Once upon a time not long ago there lived a very nice little boy who had two loving parents. Bobby always minded his manners at the dinner table, always remembered his pleases and thank-yous when speaking with adults, never had a cross word to say, and sometimes even brushed his teeth before going to bed without being told. He was just the sort of little gentleman you meet in fairy tales but could never find in real life if you offered a ten thousand dollar reward. Everybody told his parents, “Bobby sure is a nice little boy. You must be doing something right.” Bobby’s parents would give a humble grin and say, “Well, we try.” But deep down inside, they knew they were damned good parents.

One day when Bobby was ten years old, he said to his mother, “Mother, I seem to be having trouble sleeping. And I’ll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anyone else.”

Because she was a good mother, Bobby’s mom knew just what to say. “I promise,” she said.

Bobby blushed. “I had a bad dream last night about a dinosaur chasing me and when I woke up I had wet the bed.”

“But, Bobby!” cried his mother. “Why, you haven’t wet the bed since you were six years old!” And she did what any mother as good as she was would have done. She called a psychiatrist.

The next day the brave little boy left his comfortable but affordable home in the suburbs to travel into the big city. It was like entering into an enchanted land full of giant castles, except that the castles all had numbers on them and the moat monsters held signs that said, “WILL WORK FOR FOOD.” Soon our little hero found himself seated in a big office with a kindly old man who looked sort of like his grandfather, except he was dead. (That is, the grandfather was dead, but before he died he looked like the man in the office. I really shouldn’t have to explain this to you.)

“Don’t be nervous,” said the old man. “Don’t think of me as a doctor. Think of me as a fairy godmother with a beard. I am here to help all your wishes come true.” The idea of a fairy godmother with a beard did not help Bobby at all, but he was too polite to say so.

“So,” said the doctor, looking at Bobby intently. “Tell me why you are so unhappy.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Bobby. “I don’t mean to contradict you, but I’m not unhappy.”

The hairy fairy smiled sympathetically. “Of course you are unhappy, Bobby. Why else would you be here? People who are happy don’t need help. But you are here, and it’s my job to help people. Therefore, you must be unhappy.”

Bobby thought about this for a moment. It seemed logical to him, but then everything seems logical to ten-year-olds. “I thought I was happy, but I suppose I must not be, if you say so,” he said.

“Ahh!” said the old man meaningfully. It was the most meaningful “ahh!” Bobby had ever heard. When this man said “ahh,” it meant something. After letting the boy chew on that for a while, he continued. “Why are you here, then, my little man?”

“I haven’t been sleeping too well,” answered the boy quietly. “Sometimes I have bad dreams.”

“So,” said the good doctor, “tell me, Bobby, do you like your parents?”

Bobby thought that was a very strange question. “Of course I like my parents!” he said with an annoyed tone. (Well, as annoyed a tone as an impossibly polite boy can muster.) “My parents are great. I love them very much.”

“Why are you being so defensive?” asked the shrink, with that grin that only the supernaturally insightful can manage.

“What does that mean?”

“Never mind. I’m sure you believe your parents are very nice. Why do you think you are having bad dreams, Bobby?”

Our hero considered this carefully. “I guess it was that movie I saw. The one about the dinosaurs. My father told me I shouldn’t watch it, but I saw it at a friend’s house.”

“Haven’t you seen scary movies before, Bobby? They didn’t all give you nightmares, did they?”

“No, but–what do you mean?”

“All I’m saying is that it could be something else troubling your sleep at night. Not some silly movie.” The kindly old sprite winked at the boy. “Maybe it’s the monsters in your house.”

Bobby’s eyes grew wide. “But there’s no such thing as monsters,” he said.

“Oh, but there are such things, Bobby. Just because you haven’t seen them doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Perhaps you are forgetting that this is a fairy tale and there are always monsters in fairy tales. Big, ugly ones that eat juicy little children like yourself. It is not at all unusual for them to live in houses just like yours. Oh, yes, they are quite real and very dangerous.”

This was not at all what Bobby’s parents had prepared him for. He began to get scared and his lip began to tremble.

“There, there,” said the good-hearted doctor. “You mustn’t be afraid. I told you that I am here to help you. If you will listen very closely to the things I tell you and if you will be an honest and brave little boy, I will teach you some magic words that you can use to defeat the monsters and take away all their treasure. Would you like that?”

Now, if you are the type that thinks that Bobby should say “No” and run screaming from the office and into the arms of his loving parents, you are probably much too sophisticated to be reading a fairy tale. Put it down and walk away. Or better yet, give it to someone who appreciates this sort of thing. But I just want to let you know that it is people like you who would deprive our little hero of the chance to live happily ever after.

Anyway, he said “yes.”

“So,” said the old man, who had an annoying habit of starting his sentences that way, “tell me about this bed-wetting thing.”

“What?!” cried Bobby. “My mom told you about that? She promised she wouldn’t tell anybody!”

“She did? You mean she promised you? And she broke her promise? Tell me, Bobby, do your parents often break their promises to you?”

“Well, no, not really, I guess,” said our honest little trooper. “Like I said, they’re really great parents.”

“Yes, yes, they may seem to be,” said the well-meaning elf impatiently. “But things are not always as they seem. Haven’t they ever broken their word before now?”

Bobby thought hard. “Last Christmas my father sort of hinted he might get me a new Super Blaster Ultra 3D video game, but he didn’t. Would that count?” (Such a good boy–he tries so hard to please. Couldn’t you just squeeze him?)

“Good! Good! Now we’re getting somewhere! You must have been heartbroken, eh?”

“He said we couldn’t afford it.”

“The man drives a Lexus. What kind of fool does he think you are?”

“Sir?”

“Never mind. Now, Bobby, I want you to relax and pretend you are floating on air. Just relax. That’s it. That’s it. Just drifting like a leaf on the wind. Are you relaxed? Good. Now you are hypnotized and we are going to explore your subconscious mind. We are going to find the truth about these disturbing–”

“Excuse me, Mr. Fairy Doctor, sir. I don’t think I’m very hypnotized,” said Bobby.

“Where did you get your medical degree, son? You think I don’t know who’s hypnotized and who isn’t? Now pipe down and relax. You’re in a very peaceful place. You’re out in the woods. You hear the birds singing, et cetera, et cetera. Did your father ever take you to the woods, Bobby?”

“Well, we went camping one time and–”

“Okay, that’s great. You’re out in the woods with your little sister and you’re looking around. What do you see? Can you see that house, there?”

“There’s a house?”

“Sure. It’s made of candy. Does any of this sound familiar to you?”

“A candy house out in the woods? Yes, sir, that does sound familiar. It seems like Mother read me–”

“Exactly! Your mother led you there.”

“Huh? No, I mean–hey, I don’t have a sister!”

“You mean you don’t have a sister now, right? Does the word “oven” ring a bell? I know it’s frightening, but you must try to remember. What do you see in the house? Pentagrams? Candles? A bloody altar? Oh, the horror! the horror!”

“How could they?” cried poor little Bobby, breaking into hysterical sobs.

Okay, that’s enough, right? I mean, I don’t have to go on with this, do I? You’ve got the picture. So now all you need to know is that Bobby met the monsters and did battle in a county courtroom and slew them with his magic words (repressed memories, mental cruelty, sexual abuse–repeated loudly and often for the media). He sued them and got everything right down to his  demonic dad’s skivvies. Then he and the nice hairy fairy shrink wrote a book on the whole tragic affair, hit the talk show circuit, and became zillionaires. And everybody lived happily ever after, except the kid’s parents who moved to Guam to try to escape the shame, and did for a while until the movie version of the book became a worldwide hit and then their neighbors found out what kind of people they really, really were.

THE END