Chapter Three
Bedtime Can’t Stop Me
As he lay in the dreaming stages of sleep, enshrouded in a warm nest of blankets and pillows, Neil murmured to himself. He murmured in quiet contentment, having achieved that singular happiness that occurs when one has put in a hard day, and has lain down to their well earned prize – a night of sound sleep, to refresh and rejuvenate.
And Neil had indeed put in a hard day, which was the norm for him. It had consisted of school, baseball practice, dinner with the family, homework, and (last, but not least) a couple of rounds of online Virtual Baseball with his friends.
Neil’s pupils moved slightly against the closed lids of his eyes. “Hem-nem-nem,” he muttered to himself, smacking his lips with slumber-filled contentment. “Hem-nem-nem.”
It was a magnificent feeling, to drop into sleep in the comfort of one’s own bed. But as Neil descended into that land of dreams and nocturnal machinations of the mind, there came a mild disturbance that troubled his slumber.
Rap, so it sounded, against the walls of his mind. Rap… rap… rap!
Slowly, blinking and rubbing at his eyes, Neil rose from his pillow. A gargantuan yawn was loosed from his mouth, and he murmured in the confusion that often accompanies an arousal from sleep.
He looked about, searching for whatsoever had taken him from his slumber. For the most part, his bedroom remained in darkness, but for the streaks of moonlight that penetrated the window, casting a slight, orange-yellow illumination upon the walls and floor.
Rap!
The sound came again. Shaking his head from side to side, Neil looked to the source of the noise. It came from his bedroom window – a sharp, clear sound against the stillness of the night.
Rubbing his fists against his eyes, Neil pulled himself from his bed, still half-asleep. He briefly became entangled in his sheets, but was able to break free from them after stumbling about for a bit. Neil’s feet remained unresponsive to mental inputs for the time being, and he staggered across his bedroom until he reached the window.
It was then, while his face was only inches from the clear pane of glass, that the sharp sound issued once more. Rap!
Flinching, Neil lurched backward, away from the window. Gradually, his mind was clearing from the cobwebs of sleep, and he slowly came to comprehend that the noise he had heard was in fact a small stone, colliding against the glass.
“What the…?” he murmured, as he unlocked the window and opened it up. He stuck his sleep-befuddled head outside and hollered, “Hey, whaddya doin’ to my window? Who’s out there? Is it the Cragglemeisters? You trying to bust up my window or somethin’?”
“Shhhhhh!” he heard a hushed voice call from below. “Neil, keep it down!”
“You tryin’ to break up my glass?” Neil shouted out the window, still confused and bewildered, from being roused from a sound sleep.
“Neil, it’s me!” came the hushed voice. “Keep it down! You’re going to wake up your parents!”
Rubbing his fisted hands against his eyes once again, Neil looked toward the voice that had spoken to him. Finally, his eyes locked upon Jack, and the happy (exhilarated would probably be more accurate) Labradoodle that stood beneath, one story below Neil’s window.
“Oh, hey, Jack!” Neil called, as he ran a hand through his mussed, sandy hair, and loosed a wide yawn. “Nibbler, what’s shaking?”
“Woof!” Nibbler answered, his tail wagging in unrestrained happiness. It made his wiggly rump shake from side to side. “Woof!”
Jack placed a calming hand on the dog’s back, and patted him reassuringly. “Okay, boy, let’s keep it down.” He turned his attention to the window. “Neil, would you try to lower your voice a bit? Aren’t your parents sleeping?”
Neil yawned, and blinked fuzzily at his visitors, as if just seeing them now. “Whoa! Hey, Jack! Thought I might be dreaming.”
“Shhhhh!” Jack whispered, with a finger pressed against his lips. “What are ya, nuts? Aren’t your parents asleep?”
“Oh, yeah,” Neil said, lowering his voice. “Good point. Well… I’m not used to being roused from my sleep in the middle of the night, you know? I don’t quite feel like myself at the moment… I’m sort of groggy.” He paused, and peered up at the moon. “Hey, what time is it, anyway? What’s going on around here?”
“Well, it’s just shy of midnight, since you ask,” Jack told him. “And believe me, I wouldn’t have woken you up, if it wasn’t super important.”
“What are you, kidding me?” Neil asked. “You know you can stop by any time, I don’t mind. I live for adventure,” he added, as he stifled a yawn. “Heck, the last time we were up at this time of night, we came face to face with a swamp beast, I don’t have to remind you.”
“Nope. I remember that very clearly,” Jack assured him. “That was one weird night.”
Neil shook his head from side to side, to dispel the cobwebs of sleep, and he was becoming more alert by the moment. The prospect of adventure was a powerful incentive, plenty strong enough to bring a ten-year-old boy to his senses at a time when he should have been fast asleep.
“What’s going on?” Neil asked. “Is there trouble afoot? Are the Cragglemeisters involved in foul play? Give me two shakes, and I’ll be ready to go!”
“Egads, Neil, keep it down!” Jack whispered. “No, there’s no sign of the Cragglemeister Brothers. It’s my uncle… Lefty. Something weird is going on at the manor. Well… weirder than usual, is what I mean to say. Something downright crazy!”
“Say no more,” Neil assured Jack. He had already drawn away from the window, and had begun throwing on what he might deem some “adventuring” clothes, which was a somewhat stark contrast to Jack’s pajamas, slippers, and bicycle helmet. “I’m on my way.”
He returned to the window, with only one shoe in place, and the other in hand. Neil launched himself into the maple tree that hugged the house, monkeying down it in short order.
His course was perhaps not the wisest one, in terms of logic and practicality. But it was one that held a great deal of credibility in the world of middle-graders… It was that of faith and friendship.
Neil landed upon the ground and hustled over to his friend, putting his second shoe on as he went. Nibbler greeted him with a wet snout, and Jack met him with a subdued (in an effort to reduce noise) high-five.
Jack grinned at the reassuring touch of immovable friendship. It was a thing that he had become quite familiar with in recent days, as the hardships had piled on, and then resiliently been shaken off.
“Okay, I’m ready,” Neil chortled. “Nothing so trivial as bedtime can stop me!”