That night I watched the hand on my alarm clock tick around and around in circles until I turned off the light.

I tried to think of happy things but I couldn’t make the black hole stop swirling. In the murky darkness, bad thoughts brewed. The beast crawled out from under my bed. It loomed over me and sank into my mind. It took over my thoughts and made me think dark, grisly things.

I was tiny and had a rubbish phone.

I was scared of Joanne Pyke and every school bin I walked past.

My dad left because I wasn’t good enough, and he stayed away because everything in his life was more interesting than I was. He was never going to come back, and I’d never get to hang out with him. Not ever. He didn’t care about me and he never would.

My artwork was pathetic and everyone in school would crack up when they saw it and they’d ALL try and dump me in a bin, even the teachers.

I lay there for a long time with my nose just out of the covers.

Maybe I’d stay there forever. Like that French writer Mum told me about who stayed in bed for the last fourteen years before he died. I’d do my art lying down and not bother to get up at all, except to eat and go to the toilet.

With the beast in my mind, everything seemed too scary to deal with.

Just as I thought that, you stood over me. You were dressed in a stripy black-and-white top and a black hoodie, just like mine.

“Hey!” I whispered. “Those are my clothes!”

“Shh.” You were holding my katana.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“You’ve got to kill that beast.”

“Me? Are you crazy? It’s big and evil. It’ll kill me.”

“You’re going to come out here now, samurai, and slice its fat ugly head off.”

I could see the beast’s horns glistening in the moonlight. I heard it snorting.

“But it hates me. It takes control of my head and makes me feel bad about myself,” I whispered.

“No one can make you feel bad about yourself unless you let them.”

I paused for a second to digest that.

You were right!

I allowed that beast to be there and do that to me.

I needed a green, furry, friendly beast living under my bed that told me good things and made me feel good about myself instead of this ugly, evil one. It was a bit too much like a green, furry version of my mum though.

I’d had enough. I wasn’t going to let it make me feel bad anymore.

I was going to kill the beast.

I shot out from under the covers, took the katana and stood on my bed looking scary in my Bart Simpson pajamas.

I was filled with strength—nothing was going to make me feel small and powerless again, not unless I let it.

“Beast of Darkness Who Lives Under my Bed and in the Shadowy Places in my Mind,” I bellowed in my most solemn and bloodcurdling voice. “Your days are over!”

The beast snorted furiously. He was huge. He roared in his deep dark voice, “You think you can slay a giant, angry, snarling creature like me? You can’t even draw a beast as great as me!”

That was it. No one spoke to me like that.

I swung the sword above my head. The beast roared and charged at me. I nearly turned and ran screaming, but instead I held my breath, aimed, and thrust the sword through the air and into the beast’s huge chest with a mighty whack. Then, as he howled and shrieked, I pulled it out, turned it sideways with two hands and, just before I swung it again, I hollered, “I can draw ANYTHING! I AM THE GREATEST ARTIST ALIVE!” and I sliced his head off and he fell to the ground with a thunderous crash.

The silence in my room and in my head was unbelievable.

And then I felt this enormous surge of happiness and screamed, “YES!” and jumped up and down on my bed in victory because the gruesome monster was dead! I had killed it myself, and it was never coming back.

After that, it all seemed much clearer.

I figured out how to solve the problem of Bella’s letters and her party. And I decided to pluck up the courage to talk to Luis the Locker Boy, because if anyone understood how I felt in that school, I figured he did. Plus, I was desperate to know what was in his portfolio.

And I wasn’t going to worry about my competition entry anymore. Who cared about that stupid competition anyway?

With the beast dead, it all fell into place.

But the jumping up and down on my bed must have been quite noisy, even though most of the shouting was done in my head.

“Amber?” Mum asked, sticking her half-asleep face through my door. “Why are you jumping up and down on your bed at eleven thirty at night?”

“It’s okay, Mum, everything’s good now. It’ll all be fine. You’ll see.”