Ginger first heard the feet just after bedtime. She had pulled the covers up to her chin and was almost asleep when something went tap, tap, shuffle, tap across the floor. Her eyes opened, and she listened. Nothing. She closed her eyes again, but a moment later came tap, tap, tap, shuffle, shuffle, bump.

This time Ginger sat straight up. Something was definitely walking around her room. She looked beside the bed, toward the closet, and over at the window where the curtains moved softly in the night breeze. Everything looked exactly as it should.

Then came another sound. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. That was much too much tapping for one ordinary creature.

Ginger slipped out of bed and stood very still. The tapping stopped. She took one step and heard a single tap. She took another, and this time there were two. Tap tap. Ginger frowned. “Whoever you are, you have too many feet.”

From underneath her dresser came a tiny voice. “I know.”

Ginger froze. A round blue nose appeared first, followed by two enormous green eyes and a pair of fuzzy ears. Then came the feet. And the feet. And more feet.

The creature squeezed itself out from beneath the dresser until Ginger could see all of it. It was about as tall as her pillow, covered in soft orange fur, with a fat little belly and a tail that curled like a question mark. But underneath its belly were feet. Lots of them.

Ginger began counting. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…”

The monster shifted nervously. “Please don’t count them.”

“Nine, ten, eleven…”

“I really wish you wouldn’t.”

Ginger kept going until she reached eighteen. She stared at the monster, and the monster stared back. “Eighteen feet?”

“Usually,” it said.

“What do you mean, usually?”

“One of them falls asleep sometimes.”

Ginger looked down. Sure enough, one tiny foot was hanging sideways while the other seventeen shuffled around it. She pointed toward the dresser. “What are you doing in my room?

“Hiding.”

“From what?”

The monster lowered its voice. “Stairs.”

Ginger blinked. “Stairs?”

The monster nodded sadly. “You try going down stairs with eighteen feet. By the time foot number twelve knows what foot number three is doing, feet fourteen through eighteen have already made terrible decisions.”

Ginger tried not to laugh, but she failed. The monster frowned and told her it wasn’t funny. Ginger apologized, although she was still smiling, and asked what had happened.

“I fell down three steps, turned around twice, landed upside down, and somehow kicked myself in the nose.”

That made Ginger laugh even harder. The monster folded several of its feet indignantly and asked if she thought she could do better. “With two feet? Yes,” Ginger said.

“That hardly seems fair.”

Ginger sat on the floor beside it. Up close, she noticed that none of the monster’s feet matched. Some were long and skinny, while others were short and round. Two had purple toenails. One was furry all the way to the toes, and another looked suspiciously like it was wearing a sock.

“Why do you have eighteen feet?” Ginger asked.

“I was born this way.”

“Are all monsters like you?”

“No. My brother has six,” the monster said. When Ginger remarked that six sounded easier, the monster rolled its enormous green eyes. “He brags about it constantly.”

The monster tried to stand. Immediately, foot seven stepped on foot eight, foot eleven went backward, and feet sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen headed toward the closet while the rest of the monster went toward the bed. Down it went with a soft flump.

Ginger covered her mouth. The monster looked up at her suspiciously. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to laugh.”

“I was not.”

“You were.”

Ginger’s cheeks puffed as she tried desperately to hold it in. The monster narrowed its enormous green eyes, and that was all it took. Ginger burst out laughing.

For a moment the monster looked offended. Then it began to giggle too. Soon it was laughing so hard that all eighteen feet kicked in different directions. One knocked over Ginger’s slipper, another kicked a sock beneath the bed, and three somehow became tangled in the blanket. Ginger whispered for it to stop before it woke everybody up, which only made both of them laugh harder.

When they finally quieted down, Ginger had an idea. “What if you stopped trying to tell every foot what to do?”

The monster blinked. “Then what would I do?”

“Pick two. Just two feet, and think about those.”

The monster looked doubtful, but after studying its many feet for a while, it chose foot four and foot thirteen. It stood carefully. Foot four moved, then foot thirteen. Somehow, the other sixteen seemed to follow along without being asked.

The monster took one step, then another, and then another. Its green eyes grew enormous. “I’m walking!”

“You were walking before,” Ginger reminded it.

“Yes, but now I’m walking in the same direction!”

Around Ginger’s room it went, slowly at first and then a little faster. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. It circled the bed, marched past the dresser, and even managed to turn around without falling.

Then it got excited.

That was the mistake.

All eighteen feet tried to run at once. The monster shot across the room, bounced off Ginger’s pillow, spun through the curtains, tripped over absolutely nothing, and disappeared beneath the bed with a tremendous WHUMP.

For a moment there was silence. Ginger dropped to her knees and looked underneath the bed, where two green eyes blinked at her from the darkness. “Too fast?” she asked.

“Much.”

Ginger reached underneath and helped pull the monster out. “You can stay here tonight,” she whispered, “but no more running.”

The monster climbed carefully onto the rug beside her bed and curled itself into a fuzzy orange ball, with eighteen little feet sticking out in every direction. Ginger climbed beneath her covers, wished it good night, and closed her eyes. Soon the room was quiet again.

Then she heard it.

Tap.

Ginger opened one eye. The monster looked up at her apologetically. “Sorry. Foot eleven has hiccups.”

Tap.

Ginger pulled the blanket over her head. “Tell foot eleven to go to sleep.”

“I did.”

Tap.

“And?”

The monster sighed. “It says no.”