The Sock Monster by Headline Books / Zoom Into Books

Ever wonder where all the missing in action, lonely socks go? Your mother surely does and sometimes even blames you in the messiness of surviving this crazy life that can feel like you are lost in a pile of clean and dirty laundry. Next time, tell her to just blame it all on the Sock Monster!!! Who is he? Maggie, (aka Magz) a custom made, American survivor kinda kid is as curious as you and I, and decides to take down the so called Sock Monsters of her world once and for all. Join her along with the friends we call family in the everyday battle of socking it to all the Monsters we face. The Sock Monster Nathanael Stump

Nathanael Stump is a full-energy edutainer! This used to be quiet, but Renegade Reverend’s kid found his true voice in the story of life. He has leaped into everything, from being an elementary teacher to tree cutter and equipment operator, author, single father, motorcycle rider, but most proudly, a United States Air Force Airmen. He resides in Pennsylvania and loves this country, its children, and the power of possibility in education, allowing us to be anything we want to be.

Nathanael Stump illustrated by Ava Rose

Make a Sock Puppet Materials

1 pair of colorful socks Hot Glue Gun Googly eyes Pom Pom Balls

Felt Cardboard Scissors

Instructions

1. Cut cardboard circle that will fit in your sock for the mouth and fold in half. 2. Trace the circle twice onto your piece of felt, cut out, and glue to both sides of the cardboard. 3. Cut the toe off the end of your sock, roll the edges around the felt covered cardboard, and hot glue in place to make your mouth. 4. Hot glue googly eyes to 2 pom pom balls and glue above mouth for eyes. 5. For back spines, cut two long strips of felt and hot glue half of it together, leaving two flaps. 6. Separate flaps and hot glue to back of the sock. 7. Decorate as you like! Add extra pom pom balls and a felt bow tie. Be creative!

Nathanael Stump illustrated by Ava Rose

The Sock Monster… The Day Maggie Socketed it to the Sock Monster by Nathanael Stump illustrated by Ava Rose ©2025 Nathanael Stump All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any other form or for any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage system, without written permission from Headline Books, Inc. To order additional copies of this book or for book publishing information, or to contact the author: Headline Books, Inc. P. O. Box 52 Terra Alta, WV 26764 www.headlinebooks.com mybook@headlinebooks.com Headline Kids is an imprint of Headline Books, Inc. ISBN: 9781958914564 Library of Congress Control Number: 2024945977

P R I N T E D I N T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S O F A M E R I C A

This book is dedicated to hardworking moms out there and especially, my mother, Kathy Stump. She did more than I ever knew behind the scenes, giving so much, so we never knew our family was part of the just making it middle class.

Acknowledgments I’d like to thank my niece and illustrator, Ava Rose for giving me reasons to create again, my sister, Robin, who encouraged me at life‘s hardest moments to keep going and describe the beautiful crazy pictures that we take along the way. To my godfather, Donnie Ward, who introduced me to his adventurous granddaughter Maggie and her American made, GI JOE mom. To my true brothers and sisters in the Armed Forces keeping kids safe at home when they head out to play or open a book to read at the end of the day.

Maggie’s mommy, Sergeant (Sgt.) Chey, worked hard each and every long day for the Army. Every day, except for Sunday Funday, she actually got to rest, relax, and wash all of Maggie’s fancy socks. But Sunday Funday was over now. It was a busy Monday morning, and Maggie’s mom, Sgt. Chey, frantically was running through the kitchen, her bedroom, the basement, both bathrooms, and all the rooms of the house, screaming out loud, “Where is my stupid sock?” Maggie looked worriedly, uncertainly, hurriedly, Army crawling to and fro through her bedroom, the laundry room, even deep inside the smelly hamper and the busy bathroom closet. There sure was a lot of stuff in a girlsonly bathroom closet, but there definitely wasn’t any sign of her mom‘s favorite green army sock.

Little Fird grader Maggie (as she unknowingly pronounced her TH’s with a F sound) crawled under her bed looking for that missing in action, green Army sock. She used to be afraid of the Bed Monster when she was little, but one night, Mommy‘s new boy-friend, Flyguy, who was in the Air Force led her in a simple prayer as he tucked her in bed, “Magz, let’s pray that the bed monster goes away in Jesus name...Amen!!!” They shouted the “Amen!!!” part of the bedtime prayer regularly now, which made mommy giggle from her bubble baths behind her private “Mom only” bathroom door. Therefore, Maggie didn’t even wince; she didn’t even tremble and wasn’t even scared for a second crawling under the bed at eight years of age. Maggie didn’t even hesitate once and for all to look under her bed for the missing army-issued sock. But where in the world could a single green sock go?

Maggie’s mommy, Sgt. Chey, was clattering pans in the kitchen, trying to make Maggie one more little ounce of nutritious scrambled egg before they left to get to school in their red Mustang. She sat down at the kitchen island counter on a bar stool with one sock on and sighed, “Well, I guess we will chalk that sock up to the Sock Monster who stole my sock.” Maggie went on full alert and started overanalyzing everything. Mom looked so sleepy, so tired, so exhausted. But to Maggie, when she looked deep into her mommy’s Army green eyes, she thought, my mom is so, so pretty, my Mommy is so successful, my mommy works so hard for me! So I’m gonna sock it to that sock-stealing monster, whoever it is, and find that missing sock! Because the real question in all of our minds, kids and grownup kids, and even man-child’s like mommy’s boyfriend, Flyguy is, Where do all the socks go? Where do they disappear

to anyhow when Mom, Dad, or Ex daddy or Grandma, Nan or Pap, or even brothers and sisters help do the laundry? Maggie and Flyguy collaborated on the deep thought that folding socks was a complete and utter waste of time. Mom and Mommy‘s Air Force boy-friend Flyguy said they used to have to roll their socks in tight little, neat, OCD circles back when they went to Army and Air Force basic training schools. Maggie thought one day she might just go to Army basic training too and be an officer,possibly a warrant officer, looking for the socksnatching monster, to search him down and sock it to him. Maybe the sock monster was a girl monster? Who knows, but these are the kinds of curious things Maggies think about when they’re third graders figuring out the wonders of the world.

Mom yelled gently to her one and only daughter, “Maggie dear, pretty please, don’t forget to put on both of your matching favorite fancy pantsy socks. I want you to look pretty for school today.” Sometimes, her mom still baby-talked to her, but Maggie didn’t really mind. Maggie surely wouldn’t forget to put on her too-cool-for-school, customized, silly socks along with her camouflage coat. The combination was her future style fashion statement. The camo, Army green coat she wore every day was Velcroed with her stitched last name tag. It read word for word, Ward. One gloomy grey kind of day, a pudgy and slightly smelly, annoying boy at school asked, “Just how did you get the name Ward anyway? What is that, like a Wart?”

Maggie didn’t know where last names came from. So she proudly bragged out loud, “That’s what my mom said my dad‘s name was anyways and then he up and left me and my mommy. So mind your own business or I’ll sock it to ya sucker!!!” She put her Dukes up in the air at the annoying boy that grey day. Flyboy called Dukes his guns. He explained while showing “Magz” as he called her, how to stand poised with a right hand arm gun ready, and a left hand arm gun set to go, the one he and Maggie both were. It was also called being uneven and oddly south-pawed, according to Pap. Maggie May, as Pap called her, stored up all her mighty princess warrior strength and aimed its energy at the present sock monster mission. “I’m gonna just sock it to ‘em all,” Maggie thought to herself.

That day at school lunch, Maggie opened up her metal green canteen-looking lunchbox and saw a nicely written, neat note from her mother. Sgt. Chey was working that very same moment over at the little army base across town. The Army green crumpled up post it note read, “Maggie, I love you for you. I love you even more than peanut butter and jelly and especially more than chocolate milkshakes! I love you EVEN more than socks, mister sister! Love ya!! Love AlwAys, Mommy.” Mommy always signed her little love letters with the army A symbol in the word always, the first A and the middle A.

Later, at recess, Maggie started to masterfully plan exactly how she was going to go to war with the stupid sock monster when she got home and headed down to the battlefront. She hurried up and waited. Maggie was not too good at being patient, but who is? What felt like much, MUCH later that afternoon, shortly after school pickup, Maggie went down into the basement of their house and studied her Sock Monster suspect from the bottom step. She stared him down with Air Force Blue and Army Green Eyes. Her eyes mysteriously switched colors with whatever shirt she wore. They were a little like Flyguy’s eyes, and he said the Chair Force taught him that the greenish, Gatorade-bluish color, as Maggie described them, was a big wordsmith coloring book word for Hazel.

Little Magz could hear one of Pap’s favorite classic rock songs, Sister Christian, playing in the background over the basement old FM radio. Pap, who put the radio down there, said it was a good song about little sisters choosing Mr. Right and not Mr. Wrong. And something or another about taking the right flight tonight. It sounded like an Air Force song about Flyguy for all Maggie knew. Magz looked down at the Sock Monster with super serious, red, Warrior Eyes. The enemy machine was commonly known as Mr. Dryer. Mr D-minus if we were to give him a grade for quietness, because he made very loud noises. He cost Mommy a whole lotta electricity and money, she said. Mom‘s new Air Force boy-friend Flyguy asked Maggie one day, “Magz, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Sock Monster dude, Mr. Dryer guy, would fold our laundry for us so we didn’t have to press all your mother’s socks and pretty little shirts perfectly and place them in her OCD organized dresser drawers?” Maggie sure thought her Mom‘s Air Force boyfriend Flyguy was super-duper, trooper special. She called him Flyboy sometimes as her own Special Forces pet name for him. He said she was like an M-18 magazine, but she didn’t know what that could really mean. She just smiled and danced away in her socks with holes in her heels. 15

There Maggie stood in the basement, staring, seething, breathing heavily at the sock monster, Mr. Dryer. Mom said Mr. Dryer was married to Mrs. Washer, who stood at Mr. Sock Monster’s side. Maggie daydreamed it would be wonderful if one day her mommy would marry Mr. Air Force, Flyguy, and they too would stand, or sit, but just simply, always be together, side by side,like the white looking washer and the stainless steel dryer, permanently set there with the permanent press buttons. Maggie looked and searched over every last shelf in the basement. She opened her mom‘s perfectly organized storage containers and turned them into unorganized messy piles. Finally, after searching high and low, to and fro, above and below, she found her mommy’s old black socket set. It was originally Pap’s socket set and Pap had said, “One day Maggie May, I’ll teach you how to sock it righty tighty and lefty loosey with these here sockets.” But Maggie had spent quality time watching Pap down in the basement working on little puttering around projects, fixing things for her mommy while singing classic rock songs out loud like, Wake up Maggie by Rod Stewart.

So today, she decided to use the socket wrench to socket to the sock monster once and for all and find Mommy’s missing sock, the green Army one. Maggie turned up the music on her iPad with black, undercover air pods. Her favorite song came over the Bluetooth speakers in her little ears. The song on her playlist was a super serious song for dissecting the sock monster. Johnny Cash’s hit, One Piece at a Time, blared over the speakers in her ear. “I got it one piece at a time, and it didn’t cost me a dime.” Little Maggie had taken the dryer lid halfway off and was working her way into the sock monster’s belly. She stopped and grabbed a cool colorful American flag beach towel and wrapped it around her neck like a cape. Mother yelled from upstairs like a Sgt., “Maggie May, what on earth are you doing down there in the basement? What is all that racket?” Maggie had just been thinking about taking Mom’s boyfriend’s tennis racket and racketing it to the Sock Monster, but decided not to with Mommy spying on her at the moment from the top of the stairs.

Maggie responded innocently to her mother, “Nothing, Mommy, just folding some socks down here.” Maggie went back to work and she began to take apart the Sock Monster. She used her Pap’s headlamp to see the nuts and bolts she was currently twisting, turning, grunting, and fighting. She tugged her American towel cape tightly around her neck. Maggie sang to herself her own little cadence, “Socket to the,socket to the, socket to the… Sock Monster!!!” She sang it again and again, but each time a little faster and louder, crescendoing at the word “sock.” By the time Maggie’s mom turned on the lights, the Sock Monster was destroyed. With body parts laying everywhere, Sock Monster raised the white flag and surrendered the missing sock.

Maggie’s mommy stood behind her daughter in disbelief and yelled like a drill Sgt, “Maggie May Ward!!!!!! What in the name of Uncle Sam have you done to my dryer? ” Maggie May Ward said with cool confidence, “Don’t worry Mom, I just had to sock it to the sock monster so he’d spit up your sock.” Right then and there she handed her mommy over her weapons…a socket wrench, her cape, her airpods and cell phone. But just when hope seemed gone, Maggie handed her Mommy a freshly Gain-smelling clean, but slightly linted up green army sock. She stated proudly, “Mommy, I socketed it to the Sock Monster, and I found your sock deep inside the Sock Monster’s tail.” “Where on earth did you find this sock, Maggie?” questioned Maggie’s mommy. “Well, Mommy,” she whispered. “Actually, it was in the tail of the monster, the silver shiny tail that goes outside our house.”

Maggie’s mommy looked in shock and awe, and then she realized her favorite green army sock had traveled through the dryer and out the dryer vent. Judging by the amount of lint all over Maggie’s Army green camouflage coat, the sock had been lying deep inside the sock monster’s tail for months. Maggie’s mother picked her one and only daughter up and placed her firmly on top of Mr. Dryer’s broken lid. He was in several dismantled and defeated pieces. Sgt. Chey fired like an Air Force Military Training Leader (MTL), “Maggie, put your arms up in the air and repeat after me. I will never, ever take apart any of my mom’s appliances again!” Maggie looked a little disappointed and made no eye contact with her big blue and green, hazel, clear, tear-clouded eyes. But out of nowhere, Mommy gave little Magz a warm dryer sheet hug. “Now,” Mommy said. “Repeat after me this cadence. One team. One fight. I socked it to the sock monster tonight.” Maggie May shouted it over and over again with delight. They squealed it going up the stairs to celebrate the victory.

That evening at dinner, Mommy’s Air Force boyfriend, Flyguy, came over, hand-delivering a pizza on his motorcycle. Out of his camouflage backpack came a cologne-smelling candle for atmosphere points, a sixpack for him and Mommy, and, unbelievably, a chocolate milkshake just for his Magz. They told Flyguy the entire story about the sinister Sock Monster. Maggie looked in comical disbelief when she detected Mommy’s boyfriend was using the green, Army rescued sock as a fancy napkin hanging from his neck. He came to full attention as her hazel eyes matched his for this unforgettable happy meal moment. Flyguy smiled so proudly at his little Mag protégé and said, “Magazine, you are a true American hero, princess warrior, Sock Monster soldier!!! And I love you so, so much for how much you love your mommy.” Mommy gasped in disbelief, “Are you actually using my special green army sock as a fancy napkin, Soldier?” Flyboy fell out of his seat laughing in man-child, gutwrenching hurt so good pain. Maggie giggled hysterically and almost spit up some milkshake.

Down somewhere in the not-so-scary basement, the Sock Monster slightly burped on a socket. The beginning of the never, ever ending, missing sock saga.

Find the tools! Look through the book and see if you can find the tools scattered throughout the story!

Pliers Spatula

(or emergency ice scraper)

Ruler Socket Wrench Set

Hammer Screwdriver

Drill Wrench 24

Make a Sock Puppet Materials

1 pair of colorful socks Hot Glue Gun Googly eyes Pom Pom Balls

Felt Cardboard Scissors

Instructions

Nathanael Stump illustrated by Ava Rose