Myles and the Monster Outside Page 7

  It seemed impossible that the night was really over, but somehow it was. A few minutes later, everyone climbed into the truck and they drove onto the highway, towing Victor behind them like a brave fallen soldier on wheels.

  As they drove away, Myles looked out the back window. He couldn’t help it. He peeked … and there it was….

  A dark mist curled out of the woods and formed silently around two red, staring eyes. A deep voice whispered into the quiet morning …

  …. I’ll find you, Myles.…

  Myles raised his chin. Maybe, he thought. But next time I’ll know you. Next time, I’ll be ready.

  And this time there was no mistake. Outside, a dog’s bark rose on the breeze.

  THIS PART IS ALSO (MOSTLY) TRUE

  Welcome to the end of the story, and if you’ve made it this far, congratulations. I told you at the beginning that it was scary and more than a little strange, and yet here you are. I’m sure you’ll never go on a long drive again without wondering what might be following you in the dark fields, out of sight.

  Out of everyone’s sight but yours, of course.

  You’ve no doubt got many questions at this point. You’re probably wondering what happened next? And you might just be thinking … is this story true?

  But if you remember, on the very first pages of this story you read these words: Truth is an odd thing; one person’s truth can be another person’s lie. That’s the most important thing to remember about this story: sometimes things that seem like lies are actually true. And sometimes you never can tell.

  I could leave the story right there, and you’d just have to accept it. But that would be unfair of me, and I pride myself on being fair.

  So, without further ado, here are the answers you seek.…

  Myles and his family did make it to their new home. An hour after climbing into the tow truck, they stood in front of a beautiful house. Their house.

  There were no broken doors squeaking on hinges, no hanging windows or huge black crows CAW! CAWing from dark trees. Instead, the house was tall and newly painted with big windows, and a large front balcony with a hammock that would soon be eternally swinging. If you were looking for Bea, for instance, she was probably in the hammock reading.

  And inside the house? Inside the house that morning, their dad was waiting for them all with pancakes … as he promised. He swept Norman into his arms and hugged Bea. He ruffled Myles’s hair.

  “You’ve grown, Myles!” he said.

  Myles nodded. Yeah. He had. Myles had grown. A lot. On the outside maybe, and in ways you couldn’t see, too.

  And the “surprise” his dad had for him? You can probably guess, but it’s a nice surprise all the same: a dog. Myles was finally going to have his own dog. I’m not even going to tell you what he named it, because surely you can guess.

  As they built their lives in their new town, Myles and his family prospered.

  They DID get a new car but kept Victor-the-Volvo in the driveway for years, because they couldn’t bear to say goodbye.

  Myles DID start to enjoy things like his own music and his own room, although he found he didn’t mind so much if Norman felt like singing his song about C! C! C! now and then, or if he wanted to sleep in Myles’s room on dark, rainy nights once in a while.

  He really DID start to like his new home, his new school, and his new town. All those worries, gone, gone, gone.

  But more than all that, you’re probably curious about Pete Fournette and his dog Courage. Were they really ghosts?

  There’s plenty of evidence for the ghost story, at the diner and in the library archives, isn’t there? Mrs. Cody the librarian and plenty of other adults seemed to think it was true, even if Bea didn’t. And then there’s the fact that Courage was glowing each time Myles saw him (and ghosts DO glow, you know, at least some of them do).

  The truth is, as far as I know, after Myles and his family saw him, old Pete never wandered the rainy April highway ever again.

  Why?

  Well, I think it’s because he finally heard the answer he’d longed for.

  Pete had asked people the same question for over one hundred years: Have you seen my dog?

  No one had.

  Until someone did.

  Myles. After all those years of saying “no,” someone finally answered “yes” to Pete’s question, and so his restless wandering spirit grew still.

  Well, not completely still. There are those who will tell you that on a perfect spring night when the trees blow gently and anything is possible, you may see an old man and a beautiful golden dog walking along the highway, together at last. If you’re very quiet, you may hear a faraway dog’s bark. And if you are especially lucky, you may even hear an old man’s pleasant whisper: Come, Courage, it’s time for home …

  And the monster outside? Was it really there? Did it really follow Myles all that long, long night? Did it ever find him again?

  Despite the scary whispers, Victor’s broken window, the footprints in the mud ... was it a monster that Myles saw? Or anxiety about moving, exhaustion, and a bad storm mixed together with a fox in the bushes of an old farmhouse, the antlers of a deer, a rock?

  In the end, only Myles really knows.

  I CAN tell you that if Myles was bothered by a big worry, like a final chemistry exam or the time he had pneumonia one winter, misty fingers would snake out of the woods behind his house. Red eyes did blaze in the dark, and a deep voice would whisper… I’m here now, Myles …

  … but Myles would count to ten. Take a deep breath. Decide not to be afraid. Sometimes the monster left right away, sometimes it didn’t, but it didn’t really matter.

  Because Courage was out there, too.

  So now you know the story of Myles and the monster outside. Despite his possibly overactive imagination and his many fears, he grew up in a perfectly ordinary way.

  There were only two things that were a little odd about Myles.

  One: his father gave him his first dog, and he was never without one for the rest of his life. He sometimes had two, or even three dogs at a time. They all had the same name, which got a bit confusing if, say, you were trying to get just one of them to come to you. (I’m sure you can guess what they were all named.)

  Two: If you ever whispered around Myles, for a moment he’d get a wild look on his face then say quietly, “I see you, too … and I’m NOT afraid!”

  They’re troubling. They’re bizarre.

  And they JUST might be true …

  Weird Stories Gone Wrong

  by Philippa Dowding

  Available at your favourite bookseller

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  Copyright © Philippa Dowding, 2015

  Illustrations © Shawna Daigle, 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Project Editor: Carrie Gleason

  Editor: Allister Thompson

  Illustrator: Shawna Daigle

  Cover Design: Courtney Horner

  Cover art by Shawna Daigle

  Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Dowding, Philippa, 1963-, author Myles and the monster outside /

  Philippa Dowding(Weird stories gone wrong)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4597-2943-8 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4597-2944-5 (pdf).--ISBN 978-1-4597-2945-2 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series: Dowding, Philippa, 1963- Weird stories gone w
rong

  PS8607.O9874M95 2015 jC813’.6 C2015-900587-6 C2015-900588-4

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

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  J. Kirk Howard, President

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