Malanga By River Jordan

There was a little boy sitting in the passenger seat of his dad’s truck fondly called Black Beauty. He was watching the sky through the window while waiting for his dad to come back from the house because he’d forgotten his keys. The boy sat there, looking like what others would call cute with his stuffed animal clutched in his arms. But the boy wasn’t at peace. He was only three years old, and was still afraid of the dark.

While looking out the window he saw a greenish glow that came from the odd patch of trees outside his window. He studied the strange glow and got out of the truck. He got closer and saw that it was a big green eye with a red pupil. He walked closer, and saw it had many arms and on the end of each of these arms was a single claw. His eyes were adjusting to the dark but suddenly he saw its mouth. It had many rows of sharp, needle like teeth, going all the way back to his tonsils. The child was afraid but still curious; the horrific shape didn’t scare him. Finally his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he saw its skin. It was red, with little bony bumps on it sticking out. He still wasn’t scared, but then it growled. The child thought it was trying to scare him the way he and his friends often growled to scare the girls at the playground, so he growled back.

“Grrrrr, I’m a Tigah.” The creature seemed astonished that something wasn’t scared of it, but that lasted only a short time. It growled louder. The child responded with,

“RAAWR! IMA BEAW!” The creature got frustrated that something so small STILL wasn’t scared of it, so it roared.

The child said, “RAAAAAR! IMA KING OF THE JUNGLE! RAAAAAR!”

The creature got angry and hissed, “Malanga.” At this, the boy did get scared and scream. This in turn made the creature totally freak out and it screamed so hard its uvula started dangling like it was a speed bag being hit by a boxer. Finally the boy did get scared and he ran back to the truck, his stuffed animal left behind in his haste.

The creature saw this, and looked at it, it didn’t seem to move. “Frozen by fear, I guess,” it thought. He growled, roared, and even shrieked at it, but it still wouldn’t say anything, the stuffed animal didn’t even have a scared expression on its face. It took the stuffed animal back to its lair still screaming at it. No reaction whatsoever, nothing!

So if you happen to hear a strange screaming sound in the night, it’s just the Malanga trying to scare the stuffed animal the little boy left for him.