My Special Book (short story)

My Special Book — titled George's Monster Book on the contents page — was a short story published on 13 October 2011 in The Brilliant Book 2012. The short story was written by Mark Gatiss and illustrated by Nikki Davies.

Plot
George Thompson, aged seven and a half, writes in his "buk" about his fears, after his Mum gave him a blank book to write what he thinks about and what he sees.

He first mentions that his Mum and Dad have to turn the lights off in a certain order, which makes George feel temporarily safe. He writes about things he likes, such as "X Facters". However, there are many things he does like, which he describes as "flat"; he takes the book as an opportunity to share his secrets — his fears — that he doesn't tell his parents.

George writes about an experience in his school about a rhyme he learned, about a woman who lived in a shoe with lots of kids, but what George's school doesn't know is that an old woman — Mrs Rossiter — lives across from George's family, and George suspects that she is actually a witch. George's dad tries to tell him otherwise, that Mrs Rossiter is just a kind old lady, but George is convinced he knows the truth. While George believes that Mrs Rossiter is a witch, he notes that her flat isn't made of sugar like in Hansel and Grettel, though he is thankful of this as otherwise he would be lured there and try to eat the flat.

At night, George struggles to sleep due to all the noises that scare him, such as the lift that makes a groaning noise. However, George doesn't believe that the noise comes from the lift, but from something that is breathing heavily in his room, like a dragon or a monster, which is living inside the walls like the snake in Harry Potter. George writes about another thing he is scared of, his dressing gown, which looks fine during the day but at night, looks like a bat-like figure that he's scared will swoop over him and steal him away. George is scared that he thinks that his parents may call someone to make them take him away as he makes his parents cry.

George and his mum have a system where if George gets scared of something, it gets locked away in his cupboard, like the toys his Nana gave him and his mum's old peg dolls. He remembers a nightmare he once where the soldier and girl dolls surrounded him one night, in bed, where they tried to suffocate him. He screamed, waking up, which in turn woke up his mum and dad who had to go to work soon, which made George feel guilty. George writes again about how he is scared his parents are going to send someone to take him away, as he saw a program on CBBC where a little boy was taken into care because his Mum and Dad "could not stand it anymore". George is scared of the dark. He keeps reciting a prayer-like phrase, which he calls a "prairie", over and over.


 * "Please save me from the monsters."

Characters

 * George Thompson

Referenced only

 * Alex Thompson
 * Claire Thompson
 * Mrs Rossiter
 * Nana
 * Shaun

Worldbuilding

 * George likes spaceships, robots, Spiderman, and "X Facters".
 * George thinks that Mrs Rossiter's face is pointed, with a pointed nose.
 * M and Ms are George's favourite.
 * George doesn't believe that the lift makes such a noise, as he has been inside it, albeit not since he was about five as it kept breaking. He considered the lift to simply be a box that smelled of wee.
 * Some of the toys that scared George were metal soldiers and old peg dolls and a dolls house that used to belong to his mum.
 * George compared these dolls to those in adverts on television, noting that while the ones on television were pretty with smiles and had nappies and girls liked them, while the ones he had were old, smelled dusty, with messy, cut-like mouths.
 * He compared these cut-like mouths to a classmate, Shaun, who cut his face on a broken window which caused blood to come out.

Continuity

 * This story is set about a year prior to the events of TV: Night Terrors.
 * George likes his lights switched off five times in a row. (TV: Night Terrors)
 * George is scared of the noise the lift makes at night. (TV: Night Terrors)