My Favorite Thing Is Monsters

Karen lives in uptown Chicago and relishes the deep artistic history there. She talks about the silent movies filmed there before Hollywood and has a neighbor who was an actress in them. She also visits the art museum regularly, and observes the varied characters that roam its streets, including a man with a beard that draws the length of the page, the monkey woman (who has a pet monkey), and “Jeffrey ‘The Brain’ Alvarez” (100). Karen goes to Sandy’s birthday party and finds Sandy alone in her house. She has no furniture and reveals that she sleeps on the floor and lives with her aunt and uncle (who are nowhere to be found) because her parents died. Karen gives Sandy a full gumball machine for her birthday, and Sandy eats and swallows every piece. Karen offers to take Sandy back to her house and feed her properly, and Sandy agrees. However, on their way back, they spot Mr. Chugg’s (a ventriloquist neighbor with a glass eye) dummies in the trash. Sandy finds a camera amongst the trash and takes a picture of her and Karen. She thanks Karen for the best birthday she ever had, and Karen watches as she seems to “float down the alley, as pale and feathery as a moth in moonlight” (104).