Free Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos

vast, clawed hand over its eyes, the other hand in the air, three fingers raised, counting.
    “Ooh, that’s a good one. Brand-new and bound for greatness. It’ll win every kids’ book award under the sun,” said Selena, glancing over. “Why don’t you sit down with it for a minute?”
    Pen had sat. From the beginning, the language was wonderful, clean, vivid, leaping upward into poetry at just the right moments, especially in the second half of the book. Liam and his mother wait in line at the post office, their arms full of packages. Outside the window, low afternoon light rests on the snow-covered street; pearly caps of snow top fire hydrants and parked cars and the wool hat of a woman who bustles into the post office with her own tower of packages. Snow caps the tower of packages. “Excuse me,” the woman says huffily. “I’m late for a very important appointment! I’m sure you won’t mind!” And she steps in line in front of Liam’s mother.
    Slowly, Pen had turned the page and winced to find what she’d been afraid she would find. The little boy Liam is gone, replaced by the monster, who begins to take a step toward the woman, his awful, thick green leg hooked in the air, his arms raised menacingly. And then, quite suddenly, he freezes, and he puts his foot back down, the effort that it takes to do this written on his face. Then he closes his wild eyes—red lizard eyes with the dash-shaped pupils of a goat—and in a few moments, the walls of the post office fall away, the people and their packages and the snowy city turn translucent and disappear, and there is the monster, standing in somebody’s backyard. It is early summer and the yard is flush with blooming; a sprinkler glitters in the background, a giant oak tree cradles a wooden tree house in its branches, purple pansies with their tiny, winking faces bloom in a pot beside the backdoor of the house, and framed by an open window—it seems to be a kitchen window—is the face of a woman, Liam’s mother’s face.
    Liam’s mother smiles at the monster, who puts one hand over his eyes. He begins to count, and something amazing begins to happen. “Five…”—the monster shrinks to boy-size. “Four…”—his bristly fur silvers, turns to dandelion fluff, and blows across the sky. “Three…”—each stegosaurus plate along his back detaches, folds itself into an origami bird and flies away. “Two…”—the bat wings of the monster who is almost not a monster anymore close themselves like black umbrellas. “One…”—and then they are umbrellas and Liam holds one in each hand.
    On the next page, Liam is back inside the post office in his winter coat, packages at his feet, and he takes the two umbrellas and slips them into the umbrella stand beside the post office door. Then he walks up to the woman who cut in line and taps her lightly on the arm. She turns disdainful eyes on him and asks him what he wants. Liam says, “Excuse me, but my mother and I have been waiting a long time. Our packages are heavy, just like yours. I think you should go to the end of the line. I think it’s only fair.” And, for a moment, the woman’s face twists in anger. She seems about to speak, then stops, closes her eyes, and takes a few deep breaths.
    “You’re right,” she tells the little boy. “I’m having a hard day, but that is not your fault. Not your mother’s, either. And, yes, it’s only fair.” And she steps to the back of the line. Then Liam’s mother smiles as loving a smile as Pen had ever seen on any person, living or painted, and carefully bends her knees to set her bundles on the floor. She opens her arms to Liam, who fits himself inside them. “Liam 1,” she whispers to him, “Monster 0.”
    Pen had not consciously known that Will had written Counting Back to Liam until she shut the book and saw his name on the cover, but what she would swear to be true forever after was that before she knew that she knew, she knew. About