Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu

Sometimes people get huge ones that look kind of like that. 'Maybe Mags was right, and they're just blackheads. Within each one was a coil of something dark and unrecognizable, bringing to mind matted hair, a clog pulled up from a drain. The bumps were now bubbles of clear fluid, about the diameter of a quarter, the skin almost completely transparent. Liddy stood in front of us, holding up the cuffs of her jeans. 'I don't want to bug my mom with this,' Liddy said, pulling her pant legs back down. 'Anyway, you should go to the doctor,' I concluded.

We let this pass, as a Mags thing to say. 'Did you break your ankles and not remember?' Mags said. Or Mags's dog when he broke his leg and got that plate put on it.' Like the bolts on the neck of the monster inįrankenstein. 'It's almost like someone ran something straight through both of your ankles. 'It's weird that they're in the exact same place,' I said.

'It looks like bone,' Chloe declared, from above. Like wearing clothes that are too small.' Mags was looking over my shoulder, transfixed.

'Ringworm is caused by a fungus,' Chloe corrected. 'Maybe Chloe was right, and you do have worms,' I said. Something did appear to be pushing up through Liddy's skin, the size and shape of the tip of a pen, only white. The bumps had grown, the skin noticeably thinning as it stretched, becoming translucent. Liddy laid her legs across my lap, and I lifted her sneaker close to my face. Only Chloe sat on the table, the remaining three of us in the grass. Liddy showed us her ankles again the next day. 'Dogs pee there!' he shouted at me and Mags. 'Can you stop being gross and showing them to us, then?' Chloe said, still fiddling with her phone. 'My mom won't take me to the doctor for some zits on my legs.' 'They just look like zits to me,' Mags said. 'Maybe you should go to the doctor,' I said. Liddy stopped poking at the bumps just long enough to glance over. 'Ringworm,' she said, holding out her screen. Raised white bumps protruded from Liddy's skin, one on the outside of each ankle, each a few inches above the rounded knob of bone-perfectly symmetrical.Ĭhloe tapped on her phone. Mags and I sat in the grass, avoiding the jagged wood. Chloe and Liddy sat on the table, their feet on what remained of the bench. She lifted the cuffs of her blue corduroys, first one and then the other, as we sat by the broken picnic table in the patch of grass between the parking lot and the basketball court. Liddy showed us her ankles during first recess.

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu