you sleeping?”

  “I don't dare sleep.”

  Mr. Speed raised his eyebrows. “So tell me all about this nightmare. You can remember it?”

  “I can't ever forget it,” I said. “It's about this monster made out of green slime and––”

  “Say no more!” said Mr. Speed. “I got the video out last week. Yep. It's seriously scary. Do Mum and Dad know you've watched it?”

  “No!”

  “Ah. I see!”

  “You won't tell, will you, Mr. Speed?”

  “Let's see if we can radically edit your nightmare. Then we won't have to tell.”

  “What do you mean? You can't edit nightmares. They just happen. And it's horrible.”

  “I know it's horrible, Claire. But maybe you can control it, change it around a little bit. You've made it up inside your head, haven't you? It's like a story you've written in your sleep. OK, let's look on it as a first draft. Now you need to rewrite it. Change the scenario. You've got to get the better of this monster.”

  “You mean flick my fingers and go zap and the Monster dies?” I said sarcastically. “I don't think it would work.”

  “No, probably not. It sounds a bit too powerful to be zapped into oblivion just like that. But you can be powerful too, Claire. What are your strengths, eh?”

  I frowned at him.

  “I'm good at soccer. But that's no use, not when it comes to the Monster.”

  “Maybe it is. Kick a soccer ball at him. Aim right where it hurts. Make him double up.”

  “Mr. Speed, in the film the Monster defeats a whole army.”

  “But this is the Monster in your head. He defeats whole armies, yes—but he's very wary of small girls with soccer balls.”

  I thought Mr. Speed was just being silly to cheer me up. He did make me feel a bit better when I was at school. But when I went home I started worrying again.

  I got into bed with Judy and hung on to her tightly. I tried very, very, very hard to stay awake— but eventually the duvet started turning slime green and I was dreaming and the Monster was there, oozing all over me.

  I screamed and ran. The Monster was right behind me, reaching out, ready to slide his glistening tentacles round my neck. I tried running faster, speeding along. That made me think of Mr. Speed. I looked down and there was a soccer ball at my feet. I was kicking it as I ran. I nudged it up into the air, caught hold of it, turned, and threw it right at the Monster's middle.

  The ball got bigger. The Monster got smaller. Much, much smaller. It doubled up, wailing. It rocked itself, oozing lots of slime.

  “There! That's shown you, you horrible Monster. Don't you dare come worrying me anymore!”

  The Monster groaned. It was shrinking rapidly now. It limped away, whimperi