Thank you Kate for this opening line.
She crunched away at the delicious treats she found at the most unexpected location and she wondered if she would always be so lucky to be this close to a real live cookie monster.
Sesame Street had gotten it wrong. A cookie monster wasn’t a monster that ate cookies; it was a monster ofcookies.
Aileen had found the creature in the cave behind her house. She didn’t know how long it had been there. It looked like a giant bulldog with a body made out of chocolate chip cookies, two enormous peanut butter swirl eyes, and Oreo horns. It even pooped oatmeal raisin cookies.
At first the cookie monster growled at her, but Aileen won its trust by feeding it raw eggs, flour, sugar and a little bit of salt. Before long, the monster let her scratch its doughy belly and pick loose cookies off its skin.
Everything changed the day she saw all the popular girls playing with the vegetable unicorn. It had long, slender legs made out of celery, a mane of lettuce and a carrot stick horn. She galloped around the field letting the girls ride on her back.
Aileen ran to the field to join the clique. She was almost there when she heard a pitiful whimper. The cookie monster was standing outside his cave staring at her.
“I’ll be back tomorrow!” Aileen called.
The other girls let her join them and to Aileen’s astonishment she was soon a part of their clique. A week passed before she thought to check on the cookie monster. When she returned, the cave was empty. The cookie monster had run off, perhaps to find another little girl.
