Anushka Ravishankar is an award-winning writer and playwright.Her books include Tiger on a Tree, Anything but a Grabooberry, ExcuseMe, Is This India? and Today Is My Day, among others. Several of herworks have been published internationally.

Anushka lives in Chennai with her family.

PUFFIN BOOKS

MOIN AND THE MONSTER

Moin and the

Monster

Anushka Ravishankar

Illustrated byAnitha Balachandran

PUFFIN BOOKS

PUFFIN BOOKSPublished by the Penguin GroupPenguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,New Delhi 110 017, IndiaPenguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York10014, USAPenguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,Ontario, M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, EnglandPenguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division ofPenguin Books Ltd)Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany,Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)Penguin Group (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL,

England

First published in Puffin by Penguin Books India 2005

Text copyright © Anushka Ravishankar 2005Illustrations copyright © Anitha Balachandran 2005

All rights reserved

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN-10: 0143 335154; ISBN-13: 978014335153

Typeset in New Baskerville by Eleven ArtsPrinted at Pauls Press, New Delhi

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of tradeor otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated withoutthe publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover otherthan that in which it is published and without a similar condition includ-ing this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and with-out limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of thispublication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechani-cal, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written per-mission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisherof this book.

1. Moin Gets a Monster 1

2. Going Bananas 12

3. Return Gift 27

4. Monster at School 41

5. Kooki Goes Cuckoo 57

6. Hair Care 67

7. Monster Takes a Ride 86

8. Forever, Moin 98

Contents

One night, in the dim darkness of his room, Moinheard something shuffling and sniffling underhis bed.

‘Who’s that?’ he squeaked.‘A bonster,’ said a shrieky kind of voice.Moin flashed his torchlight all over the room.

Nothing.

1 . Moin gets a monster

A monster can be sent to

the human world.

17

2

When a monster is sent to the human world,

it has to hide under the bed. If there is no bed, it

can hide under a cupboard or any other

suitable piece of furniture. If there is no

suitable piece of furniture, it should look for a

dark corner.

42

‘Abonster, where are you?’ he asked in a wobblywhisper.

‘A monster, stupid, not a bonster.’‘A m-m-monster? Where are you?’ asked Moin.‘Udder the bed, obviously. Widd a very dusty

old suitcase add a pair of blue socks which arehorrible add sbelly. That’s why I’b holding by dose.’

‘Oh! So that’s where they are. I was lookingfor those socks.’

The pair of rolled-up blue socks came shootingout from under the bed and hit Moin on the noseas he leaned out of bed.

‘Ow! Thanks. But … but why are you underthe bed?’

‘How do I know? That’s where monsters alwaysare. Some stupid monster rule, I suppose. If Iknew all the rules, I wouldn’t be here.’

3

4

Moin flashed the light under the bed. ‘But Ican’t see you.’

‘That’s another monster rule. You can only seeme if you draw me.’

Moin was confused. ‘But I can only draw you ifI see you,’ he said.

‘If you don’t draw me, I’ll have to stay invisibleforever.’

Moin didn’t reply. He had a feeling that aninvisible monster was better than a visible one.

‘You have to draw me!’ the monster shouted.‘It’s the monster rule!’

‘But I’m not a monster,’ Moin pointed out.‘If you disobey the rule you’ll … you’ll … you’ll

turn into a … a … suitcase!’‘But how can I draw you when I don’t know

how you look?’‘I can describe myself, can’t I? Then you can

draw me.’Moin was not at all sure about this. Once, in

art class, he had drawn a horse and the teacherhad thought it was a map of Maharashtra. Sonow, he labelled all his drawings carefully. Andeven then his art teacher always wrote ‘Ha!’ onhis paper.

Still, he didn’t want to turn into a suitcase.Suitcases were square and boring and people werealways sitting on them or pushing them under

5

beds. So he switched on the light, got out hiscrayons and a piece of paper and waited for themonster to describe itself.

‘You can’t draw me on that tiny bit of paper!’the monster told him. ‘I’ll be as big as youdraw me, and I don’t want to be the size of yourfoot.’

‘But I don’t have any bigger sheets of paper.’‘What do you mean you don’t have any bigger

sheets? You have to get a bigger sheet! You haveto! You have to! You have to!’

‘Okay! Okay!’ said Moin. ‘I have an idea.’He took the calendar off the wall, selected a

month that had passed, tore off the sheet andturned it around. ‘There. That’s the biggest sheetI can get, and if you don’t like it, there’s nothing Ican do about it. So describe yourself.’

‘Humph,’ said the monster, and began to singin a high pitch which sounded quite horrible withits shrieky voice:

Eyes like flamesAnd nose like pails,Ears like hornsAnd teeth like nails,A scary, fearsome sight to seeMonster, monster, monster me!

5

6

‘Wait a minute!’ shouted Moin. ‘What do youmean, nose like pails? You mean you have morethan one nose?’

‘Oh bah, what a silly boy I’ve got. I mean mynostrils are as deep as buckets, of course.’

‘Why can’t you say what you mean, then?’‘It’s obvious to all but the meanest intelligence.’‘What?’‘That’s a clever way of saying you’re stupid.’‘Some people are so stupid they can’t even say

what they mean,’ muttered Moin.

7

The monster started singing again:

Skull-shaped moleOn rock-like chin,Long green hairAnd purple skin,In the dark you’ll scream to seeMonster, monster, monster me!

Drum-shaped chestAnd arms like trees,Bamboo legs onFeet like skis,Terrifying as can beMonster, monster, monster meeeeeeeeeee!

There was silence as Moin drew the monster, partby part, slowly, carefully and precisely.

‘Have you finished?’ asked the monster.‘Shhh … Can’t you see I’m drawing?’‘Finished?’ asked the monster after half a minute.‘Wait!’ said Moin, erasing a rather large ear.The monster waited for half a minute more.

‘Finished?’‘Almost,’ said Moin. ‘Right, here you are.’‘Now hold the paper up,’ the monster said. ‘I’ll

look at it as if I’m looking into a mirror. Then I’llappear.’

So Moin held the paper up.And …

8

‘Eeeeek!’ said the monster.‘Eeeeeeek!’ said Moin, startled to see his drawing

suddenly turn into a live creature.‘Owowowowow! What have you done? What have

you done?’ wailed the monster.‘Why? What’s the matter?’‘This is not how I should look,’ wept the monster.

‘I’m fearsome. You’ve made me look funny!’‘I’ve drawn you exactly as you described yourself,’

said Moin, miffed. He thought he’d done asplendid job of drawing the monster. ‘I can’t helpit if you don’t know how to describe yourself.’

‘I’m supposed to be purple.’‘Oh, yes, um … sorry. I ran out of purple so I

used the closest colour I could find.’

9

10

‘Pink? Bright pink is closest to purple? And whyare my legs so thin?’

‘They’re bamboos, aren’t they? That’s what yousaid—bamboo legs.’

‘These are not bamboos, they’re drumsticks!If I don’t watch where I’m going, some cook willpluck them off and make a sambhar of them.’

‘What rubbish! Drumsticks don’t look like that.’‘Bamboos don’t look like this either. And what

are these things I have instead of feet?’‘Skis, of course.’‘These? You call these skis? They look like

brooms.’‘I don’t know what skis look like. I guessed.

I’m very good at guessing. They look kind of ski-ish to me. You know, skittish and kind of brushy.’

‘And which animal has horns like these?’‘Oh, were they supposed to be animal horns?

I thought you meant the kind of horns thatautorickshaws have.’

‘You mean I’m going to be walking around withautorickshaw horns? Oh, woe!’

‘You complain too much,’ said Moin.‘Of course I’ll complain; look at this—you’ve

drawn my teeth upside down! How am I going toeat with these blunt nail heads?’

‘If you wanted them with the sharp side downyou should have said so. I can’t read your stupidmind, can I?’

11

A monster has to stay forever with

the human who has given it a body.

(Also see rules number 71, 228 and

364.)

54

‘So many millions of children in the world, andI had to get the one child who can’t draw,’ sobbedthe monster.

‘Then go find some other stupid child,’ saidMoin, throwing down his crayons. ‘I didn’t askyou to crawl under the bed and wake me up andmake me draw all kinds of things in the middleof the night. Go away and find some great painter.Go and hide under Picasso’s bed.’

‘I can’t. Now that you’ve drawn me, I have tostay with you. Besides, Picasso’s dead.’

‘Forever?’ asked Moin, alarmed.‘Once people die, they’re usually dead forever.’‘No, I mean are you going to stay with me

forever?’‘Forever,’ nodded the monster glumly. ‘That’s

the rule.’‘Oh no,’ said Moin.‘Exactly,’ said the monster.