The news reporter on the television was trying to explain that the storm outside was merely an effect of El Nino. Toby was starting to find his usually informative voice quite annoying. He knew that storms were common where he lived, and he shouldn't worry about it. He clicked off the set, and walked up the stairs to his room to listen to music. He heard thunder crashing outside as he calmly stepped into the dark room. For a split second, a lightning strike illuminated the room, followed by a clap of thunder, and the boy whom everyone at school thought was Mr. Fearless, was afraid. He shook it off and turned on the light. All of the darkness, aside from the window, had disappeared. His room was a collage of rock posters and sports pictures of athletes, and himself. He slid his favorite disc into the player and pressed play. Nothing happened. Then he remembered that he had put off getting new batteries to watch the superbowl. Disappointed and bored, he fell onto his bed and sighed deeply. Suddenly, he remembered that his sister had some AA batteries in her nail dryer. How would she know? His entire family was at some sort of occasion; his parents at some get together, and his sister at her closest friend's birthday party. He was supposed to have gone to Greg's house for the night, but, unknown to everyone except for Greg and himself, he had decided to stay home because Greg's cousin was visiting, someone he had never taken a liking to.

The only sounds audible to him in the house were the constant thud of the rain and storm outside, had his own feet walking across the upstairs carpet to his sister's room. He snickered as he pulled out the batteries. "She doesn't need to dry her nails that bad," he said. But on the way back, the once bright house decided to become one with the engulfing darkness from outside. "Whoah!" he shouted. Despite the stories he had told about living with power loss for hours on end, never had ever experienced a power loss during storm season. He accidentally dropped the batteries and stiffly knelt to pick them up. He desperately felt over the carpet, remembering he had a flashlight he could fix with the stolen batteries. He searched for ten minutes, to no avail.

He was about to go and try to feel along the wall in order to reach his room when suddenly the phone rang. But the phone shouldn't have worked. He could only use it before the storm started, since the town phone lines had become sensitive over the wet years of El Nino. A bolt of lightning hit the once dark hall. The cell phone that he had also borrowed last week from his sister, which he was sure was in his top drawer in his lock box was lying right in front of him along with the batteries. Before he could even shiver, the phone rang out as if commanding him to answer it. He slowly pressed "phone" on the button panel, and put it up to his ear. "Heh…hello?" his voice croaked. Click. Dial tone. They had hung up. The next bolt hit the barren land of the outside world, and he scrambled around the corner into the darkness of his room. He thought about the phone call. He pressed "phone" again as if he were calling someone. It was dead. Now he was worried. The call hadn't disturbed him very much, since the guys frequently pranked him. Usually, he would call *69 and prank them back. As he looked around the room, he noticed he could barely make out the eyes of the singer on his favorite rock poster. They looked even more evil than usual. Remembering the flashlight, he dug through his drawer and then his lock box. The flashlight needed batteries, which he replaced, but instead of its usual blinding light, all it produced was a dim, faint, yellow glow. "Oh, well" he sighed. Hey, it was something. He sat in the darkness and pondered what to do next. "Heehee, he, he!" a voice outside his door giggled.

"What the …." He got up and used the weak light to guide him into the eerie hall. Nothing. "Hee hee he, he, he." "What is going on?" Anger replaced fear in a heartbeat, and the part of him he was famous for took over. He ran down the stairs and searched the house all the while, calling, "Where are you?" Afterward, he felt better, until he remembered the basement. It was where the washer and dryer were, and served as a place for an occasional Halloween party. It fit the theme well. Still frustrated, he galloped down the stairs and stopped at the bottom. "Hee hee, hee, hee!" giggled the obscene creature. He recognized where it was coming from. It was inside the storage closet, a place where he had never gone near. It was musty, and huge. It was once supposedly used as a safe, but now was the place where his father kept his yard cleaning tools. Toby swallowed his fear and opened the door. "Hee, hee, he, he!!!" A little goblin creature hopped out.

It fit the exact same description his grandfather had once told him about when he was very young. "Never be bad. Never be foolish, boastful, or arrogant. Or, the budgees will get you." They were the one thing that truly frightened him. He knew he had been all of the things that budgees looked for in their victims. The budgee pulled him by the arm into the misty closet, and Toby only saw darkness for a long time.

When he awoke, he was at school at his desk in English class. The one class that all of his friends were in. Everyone was laughing at him. He soon found out that he had been drooling, screaming for help, and saying "Oh no, not the budgees!" Greg told him he was once sobbing and sucking his thumb. Never again was he Mr. Popularity. Now he was known as Budgeeboy. He became an outcast. So don't be bad, foolish, boastful, or arrogant, because the budgees have a way of getting every person, all in different ways.

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