Freddy Kruger’s Guide to Better Parenting

The dreams where coming again. She explained to Daddy that there was a terrible book in her head that controlled her brain. She couldn't stop the dreams once they came. They terrified her and made her dread slipping off to sleep. She was scared about facing the horrible things she saw in there.

Dad assured her the best he could, but she was a strong willed child, she always had a counterpoint to everything he said. She was five. He was thirty-five. She could always wear him down with reason. He grabbed for words in his head, gave her advice that he had learned from a horror film, told her to become a dream master. By the end she was smiling up him, her eyelids heavy. Score one for Dad.

That night, when the dreams came she was ready. The gargoyle, the snarling grey wet thing that slithered up beside her as she searched for an exit from the rotting preschool, as she reached for the doorknob that towered above her, as the beast grew and tumbled and screamed, she could feel that yes, this was nothing like her life. This was a dream. Daddy said that she was in control here. She was the dream master.

She turned and faced the beast. With a force of will, she placed the scary face on herself, eyes scolded, lips pursed, arms tight on hips. The beast froze and urinated on the floor. She barked out, “You look ridiculous!” and suddenly, on top of Beasty's head, that was his name now, Beasty, appeared a big pink princess tiara. She stifled her laughter. Beasty looked shocked that she wasn’t terrified this time. Beasty blushed purple and swiped at the tiara, but the tenticles where too short to knock it from the grey gelatinous scalp.

By the time she had woken up, she and Beasty had had a wonderful time. First she put it in a pink tutu, and then sat it down for tea. She gave the monster long hair for her to comb and found that the beast loved a good knock knock joke, no matter how ridiculous it was.  Beasty laughed and laughed. The more it laughed, the smaller it got, the smaller it got the happier it became. That morning, she woke and munched her breakfast, the sun rising on a golden new day.