Bogleech.com's 2018 Horror Write-off:
Nana
Submitted by Cassie Heath
Hello! My name’s Sophie. I am six! I love spaghetti. I love my Mummy. I love Nibbles the dog. I don’t love my big brother Kieran. But I love Nana most of all!
Every day when I come home from school, I walk past Nana’s new house. I stop there for ages, because I love Nana and Nana loves me. Sometimes we walk home together too, but most days we walk around her garden. There is a big tree and lots of pretty flowers. I want to climb the tree but the old man in the big house next door gets very cross, so I don’t do that any more. I don’t like the old man. He shouts a lot and he only ever wears black, and it looks like a dress. Doesn’t he know dresses are for girls? Nana says I shouldn’t tell him that though. She says he dresses like that because he's scared. I'm not scared of anything.
Nana can’t come home with me, because of Granddad. I don’t like Granddad. I used to, because he’s got a big round tummy and he wears his Christmas jumpers all year round, and he has a silly moustache like a big hairy caterpillar. Granddad was nice. He was fun, and he gave me sweets even though Mummy said he wasn’t supposed to. Now he lives with us and watches boring telly and snores. Nana says he wouldn’t like it if she stopped by while he was there, so she only does when everybody’s out.
When Nana comes over, we go up to our room and play for ages! We have tea parties and play with Teddyand Barbie, and Nana does magic! Proper magic, like when we went to the village hall and watched a man in a big hat do tricks. Nana’s tricks are better. She’s got a proper magic wand, with a big star on it, and pink ribbons. Nana can make things disappear and come back by magic, and she’s been teaching me to do it too!
Maybe if I can do proper grown-up magic like Nana I can make Kieran disappear. He’s fourteen, and he thinks he’s better than me just because he went to Big School and I can’t. Kieran plays rugby for Big School and sometimes Mummy makes me go and watch. I like it when the other boys make him fall down, but the rest of it is boring snoring. Nana doesn’t go because she only likes being outside when she’s with me, or when she’s in her garden with the pretty flowers. She says Grandad used to play rugby and that’s why he doesn’t walk very well any more. I don’t like rugby.
Nana helped me play a trick on Kieran! We put all his smelly rugby clothes in the washing machine and Nana got inside the machine and took out one of the metal things inside. She went away and hid it at her house and I put the washing machine on as hot as it would go! When it was done, all Kieran’s smelly rugby clothes were ripped and torn and shrunk so small they wouldn’t even fit Nibbles! Mummy said I had just been trying to help, and I let her, but when I went to my room I laughed and laughed!
I love Nibbles, but Nibbles doesn’t like Nana. He used to when I was small but now he barks and barks and barks! Nana tells him off when he’s like that, so he goes away. I don’t know where he goes, but if he doesn’t want to go away then he shouldn’t be so naughty. Nibbles is only a very little dog because he is a Skye terrier. He’s white and has very long hair, like Nana, but he’s different because he’s a dog. Nibbles doesn’t play with me any more.
Nibbles is going away soon too. I heard Mummy talking to Grandad about it. I think it was because he bit Nana when Nana and I were playing together in our room. He was being very silly and trying to drag her out of the house, but then he had to let go and he fell all the way down the stairs! What a silly dog. Then Nana was cross with him and made him go away for a very long time, and when he got back his hair was all grey and he bumped into things all the time. Mummy told me it was because his eyes weren’t working any more, but I could see his eyes weren’t working because they weren’t there any more. She told me to go and play when I said it was because he’d gone away. I don’t think she believed me.
Mummy is very tired a lot now. Sometimes I think it’s my fault, but Nana says I’m helping. Nana says that because I play with her so much, it gives Mummy a break from being a Mummy so she can be a Joan on her own. That’s Mummy’s real name. I prefer Mummy because Mummy is nice while Joan is tired and frowns a lot. Joan is the one who goes to a special doctor in town, not Mummy. I love Mummy, but I don’t like Joan. Joan’s boring. Nana doesn’t like Joan either.
Nana is going to help me play a trick on her tonight. She’s been practising and practising and now she thinks she can make Joan go away! She needs my help though, because I’m special. Nana says I’m special a lot, but she calls it ‘real’, like with Pinocchio and real boys. I said I preferred Elsa and Nana laughed. Nana says she needs me to wait for when Joan is asleep tonight so that we can make her go away properly, and she gave me a magic wand yesterday to help! It’s long and grey, like Nana, and what Nana said I had to do was walk around Joan in a circle and then hit her with it. Joan’s bed is up against the wall, but that doesn’t matter because Nana is so clever and can do proper grown up magic, so I walked around her on the ceiling! Nana helped me with that too. Then I hit her with my magic wand and her hair went all red, but she still got up to do breakfast. Only now she was like Nana, but different. Like she didn’t know that she was like her. Nana says people can be like that, but now Nana’s going to make her go away just like Nibbles. I asked if it would hurt Joan.
Nana smiled.
I smiled too.