There was once a boy who was afraid of the dark. He thought that his bedroom was filled up with monsters when it was dark. But there came a time when he was too old to be allowed to keep sleeping with the light on.
That first night he was filled with fear, his mind full of monsters. Therefore, he went over to his wardrobe to get a torch. But when he opened the wardrobe door, he saw a monster, face to face, and he let out the loudest scream(尖叫)in the world. __①__
The monster took a step backwards, grabbed his colorful hair, stared at the boy with his single red eye, and . . . started crying！The monster cried for so long that the boy's shock and fear disappeared. __②__ He calmed the monster as much as he could, and started talking to him, asking him why he was crying, and what he was doing there.
The monster told him he lived in the wardrobe, but almost never went out, because he was afraid of the boy. __③__ When the boy asked him why, the monster told him the boy's face seemed to him the most horrible thing he'd ever seen with eyes, ears and a nose. The boy felt the similar way about the monster with a huge head full of mouths and hair.
The two of them talked so much that they became quite friendly, and they came to know that both of them had been afraid of the thing: the unknown. __④__ Together they traveled around the world, seeing lions, tigers, crocodiles and dragons. It was the first time either of them had seen such creatures, but they made the effort to get to know them. In the end, they drove away their fear and became friends.
And, although his parents weren't too happy, because they thought he was too old to still believe in monsters, the truth of it was that all kinds of creatures visited the boy's bedroom each night. And, instead of fearing them, he learned to get to know them and be friends with them.
