The Night Crew

Night Crew

Jem could not sleep.

Not because of monsters. Not because of bad dreams. Because of the lights.

Orange lights. Flashing, blinking, glowing orange lights outside her window. They bloomed against her curtains like tiny trapped suns.

She pressed her nose to the glass. Down on the street, something big was happening.

A machine with a long neck was scooping up the road. Just — scooping it. Like a spoon in oatmeal. Chunks of black road piled up in a truck. Workers in bright yellow vests walked around with flashlights, and every flashlight made a little sword of light in the dark.

Jem's door creaked.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," Dad said. But he wasn't mad. He had his soft voice on. His slippers whispered across the floor.

"Dad. They're eating the road."

He sat on the edge of her bed and looked out the window with her. His chin rested on top of her head.

"That's the night crew," he said.

"What's a night crew?"

"People who fix things while everybody sleeps. They wait until the cars go home and the buses stop. Then they come out and do the big work."

Jem watched a worker wave a red flag. A truck backed up. Beep. Beep. Beep. She could hear it right through the glass.

"That one's the flagger," Dad said. "She tells the trucks where to go."

"She's the boss?"

"Yep. Nothing moves unless she says so."

The flagger held her flag down hard, and every single truck stopped. Just like that. Jem grinned.

Dad lifted Jem up so she could see better. Now she spotted something new — a huge roller, flat and heavy, pressing the ground smooth. It moved slow, slow, slow, like a giant rolling pin on cookie dough. Behind it, the road looked brand new. Dark and smooth and perfect.

"They broke it and now they're fixing it?" Jem asked.

"Sometimes you have to break a thing to make it better."

The roller kept going. Slow, slow, slow. Steam curled up into the streetlights like ghost ribbons.

"Aren't they tired?" Jem asked.

"Probably. Yeah. But they do it anyway."

"Why?"

Dad squeezed her. "So tomorrow morning, when you ride your bike, the road is smooth. So the school bus doesn't bump. They fix it at night so it's ready by morning. Nobody even knows they were here."

Jem thought about that. All those people down there. Working in the dark so the morning could be good.

She yawned. A big one. The kind that made her whole face stretch.

"Come on, construction kid," Dad said.

He tucked her back in. Pulled the blanket up to her chin. The orange lights still pulsed against her curtains, soft now, like a heartbeat.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Tomorrow can we ride bikes on the new road?"

"First thing."

He kissed her forehead. His slippers whispered back across the floor. The door clicked shut.

Jem turned toward the window. She could still hear it — beep, beep, beep — far away now, and the low rumble of the roller pressing everything smooth.

She pulled her stuffed rabbit close.

Outside, the flagger waved her flag. The trucks moved again. Steam rose and rose and disappeared into the night sky. And under all that noise, there was a hum — a big, warm hum of people doing good work in the dark.

Jem closed her eyes.

The orange lights blinked on and on and on.

And the road got ready for morning.