A Girl's Best Friend

Siggy watched through the small opening of the door for his tiny human to come to bed. Christmas Eve was always a late one - she never wanted to go to sleep, too excited for what the next morning would bring. His ears pricked as her parents finally told her that ‘Santa won’t come if you stay up for much longer,’ and her little feet were running up the stairs faster than he could imagine. His tiny plush heart swelled at the thought of seeing his little monster once again, getting to cuddle with her for their favourite part of the night - story time.

“Brush your teeth first,” her mother said, and Siggy sighed as the footsteps faded away from her bedroom to the bathroom at the other end of the hallway. Siggy counted the seconds, as Lily told him she did when she brushed her teeth - 120 was the correct amount for a growing girl her age. When he reached 120 seconds, he waited for the footsteps to come bounding back to Lily’s room. 

“SIGGY!” Lily shouted as she came rushing in, already in her pyjamas. She took him up in her arms, squeezing him closely to her chest. Sigmund is a teddy bear, bought for Lily when she was just a babe and named when Lily was around three years old. He’d been at her side for as long as they both could remember. Siggy was Lily’s best friend. 

Lily began rattling off her evening to him as she tucked them both into bed, settling down for her moms to come in and tuck her in properly. They read them both a bedtime story - one titled The Night Before Christmas, the same story that had been read every single night for the past two weeks - before kissing Lily goodnight on the forehead and turning off the bedside lamp. 

The two were encased in darkness for no more than two minutes before Lily spoke up.

“Do all little girls have a best friend like you?” she asked, and it was a question she had asked before. A question Siggy did not truly have an answer to.

“I think so,” was what he replied, wondering if it was true. If every toy was as lucky as he to get a friend so dear to his little plush heart. She shuffled around to face him, her big blue eyes shining in the dim moonlight that shone through the thin curtains. 

“Santa’s coming tonight,” she said, a grin spreading across her face. Because this is how conversations with seven-year-olds often went, never the same topic for more than a moment.

“What did you ask for?” Siggy asked, always intrigued.

“I really want a new doll, one I can take on walks with me when we go with Louis,” she said excitedly. Louis was the family dog, and the reason Siggy lost an eye that was stitched back on by Grandma Gertie three summers ago.

“I hope you get that doll, Lily,” Siggy wished her, and he meant it. This little girl deserved all the happiness in the world.

Lily smiled, turning onto her back and staring at the ceiling. She wasn’t sleeping, Siggy knew this much. When Lily slept, she snored ever so slightly, a low whistle escaping her mouth. Her moms found it the most adorable thing in the entire world. No, she wasn’t sleeping, she was thinking. And thinking, for a seven-year-old girl, was often a dangerous path to walk.

“What are you most afraid of?” she eventually asked.

Siggy considered this for a moment. “Snowball,” he answered simply. Snowball was the giant panda bear that lived on the opposite side of Lily’s room, always glaring at them, looking like it was going to eat Siggy for breakfast. Lily let out a glorious giggle, one only a child could ever master, one full of magic that adults lose when they grow older. Siggy almost smiled as well.

“So, what are you afraid of?” He asked back.

“The monsters,” she replied, instantly.

“What monsters?” he asked.

“The ones all around.” She turned to face him. “There are monsters, aren’t there? Under the bed, in the closet?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Siggy said, “next time you get scared of the monsters, you just call my name, reach out and grab my hand. I promise you that it will all go away and it will all be fine.”

Lily blinked her large blue eyes at him, chewing on her lip. A habit she had picked up from her mum, an anxious habit that Siggy hoped she would break as she got older. From the day she was born, Lily had put all of her trust in Siggy, she had held him when she cried, had taken him to her first day of preschool, had shoved him in her bag when she was nervous for a spelling bee and wanted his support. She knew she could trust Siggy because Siggy had been her constant from the day she was born.

Lily reached out, gently caressing a hand down Siggy’s furry face, running a thumb over his re-sewn eye.

“Do you promise me?” she asked, her voice now barely a whisper. 

“I promise.”

Lily nodded and took Siggy’s paw in her tiny hand. Siggy knew now that there was no monster under the bed, no monster in the closet. That was why he could make such a promise to her. If she got scared, she’d call for him, and he would make it all go away. It was a promise a furry friend like him could never break. 

Lily was silent for a few minutes and those minutes faded into nothingness as she gave way to sleep, those gentle snores emitting from her mouth. Her grip on Siggy’s paw slackened, setting him free.

Siggy rolled off the bed, his fuzzy paws masking the thump on the wooden floorboards.

Siggy could make promises to the softly sleeping girl. He could tell her he could make the monster under the bed disappear, if she called for him, if she reached for him, it would go away.

He slipped under the bed, his limbs stretching to twice his usual size, his eyes illuminating a bright yellow beading in the darkness. There, he sat in wake, listening to the noises of the house. He listened to her parents turn in for the night, and perhaps even heard the thud of snow boots fumble around the Christmas Tree downstairs. He watched the door to Lily’s room with those piercing eyes, so focused that he barely heard the child above him stir until she let out a terrifying scream. His eyes darted to the mirror across the room, where they locked on her haunted blue eyes.

“SIGGY!”

Then Siggy was there, on her bed, clutching her hand and the eyes were gone. The monster was gone.

See, Siggy could make promises like these. For Siggy was the monster under the bed.