Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Mia. She was a brave child, but she had one fear that kept her up at night: monsters under the bed.
Every night before bed, she would check and double check to make sure that the monsters weren’t there. She would peek under the bed and even ask her parents to check for her. But despite their reassurances that there were no monsters, Mia couldn’t shake the feeling that they were lurking just out of sight.
Mia’s parents tried everything they could think of to help her overcome her fear. They read her stories about brave knights and powerful princesses, they let her sleep with the lights on, and they even bought her a nightlight in the shape of her favourite teddy bear. But nothing seemed to work.
One day, Mia’s mother had an idea. She thought that perhaps if Mia could meet the monsters and see that they weren’t so scary after all, she might be able to overcome her fear.
So that evening, her mother organised a tea party under the bed for the monsters, and Mia was curious and she joined the party. To her surprise, when she looked under the bed, she saw that there were indeed monsters there, but they were friendly and kind.
Mia asked them why they kept her from sleeping and the monsters explained: “We make these creaky sounds and shadows to help you fall asleep because we are in charge of bedtime performance and helping you children to have a sound sleep,” said the monster chief.
Mia was amazed. She had never thought of it that way before. She realized that she had been so focused on being afraid of the monsters that she hadn’t stopped to consider that they might have a different perspective.
The monsters, seeing that Mia was no longer scared, offered to show her their nightly performance and she agreed. They sang her a creaky lullaby and did a shadowy dance. It was so beautiful and magical that she fell asleep instantly.
Mia was never afraid of monsters under the bed again. She even went to bed with a smile on her face, knowing that she had made some new friends and understanding their purpose. She slept soundly through the night, and her parents were grateful that she no longer woke up with nightmares.
