The Best Night Ever

Friday was, by far, Mallie Owens’ favorite day of school, not because it was the last day before the weekend, but because it was show and tell day. This week she did not bring a toy or an art project she worked on all year, this time she came armed with something even better. This time she would be sharing a story.

“Alright we have time for two more volunteers today,” Mr. Lopez, their teacher said, looking tense after Kyle Jackson managed to sneak in his brother’s lizard and hide it until his turn to share. Personally, Mallie found it to be quite entertaining.

Mallie’s arm shot into the air, she was practically standing up, she was straining so hard. This was the second to last Friday of school, a chance to share such an epic tale would probably never come again. Mr. Lopez’s eyes finally landed on her, and with a sigh, he called out her name. Her eyes lit up, skipping with joy, she made her way past the seated kids to the share chair, a throne like chair with red fabric and golden finishes. It made Mallie feel quite official to be sitting in it.

“What did you bring to share with us today Mallie?”

“Today I brought something better than a toy, or even a lizard,” She paused briefly for laughter, “I brought the story of the best night of my entire life.”

“That sounds like quite the story-”

“It all happened last weekend, on Saturday night when the power went out in my neighborhood…

Mom had just gotten back from work and was already back to working in her office, and dad was running around after the triplets and trying to get dinner started at the same time. Abby and I had just sat down to watch our favorite TV show, Say Yes to the Dress, when all of the sudden the lights went off and the show paused on a really pretty dress and just shut off. 

I looked around, confused, the sun was still setting outside, and there weren’t any rain clouds in sight. Then, following a crash upstairs, Mom came out into the living room, her bun falling out in the back and her button up shirt was untucked from her skirt.

“Hey girls, where’s your dad?”

“He’s upstairs,” Abby said, “Mom, what happened?”

Abby just turned thirteen and knew a lot more about how things work than I do. She even dyed some of her hair pink, it looks really cool, anyway.

“Probably just a fuse, why don’t you go play outside,” Mom said and disappeared up the stairs.

Outside, I kicked around an old ball that our dog used to chase around. Abby had her hands on her hips as she looked around the yard, the shed, the pole barn, and long neglected tire swing. I couldn’t figure out what she was looking at, even standing next to her with my hands on my hips I couldn’t.

“We should have a campout,” She said.

I wrinkled my nose, I hate sleeping outside. All the bugs and creepy crawlies… ew! “Why?”

“The power’s out, why not? We could put up the old tent.”

“But what about coyotes, or bears, or wolves?!” I shuddered at the thought.

She just sighed, “Come on Mallie.”

Abby led me out to the shed with chipping red paint and a few shingles falling off. Usually it’s on my list of things to avoid, especially after Arthur scratched his arm on a nail. She yanked the door open, and let out a few moths, I stood directly behind her. She dug around for a few minutes before she handed me a few two pronged sticks.

“S’mores?” I asked hopefully.

“What do you think camping is? Here, let’s go set up the tent.”

Abby came out of the shed with a big orange bag that didn’t quite zip all the way. She dropped it in the middle of the yard and pulled what looked like a really big deflated bag out of it, and a few long pieces of wood and plastic.

“It doesn’t look like a tent.”

“It will.”

“I’m going to get Dad.”

“No, come on Mal, it’s gonna be a surprise. And the boys will get in the way anyway.”

We spread out the tent, it was bigger than me, and the poles were so big I couldn’t carry them. Abby helped me stick one through a long hole in the top of the tent, I grabbed it and held it down. But when we did it again on the other side of the tent, it started to look like a real tent and not just a weird deflated balloon. One of the poles smacked me in the face when it came out of its holder.

“Is that it?” I asked.

“I think so,”  Abby said.

I ran inside to find Dad and Mom in the dining room, Mom was talking in her stern voice on the phone. The boys were out in the playroom fighting over one of my stuffed animals, but I didn’t really care. I tugged on Dad’s sleeve.

“Hey, just a minute kiddo,” He said.

“Tomorrow? Are you sure you can’t get it on sooner?... Yes I understand… Thanks for trying.”

I tugged on Dad’s sleeve again.

“What do you need Mallie?”

“Abby and I want to have a campout in the backyard. Come on, come on we put up the tent all by ourselves!”

Dad looked to Mom, “I guess Mom will have to go find the sleeping bags.” She glared at him, just having hung up the phone.

“Can we make hotdogs and s’mores?” I asked.

Mom’ eyes never left Dad, but laughed a little when she said, “Daddy will just have to get all that stuff, won’t he? Can you take your brothers outside and get started? I have some work to finish, if I can.”

Abby rolled her eyes and grabbed my arm, pulling me back outside.

The sun was still up in the sky when the tent was filled with sleeping bags and blankets and more pillows than I thought we had in our house. We had never had a bonfire before, I decided we need to have them more often, they’re a lot of fun. Arthur, Jonah, and Abbott were screaming and chasing each other through the yard, narrowly avoiding the fire once.

“Michael, I just can’t figure out how to-” Mom groaned and threw the package of hot dogs at Dad when he laughed.

“Let’s do two at a time, see like this Justine. Honestly, haven’t you roasted hot dogs before?”

As I was watching them, I fell forward after someone hit me in the back. I turned around to yell, but Abbott beat me to it, “You’re it!”

I took off running behind him. The boys all started screaming when I got closer to them, Dad was laughing somewhere behind me. But as they all scattered and hid in the playset and pole barn, I turned on Abby who was watching me. I yelled a battle cry and started sprinting after her. 

She screamed and turned to run, but I was just too quick. I poked her in the back and started to turn around, “You’re it! No tag backs!”

Abby shook her head and ran off to find one of the triplets. I looked around the backyard, before she tagged anyone else, I needed to find somewhere to hide. Too late, I heard Jonah yell in surprise and come tearing out from behind the shed, Abby laughing, and out of breath behind him. But instead of looking at me, he locked his eyes on Mom.

“You’re it Mommy!” He shrieked and ran to the barn.

Mom didn’t move at first, her smile was strained, almost like she didn’t know what to do. She never wanted to play so I wasn’t really surprised, but then the best thing happened, Dad said, “Well, you know the rules.” She threw her hot dog roaster at Dad, looked at me and started to run.

I screamed and sprinted as fast as I could, around the pole barn and back behind Dad. Around the tire swing and over the small hill, but she was still catching up to me! And then I heard something I never get to hear from Mom, she started laughing, like actually laughing, not just being polite. I stopped just long enough to turn around, and saw her smiling. She tackled me in a hug and started poking me on the cheeks and arms.

“Mallie’s it!” She called to warn the boys.

We all kept laughing and running around until the sun went all the way down, at one point Arthur found some squirt guns and we played tag with water. All three of the boys had to go change into dry clothes. We roasted hot dogs over the fire and Dad told us stories about power outages when he was a kid. But then, we roasted marshmallows, that was really the best part, the hot dogs weren’t even very good. I didn’t tell Mom that though, she seemed so proud of herself for figuring it out.

“I wanna go first! I wanna go first!” The triplets were yelling.

Dad gave me and Abby the first marshmallows, so they all had to wait. I burnt my first one and it fell into the fire, and I had to try it again but the second one was perfect, it was golden and gooey and warm. Mom even said she was jealous and asked if I’d roast hers too. I ate my s’more first but I did hers too, it was almost as perfect as mine but she ruined it by adding peanut butter! Who does that?

“Come on, Mallie,” Abby said and pulled me away from the fire.

“What?” I trailed along behind her, Abby is so much taller than me, I have to look up to see her sometimes. 

“We need to get some stuff from inside, you’ll see.”

Abby led me into the playroom, with a flashlight because it was so dark outside and inside. She handed it to me and started digging in the closet. After a few more minutes she had a bag full of fabric and toys, Abby doesn’t really play with toys anymore, it was kind of weird to see her getting them out.

“What are we doing Abby?”

“We’re going to put on a magic show for Mom and Dad. Do you know where the glow sticks are?”

The boys had just finished eating their s’mores, and getting it absolutely everywhere, when we were finally ready for the show. Abby let me wear a tiara and I even got my own wand and cape! We only needed our assistants, the triplets.

“Welcome to the Owens Family Magic Show!” Abby and I announced, catching Mom and Dad’s eyes. Mom was more relaxed than I had seen her in a really long time.

“Justine, did you buy tickets to this show?” Dad asked.

“You know, I don’t remember doing that, we should probably go. They’ll call security!”

“No!” I yelled, “It’s free!”

“We had better get going then,” Dad chuckled.

Abby rolled her eyes but her lips were cracked into a smile. The boys looked confused, staring at our stuff, I hoped they wouldn’t try to come break everything, that happened far too often.

“We’ll begin with the vanishing boy trick!” I announced, “Which one of you should it be?”

Abbott shied away, but Jonah and Arthur were practically jumping with excitement at the idea. I called on Jonah and quickly, Abby and I told him how we were going to do the trick and that he would have to be fast to get under the tablecloth before we dropped the blanket.

“Alright,” Abby said, “Once we say the magic words and drop this blanket, Jonah will disappear!”

We raised and lowered the blanket a few times for show and then waved our wands at the blanket, Jonah kicked it trying to get under the table, and said the magic words. Once he was completely hidden, we dropped the blanket. Arthur and Abbott gasped in surprise. Mom and Dad clapped and laughed at their expressions.

“One less boy for us to take care of,” Dad joked.

Jonah popped his head out from the under the table, “Hey! You still have to take care of me!”

I groaned, Abby tried to hide her laughing, and then everyone was doubled over laughing. But the show went on and Abby and I did a trick on all of the boys, a neverending rope of bandanas and we tried to saw Arthur in half, but that didn’t really work at all. But by the end, Jonah and Abbott were leaning on Mom and Dad’s legs, half asleep. Mom was smiling and relaxed, her hair was hanging loose around her shoulders, Dad had his arm around her for the first time since I could remember. She was even wearing yoga pants! Mom never, ever wore anything except work clothes, maybe pajamas, but I didn’t have enough evidence of that to be certain.

“Come on kids,” Mom said, scooping Jonah up.

We all crawled into the pillow and blanket filled tent. I snuggled in right next to Mom, with Jonah on the other side of me, Abby’s feet were touching mine, but I was so tired I couldn’t even see where she was. I fell asleep with Mom smiling and hugging me.

Then she said, I think to Dad, “I didn’t even realize what I’d been missing.”

Mallie’s classmates stared blankly at her as she finished her story. She raised her hands for jazz hands, “And that is the story of the best night of my entire life!”

Mr.Lopez started clapping, the rest of the class following with an uninspiring show of approval for her twenty minute long tale, “Thank you, Mallie. That’s all we have time for, let’s go to our lockers and get our stuff ready to go home.”

Mallie sat in the throne chair for a moment longer. Ever since they got the power back on, Mom spent less time working and even made dinner for them the other day, it wasn’t very good, according to her, but Mallie was happy. It might not have been the most interesting story anyone had ever told, but it was her story and it was all the more special to her to live through the aftereffects. More time with Mom, more family time, and even a girls’ day when she, Abby, and Mom had gone to get their nails done.

Secretly, she hoped the power would go out more often.