Chapter 4

The confusing episode at the mall added to Max's growing stress at monster hunting. Even though he hadn't had any more dangerously close encounters, it took more thought and preparation every night to capture the beasts. They were smarter than Max originally believed and not all the monsters would not behave consistently to light. So when Max renewed his nocturnal hunting habits, he approached them with the more focused purpose of not just capturing  to kill but also to study. Max was beginning to see that this whole monster hunting thing was going to mean a bigger commitment. He experienced firsthand what happens when you don't take the game seriously so he knew that to stay one step ahead of the competition he was going to have to do some homework. Unfortunately he didn't know where to find a handbook for hunting monsters, and after watching a few late night monster movies on TV when his mom was asleep, he was pretty sure Hollywood didn't know much about real monsters either. Whatever he was going to learn he was going to have teach himself through observation and experimentation.

Over the summer, he had been collecting terrariums and fish tanks of various sizes and shapes to be used as cells to temporarily house captured monsters until he could dispose of them. He would buy them at thrift stores, rummage and yard sales, or the occasional auction where, on the weekends, his mother would take him on "business trips" to find discarded treasures she could resell on line. Max was often given a few bucks to spend for helping carry some of the larger items and then later sorting them for storage in the garage until they could be sold. Evangeline didn't believe in giving children money for nothing as she always reminded Max that hard work yields rewards. He didn't like that at all until he started finding things that would help him catch monsters, an old flashlight here, a light up sword there,  but the real find was the butane torch and welding mask. Up to that point he had been using a grill lighter to melt the monsters down, which took forever. 

So with his growing trove of monster catching materials, Max set up a lab in the back corner of the basement full of glass and plastic cages flooded with light from various sources. He had cages lit up with everything from plug-in night-lights to desk lamps. His mother, curious about his newfound hobby was told that he was conducting science experiments. She accepted that grudgingly because as much as she liked him to have a hobby she wished it would involve making friends with other children and preferably out of doors. 

Once Max felt his little lab was ready he began to add specimens to his containers. It didn't take him long to collect what he thought was a representative sample of the type of monsters he had encountered so far. Two robots, one army action figure, a classic car, two dinosaurs(one brontosaurus and one T-Rex), and a clown. The clowns were always the nastiest. Not the biggest but most definitely the hardest to catch and the most likely to escape. This one had tried several times to inch it's way into a shadow before it was imprisoned in an illuminated glass box that previously housed fish. 

Max spent the last few days of summer vacation testing and experimenting on his captives. He was on the verge of a particularly monumental breakthrough with a magnifying glass and a prism when his mother interrupted him from the top of the basement stairs. 

"Max."

He ignored her while he moved the magnified spectrum across the T-rex's head. Evangeline came down into the basement.

"Max! Stop that right now. I need to talk to you." 

Max knew would have one more "Max" from his mom before she really got mad so he continued to study the effect of the light on the plastic toy shell in front of him. As the violet of the spectrum was passing over the dinosaur's eye it suddenly blinked. 

"Max!"

He spun around almost dropping his magnifying glass. 

"What?!"

His mother approached him sternly, "Max you haven't done your chores in two days and ... is that one of the crystals from the dinning room chandelier?"

Max knew he was busted but tried to quickly palm it anyway. He held out the magnifying glass for his mothers inspection and with a definite air of intellectual superiority answered,"No it's a magnifying glass." 

In retrospect, Max realized that was the wrong thing to say as he was ousted out of the basement and given more chores because according to his mother he obviously didn't have enough to do. But when his mother said the basement was now off limits for the rest of the day, that sent Max into a tirade which then elevated a heated situation to out of control. A few minutes later found Max confined to his room for the rest of the afternoon with no internet or basement for the whole week. Max lay on his bed contemplating if he should let a monster loose in mother's room to teach her a lesson.