Rijuta Gohil
THE HOMEWORK MONSTER
There once was a time when all kids had all the time in the world. They seemed to like it very much. On the other hand, up high on Mount Olympus, Zeus sat on his throne frowning. For all kids weren’t learning anything. Since he was the ruler of the gods, Zeus had to try to solve the problem. But even though he pondered over the problem for days, he could not find a solution. Zeus then called for a meeting. All the gods attended and discussed the problem. Eventually, Athena found the solution. The gods would create a new monster which would make the kids learn. So Hephaestus started working on creating a monster with the power to make kids pay attention at school and work without complaining.
The monster was ten feet tall. And it could make anybody even the gods sit down and start working. So they called it The Work Monster. But the Work Monster started to make the gods do work instead of the children. It would make the gods sit down and do useless work and not let them attend other more important work such as keeping the world in order or keeping Mount Olympus safe from evil spirits and the Titans. The gods soon got scared of its power and quickly sent it down to earth to do its job.
The Work Monster wandered from place to place looking for people to distract and scare. Then one day he saw a school. There were tons of kids running all over the place, not paying attention to the teachers, and goofing around. The Work Monster got angry, really angry and started raging all over the place. But as usual, none of the kids paid any attention to him. Finally, he started putting all the kids under his spell. They all stood still as if they were in a trance. All the kids listened to whatever he said. If he had said ‘Jump off a bridge to get your textbooks’ the kids would’ve.
“Do your work,” he growled. All the kids immediately rushed into the building and sat down with their textbooks. The teachers looked thankful as well as frightened as well as jealous. ‘Who is this new being that makes the kids listen to whatever he says,’ they all wondered. The Work Monster smiled to himself as he went on with his journey. He loved making the kids sit down and get bored. He enjoyed making teachers jealous because he could make the kids listen to him and they could not.
The Work Monster soon became proud of his ability. He became the Homework Monster. He could make anybody do anything as long as it was work related. This would help him distract people. The Homework Monster started to distract people from doing important work and started making them do other useless work. The Homework Monster thought it was better if he decided to annoy kids only because they never used to work. So he invented something called homework. It was work that kids (students) had to do at home. This means that kids would have to do more work. He also decided that teachers should teach students about the Homework Monster (himself) partly because he was the most important and most powerful being in the universe and partly because the kids would tremble in fear when they found out that he invented homework. So he changing what the teachers taught the students. Now most lessons were about the Homework Monster and hardly ever about math or science or art, etc. And from then on the Homework Monster was known as the Homework Monster. Sadly, the gods were put into another horrible situation this time by their own creation.
Zeus and all the other gods knew that if the Homework Monster continued his journey, he would wipe the gods away from the kids’ minds. All the kids would only think of the Homework Monster. There would be no other gods in the world. All the gods decided to take away the powers of the Homework Monster because they had no other solution.
But the Homework Monster found out about the gods plan earlier. He went into hiding and the gods could not find him. The Homework Monster didn’t want the gods to take away his ability because then all his pride would be gone. He sat and bide his time, waiting for when the gods would leave Earth so he could return to scaring all the students. The Homework Monster got terribly bored. He wanted to go outside then stay in his cramped hiding place. One sunny day, he finally did go outside to scare some mortals. And that was his biggest mistake ever.
The Homework Monster was still trying to find some when they came. The gods, I mean. They came slowly but were confident that the Homework Monster was trapped. When the Homework Monster saw them, it was too late. The gods caught him and were just about to take the power from him when the Homework Monster started using his old powers. He stared at each of the gods one by one. This made them come under his spell. Then he pointed to the sky and the gods went back to Mount Olympus. He concentrated on the gods doing random work. And that is exactly what the gods did. When the gods got out of the Homework Monster’s spell, they didn’t know where the Homework Monster went. They were totally confused.
Back down on Earth, the Homework Monster was in hiding again. He felt like a fugitive. But then he realized why the gods were trying to take away his powers. He had been too proud and if he had not let the teachers teach the students about the gods and other things, well…it would not have been nice. He felt sad and did not feel proud anymore. The Homework Monster did not feel proud for months.
During that time, Zeus had gone down to Earth and had taken the Homework Monster spell off the teachers. Yet, he was not able to take the curse off the kids or stop the teachers from giving homework to the kids. He decided that it was for the best. Soon he finished his work and went back to Mount Olympus satisfied. He did not know that this act would anger the Homework Monster.
When the Homework Monster found out about what Zeus had done, all he wanted was revenge. He invented more work and homework like ISP. He also invented grades. For example, he invented Kindergarten, Grade 1, etc. and he invented A-, A, A+, etc. He decided that teachers would make a Gifted Program. He invented all kinds of other things. But ISP was the best. It stood for Independent Study Project. In that, kids would have to choose a topic then research about it. In the end, they would have to make a presentation to present in front of their class. He also started making the ISP harder for each grade. Soon kids were loaded down with homework. All students hated it.
Even the gods could not do anything about it. They could just sit and watch the Homework Monster. Soon the whole world had homework and ISP and etc. The Homework Monster got his revenge. He was satisfied.
To this day, the Homework Monster provides kids with homework and ISP and etc. When the summer break comes along, the Homework Monster waits and hibernates and sometimes invents until another school year comes along so he can terrorize students. And all kids dread the day school starts.
THE END
