By Mercer Mayer
A boy sets out to face the nightmare that lives in his closet, shoots it with his toy gun, and ends up comforting it when it bursts into tears.
There's a nightmare in the closet, and the boy has a system: get into bed fast, keep the door shut tight, and never look. Tonight he's had enough. He puts on his army helmet, loads his pop gun, and sits with his back to the closet, waiting. The door creaks open. The nightmare tiptoes out, a big pot-bellied thing with a mouth full of teeth, and walks right up to the bed. The boy spins around and shoots it. And the nightmare bursts into tears. Loud ones. He has to shush it before it wakes his parents, and then, with nothing else to be done, he tucks it into his own bed and climbs in beside it. They fall asleep together. The last picture shows the closet door open a crack, and a second nightmare peeking out.
The trick here is an old and good one: the nightmare turns out to be more frightened than the boy. A child who's spent bedtimes wondering what's behind the closet door may get a lot out of watching that exact thing shuffle out and promptly fall to pieces. It's a crybaby who needs tucking in. The reversal is funny, and for a lot of children funny does what a calm 'there's nothing there' can't. Mayer draws the nightmare pot-bellied and a little ridiculous, so even at its biggest it looks like something you could send to bed without supper.