They Pretend ✨

Summary

A child describes a city full of towering, pale creatures with enormous smiles—monsters that only children seem willing to acknowledge. They lurk around school and home, sometimes patting children on the head before those children disappear. Adults dismiss the disappearances and insist the monsters aren’t real.

The narrator’s older sister, Ellie, has always helped them avoid the creatures. But the morning after Ellie turns 13, she walks straight through them, claiming she sees nothing. The narrator begins to notice that adults act strangely around the monsters: their father eats standing up while a creature occupies his chair, and their mother remains composed when monsters crowd around her at the store.

A drawing among their mother’s old school things reveals that she saw the creatures as a child, too. Ellie eventually explains the town’s secret: everyone can see the monsters, but at 13, children are taught to pretend they cannot. Adults must never react or warn anyone. The creatures only take children when no one aged 13 or older is looking at them.

On the eve of the narrator’s birthday, a monster pats their head while their mother watches without flinching. That night, their mother shuts the curtains and locks the narrator in their room from the outside. As the knocking continues, the narrator hears the window open behind the curtains—and reveals they would have turned 13 the next day.

Characters

• The narrator
• Ellie
• The narrator’s mother
• The narrator’s father
• Mrs. Hart
• Jacob Miller
• The smiling monsters