‘The Evil Doormat’

   © 2003 Gayle Broadbent-Ferris

             www.skyglass.com

    The doormat was very ugly, which only goes to show that you can and should judge everything by its appearance, because this was really in fact a very evil doormat. It came from Ecuador and was made of dyed sisal grass, and it cost two bucks at the discount store.

The first thing it did after being placed on the porch by Mrs. Bolcher was to wait until she went inside and then to eat the family cat. Then, in only a few hours, it ate a sandal that had been left on the porch and a few more neighborhood cats. See? I told you it was evil.

Heaven knows how many cats it would have managed to eat, and maybe even the postman, if the doormat hadn’t gotten careless and eaten yet another cat in plain sight of the lawn mowing boy, whose name was Shane... Jones? Was it Shane Jones? I can’t remember his last name; anyway...

he turned pale and gasped and fled to the privet hedge. He stood there shaking and staring in terror—after all, he was only a 12 year old neighborhood kid.

Then Shane showed his grit! He firmly clenched his smooth boyish jaw and gathered his courage and yanked the big mower back to life and boldly mashed the mower up the front steps, the mower roaring and clashing and chips of wood flying, and hurry! Oh, hurry, Shane! HURRY! Mowed the doormat to shreds as it writhed and flopped and snapped and tried to get away!

‘GrarrglegrargleThump! Like that! What a brave boy! Shane!

End of you, evil doormat! Yeah! Yeah!

 

You’d think the Bolchers would have been more grateful, wouldn’t you?

But they weren’t.

 

                                                               THE END

 

 

 

 

Fig.1

Photograph of  specimen