School Night
School Night is a reflection on one of many childhood memories, cut all too short by the impending school night.
I couldn’t wait to show Greg my new dagger. I spent all day carving the stick into a point. It had a perfect handle, with a hole above and below for magic stones, and two spikes at the base of the handle, perfect for punching if monsters got too close. I couldn’t wait to use it tonight, when we would run around and fight all sorts of orcs and goblins and trolls. Last night we were stuck in a whiskey cellar, and we were surrounded by hundreds of goblins. We had to find out how to get out. We died twice, and Greg was getting ready to give up on us and go home.
“No! No! Give us a hint!” we pleaded. He told us that we were in a whiskey cellar, and that we were surrounded by hundreds of bottles of flammable liquids.
“Oh, I know” Jimmy said, “Lets light them on fire and throw them at the monsters!”
“Yeah” I agreed. So we stuffed rags in the imaginary bottles, soaked them with the liquid, and then lit them on fire. Greg told us that the bottles exploded, and we all caught on fire and died. Jimmy and I ran around trying to put the fire out, but Greg told us it was too late and we’d have to start over.
“Please, let us try again!” I begged. Finally we tried it again, this time using dry rags. It worked great! All the monsters exploded and we were able to run out to our trusty steeds (which the goblins couldn’t find since we’d hidden them under invisible blankets) and take off over the open asphalt.
“We did it,” Jimmy and I yelled “We stopped the goblin army!” But Greg told us they were just scouts, and that the explosions were seen a mile away. Now the entire goblin horde was chasing after us, as we were burning rubber towards the huge forest. We had to climb into the trees and walk from branch to branch to keep them from following our foot prints in the snow, as we made our way across the forest towards the Tower of Doom. We had to find the old wizard that was kept captive there and free him to learn how to stop the orc shamans from waking the dead armies. When we got to the tower, there was a maze of bushes.
“No, this is like Alice in wonderland” said Jimmy, “that’s stupid.” Greg told us that when we looked closer we could see the shrubs were slowly moving, and that they had red thorns that looked poisonous. He said that it’s possible that someone who got lost in the maze would soon find out that their doorway in had relocated, and might get stuck between two of the walls as they moved closer and joined into one wall.
“Cool!” we both shouted. We started fighting about which way to go through the imaginary maze, but we heard a loud whistle.
“Noo! 5 more minutes!” Jimmy shouted as he sulked down the street towards home. We had spent the entire evening fighting off the goblin scouts, running from their armies, hiding in the trees and were about to dodge poisonous moving bushes, but Jimmy had to go home and finish his home work. Greg and I stood there, and I imagined what monsters we’d fight in the maze, and how we’d have to keep moving so the thorny bushes didn’t cover us. Then mom told me it was time to come in.
“No!” I pleaded, “We’re just about to break into the Tower of Doom!”
“I have to go home too” Greg said, and then he headed down the street to his house, through the flaming fireballs, past the goblin armies and beyond the unending forest.
“Mom, we had to climb into the trees so the goblins couldn’t see our footprints in the snow, and had to hike across the branches so they couldn’t find us. We just got to the Tower of Doom to save the old wizard who could tell us how to stop the dead armies, but we had to go inside first. Can I stay out later tomorrow?”
“No, James. Tomorrow’s a school night.”
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