Harry and the Monkey

A short story by Euan HarveyThis is a true story.I have three kids, all boys. Son number three is Harry. He's younger than the others by three years (he is three and a half when this story begins); he looks more like me, and he's a devious and unscrupulous manipulator–like all youngest children. He laughs a lot, cries a lot, breaks things a lot, and fights with his brothers a lot. He goes to kindergarten with all the other kids, plays football (well . . . runs after the ball flapping his arms and howling with glee, anyway), enjoys twisting the arms and heads off his collection of cheap plastic action figures, and gets cranky when he's tired.The reason I'm telling you this is simple: Harry's a perfectly normal kid. Average and unremarkable.If you think about it, that makes what happened even more unsettling.What if it's not only him?What if it's all kids?