Tre stays awake when the city goes to sleep.
He’s friends with the animals guarding our streets.
The furries and featheries that people call pests.
Tre knows the truth, so he heads to the Nest.
He climbs to the tippy-tip-top of the tallest of towers.
His friends are waiting, so he jumps on and feels the wind and its power.
Every night the nighttime guards gather in a big secret meeting.
Street cats and stray dogs. Rats. Raccoons. Even some geeseling.
The Nest is aflutter with our guardian friends
Planning and plotting their hows and their whens.
See, they’re all on a mission to keep our town safe from monsters.
From the subway to the rooftops, they’re on guard while we slumber.
Each one knows his duty, to watch and protect,
And to make sure that the people never ever suspect.
Except our brave Tre, who stands side by side
With the animals as they nightly arise.
Tonight, Tre rides with the pigeons to the Main Street bridge.
Raised ears hear rumblings in the water, in the gutter, and over the ridge.
At first Tre feels scared and thinks of the monster under his bed.
But with pigeons so calm and courageous, he knows there’s nothing to fret.
Fifty tangled tentacles appear from the river below.
The dogs bark, the rats squeak, and the pigeons dive right at his nose.
For the monster in the park, the cats tie tails like furry jump ropes.
And trip up the brute, so he rolls down the slope.
As for monsters in manholes, the geese and gulls time their attack.
Tre joins in, dropping pebbles to make the monsters go back.
When monsters crawl from the shadows, the guardians arise.
The bats and the pigeons flap wings in their eyes.
At the monster who grumbles like he needs to be fed
Tre holds his nose as the owls rain poop on his head.
Then stands a monster, a giant, a beast
In the heart of City Square, gnashing his teeth.
The stray dogs join with the foxes, the raccoons with the cats
And with the birds overhead, they head toward the monster and never look back.
Tre holds his breath at the stillness before the roar
Atop his pigeon friend, he joins the charge as they soar.
The animals bolt in, dash, fly, and creep
Some cloud around the monster’s eyes, some nip at his toes.
The monster rages and whirs, a wild night dance
Tre and the animals have made a strong stand.
And with a peck and a flap, a scratch and a bark
The monster falls back, back, back into the dark.
Every monster is his by the time the morning sun dawns.
Our protectors honk, meow, caw, flap, coo, and clap all their paws.
Another night passes and the people never know.
Monsters lurk just out of view, defeated in an unlikely show.
But Tre knows who fends off the monsters–and it isn’t the men.
Join him and his friends tomorrow night as they do it again.
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