Free A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness Page B

it could find with satisfying crashes and crunches.
    “TEAR THE WHOLE THING DOWN!” Conor roared, and the monster roared in return and pounded at the remaining walls, knocking them to the ground. Conor rushed in to help, picking up a fallen branch and smashing through the windows that hadn’t already been broken.
    He was yelling as he did it, so loud he couldn’t hear himself think, disappearing into the frenzy of destruction, just mindlessly smashing and smashing and smashing.
    The monster was right. It was
very
satisfying.
    Conor screamed until he was hoarse, smashed until his arms were sore, roared until he was nearly falling down with exhaustion. When he finally stopped, he found the monster watching him quietly from outside the wreckage. Conor panted and leaned on the branch to keep himself balanced.
    Now
that , said the monster,
is how destruction is properly done.
    And suddenly they were back in Conor’s grandma’s sitting room.
    Conor saw that he had destroyed almost every inch of it.

DESTRUCTION
    The settee was shattered into pieces beyond counting. Every wooden leg was broken, the upholstery ripped to shreds, hunks of stuffing strewn across the floor, along with the remains of the clock, flung from the wall and broken to almost unrecognizable bits. So too were the lamps and both small tables that had sat at the ends of the settee, as well as the bookcase under the front window, every book of which was torn from cover to cover. Even the wallpaper had been ripped back in dirty, uneven strips. The only thing left standing was the display cabinet, though its glass doors were smashed and everything inside hurled to the floor.
    Conor stood there in shock. He looked down at his hands, which were covered in scratches and blood, his fingernails torn and ragged, aching from the labour.
    “Oh, my God,” he whispered.
    He turned round to face the monster.
    Which was no longer there.
    “What did you
do
?” he shouted into the suddenly too quiet emptiness. He could barely move his feet from all the destroyed rubbish on the floor.
    There was no
way
he could have done all this himself.
    No way.
    (… was there?)
    “Oh, my God,” he said again. “Oh, my God.”
    Destruction is very satisfying
, he heard, but it was like a voice on the breeze, almost not there at all.
    And then he heard his grandma’s car pull into the driveway.
    There was nowhere to run. No time to even get out of the back door and go off on his own somehow, somewhere she’d never find him.
    But, he thought, not even his father would take him now when he found out what he had done. They’d never allow a boy who could do all this to go and live in a house with a baby–
    “Oh, my God,” Conor said again, his heart beating nearly out of his chest.
    His grandma put her key in the lock and opened the front door.
    In the split second after she came around the corner to the sitting room, still fiddling with her handbag, before she registered where Conor was or what had happened, he saw her face, how tired it was, no news on it, good or bad, just the same old night at the hospital with Conor’s mum, the same old night that was wearing them both so thin.
    Then she looked up.
    “What the–?” she said, stopping herself by reflex from saying “hell” in front of Conor. She froze, still holding her handbag in mid-air. Only her eyes moved, taking in the destruction of the sitting room in disbelief, almost refusing to see what was really there. Conor couldn’t even hear her breathing.
    And then she looked at him, her mouth open, her eyes open wide, too. She saw him standing there in the middle of it, his hands bloodied with his work.
    Her mouth closed, but it didn’t close into its usual hard shape. It trembled and shook, as if she was fighting back tears, as if she could barely hold the rest of her face together.
    And then she groaned, deep in her chest, her mouth still closed.
    It was a sound so painful, Conor could barely keep himself from putting