|
If you ask grocery stores and elementary schools what February is all about, they're going to respond with Valentines, candy hearts, and Barbie-movie-levels of pink. But I'm here to tell you that February can be SCARY.
It's true. Back when I was a middle school teacher, February was my least favorite month. It was just a terrible point in the year when everything seemed overwhelming and impossible. I summed up the feeling pretty well in this post from five years ago. If planning a field trip for four hundred students while having nightly stress dreams about standardized testing isn't scary, I don't know what is.
Now that I'm out of the classroom, February is a much more peaceful month. Usually, anyway. This year, it decided to be scary in whole new ways.
First, I read a creepy book. A friend of mine who does not enjoy reading horror told me that she and her son were trying to read all of the books on this year's Bluebonnet List so he could go on the field trip his school offered as a reward, but they were having a terrible time getting through the last book because it was too scary for them. I laughed (because I'm mean) and said, "Oh, I need to check out this 'scary' book."
I did. And they were right.
Tales to Keep You Up at Night by Dan Poblocki is one of the spookiest middle grade books I've ever read. The author pulled no punches in these unsettling, otherworldly, and creepily-connected tales. I truly had to look over my shoulder once when reading, then nestle lower into my chair for protection. It was AWESOME. I'd originally checked the book out from the library, but it was so good I had to go buy my own copy. If you and your kids like scary stories, I highly recommend it.
Inspired by Poblocki's terrifying tales, I wanted to share one of my own, so on Valentine's Day, I posted "Seam" to my blog. This short story is not aimed at kids, but it's guaranteed to give most adults the heebie-jeebies, especially if you have an anniversary coming up. You're welcome.
On the same day that I sent my horror Valentine into the world, my cat Indigo decided to deliver his own spine-shivering performance.
The morning of February 14th, while I was snoozing my alarm for the second or fifth time, I heard an eerie "oooooooo" sound. At first, I thought it was a distant siren. "Oooooooo." Then I thought it was a strange-sounding car. "OOOOOOOO." Then I determined that it was coming from inside my house. "OOOOOOOO!" Then I decided it sounded like either someone pretending to be a ghost, or an actual ghost. Since I was the only person awake in the house, I wasn't sure which was worse.
When I bravely crept out of bed to investigate, I realized the ghostly noise was coming from my cat. Indie was standing at one end of our hallway in traditional, fuzzed-up, arched-back, Halloween-cat pose, staring into the darkness at our other cat, Meow-Man, going, "Oooooooo!" (To hear my frightening little feline, click here.)
Indie was acting so weird that, at first, I was scared to touch him, but after a few minutes of talking to him and saying, "It's okay, it's just Meow-Man," he finally un-poofed himself and calmed down.
I had no idea what triggered this episode, and Meow-Man seemed just as confused as I was. I mean, yes, Indie did see a ghost in our house a few months ago, but I choose to believe that this new freak-out was an unrelated fluke and he did not see a ghost again, this time right outside the door of the bedroom where I was sleeping. Nope, nope, nope.
And THEN... as if February hadn't been scary enough already... I decided to start querying agents.
| 
