My Favorite Thing Is Monsters

Karen overhears yet another strange conversation between Deeze and her mother. This time, her mother complains of being unable to sleep because she is continuously wakened by “Victor” (358). Deeze refuses to tell her who Victor is. That night, Karen cannot sleep because she is fraught with worry over losing her mother, Deeze possibly murdering Anka, and Anka’s death remaining unsolved. She wanders her apartment trying to imprint her life onto herself “in case everything changes” (360) and ponders the ghosts that keep adults imprisoned throughout their lives. She thinks about her friends, Missy, Sandy, and Franklin, and the neighbors in her apartment complex. A panel montage is drawn of each of them sleeping. Karen feels that the “worst kind of monsters” (364) are those like the people who murdered Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy and distinguishes between these and good monsters who “sometimes give somebody a fright because they’re weird looking and fangy” (365).

Karen decides to go out and try to attract the undead in the alley near her house, and her brother finds her there. He takes her home, explaining that their mother would not make a good monster for being too tender-hearted. As they arrive back, Karen spots a figure in one of the windows staring down at them.