THE SOMETHING

The Something Milo is afraid of is nothing his mother imagines — "She felt very bad about not being able to help him" — and after he shapes it from the clay she gives him to console herself, nothing she recognizes. In his next dream the Something doesn't daunt him, but he'll keep the statue "because he was the only one who knew what it was. And he doesn't want to forget too quickly." Milo is a furry, gawky anthropod, his mother rolls her hair in curlers, the Something is a very positive little gift who accuses him of invading her dreams — there are reverberations going and coming in this majestic mite of a story. And as approached through gray endpaper forest underscored with mysterious footprints, past the title page Milo clutching a candle in the dark, it's instantaneous combustion.