Eleven O'Clock

Oliver had been waiting for this night his whole entire life. Well, maybe not his whole entire life, but at least since Tuesday, which was when Jake had handed him the invitation at school and said, "Sleepover. Friday. My house. It's gonna be epic."

And now it was Friday, and Oliver was here, and it had been epic.

They'd eaten pizza with so much cheese it stretched from the plate all the way to your mouth like a cheese bridge. They'd played flashlight tag in the backyard until Jake's mom called them in. They'd built a blanket fort in the basement that was so big it used every single pillow in the house, even the fancy ones from the couch that Jake's mom said were "decorative" and "not for forts" — but then she let them use them anyway.

There were four boys in the blanket fort: Jake, Benji, Marco, and Oliver. They'd stayed up telling jokes and making weird sounds with their armpits until Jake's mom came down and said, "Boys. It is ten thirty. I am going to bed. Please do not burn down my house."

They laughed about that for a while. Then Benji fell asleep right in the middle of a sentence — just gone — like someone had pressed his off button. Marco lasted a little longer, but then he rolled over and started breathing slow and heavy. Jake whispered, "Oliver, you still awake?" and Oliver whispered back, "Yeah," but then Jake didn't say anything else, and Oliver realized he'd fallen asleep too.

And now it was eleven o'clock.

Oliver knew this because there was a clock on the wall across the basement with green glowing numbers, and it said 11:00, and Oliver was staring right at it.

The blanket fort didn't feel as cool anymore. It felt like a pile of blankets in someone else's basement. The pillow under Oliver's head wasn't his pillow. It smelled like someone else's laundry soap — not bad, just not his. And the house made sounds. Little creaks and ticks and hums that Oliver didn't know. At home, he knew every sound. The refrigerator clunked every twenty minutes. The hallway floor creaked by the bathroom. His dad snored, but only a little, and only in a way that made Oliver feel like everything was fine.

Here, everything was quiet in the wrong way.

Oliver pulled his sleeping bag up to his chin. Then up to his nose. Then all the way over his head, which made it too hot, so he pulled it back down to his chin again.

He thought about his bed. His real bed. With his blue blanket that was so soft it didn't even feel like a blanket anymore — it felt like a cloud that had been washed a hundred times. And Roxy, his stuffed fox, who was probably sitting on his pillow right now wondering where he was.

Oliver's throat got tight.

Don't be a baby, he told himself. You're at a sleepover. This is fun. This is epic.

11:04.

He closed his eyes. He opened them. He closed them again and tried to think about pizza and flashlight tag, but his brain kept sliding sideways to his house, his room, the way his mom always said, "Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite," and he always said, "Bedbugs aren't real," and she always said, "That's because I told them not to bite."

His eyes were stinging now.

He sat up, very slowly, very carefully. Benji was on his stomach with one arm hanging off his sleeping bag. Marco had somehow turned completely sideways. Jake was curled up like a shrimp.

None of them looked homesick. None of them looked like their throats were tight and their eyes were stinging and their stomachs felt like they'd swallowed something heavy.

Oliver crawled out of the blanket fort. The basement carpet was scratchy under his knees. He found his backpack in the corner and unzipped it very, very quietly and pulled out the thing he'd packed at the very bottom, under his toothbrush and his extra socks.

It was Roxy.

He'd put her in the backpack at the last second, when his mom wasn't looking, because he thought maybe he might want her — but also because bringing a stuffed animal to a sleepover was the kind of thing people might laugh about. He'd buried her deep so no one would see.

Oliver held Roxy and sat on the carpet in Jake's basement and felt a tear roll down one cheek. Just one. Okay, two.

He wiped them on Roxy's ear, which is what he always did, even though he would never admit that to anyone in the entire universe.

He looked at the stairs. He could go up. He could find Jake's mom and ask to call his parents. His mom had said, "If you want to come home, any time, even if it's late, you just call. No questions asked." His dad had said the same thing, except his dad had also added, "But I bet you're going to have a blast."

Oliver looked at the stairs for a long time.

Then he looked at the blanket fort.

Then at the clock.

11:11.

His mom had a thing about 11:11. She always said you could make a wish at 11:11. Oliver usually wished for things like a skateboard or a dog or the ability to fly. But right now, sitting on scratchy carpet with a stuffed fox, he didn't wish for any of that.

He just held Roxy and breathed.

And a funny thing happened. Not funny ha-ha — funny strange. The tight feeling in his throat loosened. Just a little. Like a knot that someone had tugged on gently. He could still feel it, but it wasn't getting bigger anymore.

He looked around the basement. There was Jake's bookshelf with all his comics. There was the beanbag chair they'd fought over earlier. There was the spot on the carpet where Marco had spilled root beer and they'd all tried to clean it up before Jake's mom saw — which didn't work at all, because she saw it immediately.

Oliver almost smiled.

He crawled back into the blanket fort with Roxy tucked inside his sleeping bag where nobody could see. He put his head on the pillow that smelled like someone else's laundry soap. He pulled the sleeping bag up to his chin.

The house still made its strange sounds. The creak of something upstairs. A far-off hum that might have been the heater. Jake breathing out in little puffs.

Oliver listened.

And after a while, the sounds weren't so strange. They were just… this house's sounds. Different from his house's sounds, but not bad. Just different. Like how Jake's pizza had been different from the pizza Oliver's dad made, but still good. Maybe even a little better — but he would never tell his dad that.

Roxy's fur was warm against his arm.

11:19.

Oliver yawned. It was a big one, the kind that stretched his whole face and made his eyes water — but the good kind of watering, not the crying kind.

He thought about tomorrow morning. Jake's mom had said she'd make pancakes. Benji had said he could eat fourteen pancakes, and Marco had said, "That's disgusting," and Benji had said, "You're disgusting," and Jake had said, "You're both disgusting," and then they'd all laughed until their stomachs hurt.

Oliver wanted to be there for those pancakes.

He closed his eyes. The basement was dark and warm and full of the sounds of his friends sleeping. Roxy was right there. And his house was only eight blocks away — he knew because they'd counted the blocks on the drive over. His mom was probably asleep in her bed, and his dad was probably snoring, just a little, and his blue blanket was waiting for him on his pillow.

Everything he loved was right where he'd left it. It would all be there tomorrow.

But right now, he was here.

11:23.

Oliver slept.