Midnight Countdown

Sixteen-year-old Dylan stirred in his sleep, burying his head under his pillow. He wanted to sleep, but a relentless noise kept creeping into his dreams and disrupting them. Suddenly, a burst of laughter woke him with a start. He sat up and looked around. His room was dark, and his two younger brothers were fast asleep in their beds.

Confused, he blinked in the darkness, unsure if the laughter was part of his dream. Another burst of laughter reached his ears, sounding remarkably like his parents were having a party. He picked up his alarm clock and pressed Batman’s head to turn on the light, casting a soft glow that revealed the time: one minute to midnight.

Rubbing his eyes, he climbed out of bed and crept out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible.

“Ten!” his parents shouted in unison from the living room.

Intrigued, Dylan hurried down the hallway, past his younger sisters’ bedroom, and descended the staircase to a chorus of “Nine! Eight!” As he reached the bottom of the staircase, he stopped and frowned.

Balloons that read “Happy New Year” lay scattered on the floor with confetti strewn everywhere, candles were lit on several surfaces, at least six empty champagne bottles were on or under the table, and his parents wore “Happy New Year” hats on their heads.

“Seven! Six! Five!” they shouted in unison, watching the clock on the wall as the second hand inched closer to the number twelve.

Dylan blinked several times as he struggled to make sense of the scene before him. It simply could not be New Year’s Eve! For one thing, they usually celebrated it together, even the youngest, Lucy, who was in her first year at school.

“Four! Three! Two!”

And it wasn’t December! It was not even September! There was no way Dylan could have slept for four months without anyone waking him up. This had to be a dream.

“One!” his parents shouted, and then his father blew a party horn. They clinked their glasses and gulped down the contents.

Dylan pinched himself. He had expected the pinch not to hurt, this being a dream, but the sharp sting that followed hurt like hell. He winced, rubbed his arm, and stepped forward with a sigh. The fact that he could feel the pinch could only mean one thing: he was not dreaming after all.

Frustration and disbelief surged through him. “What’s going on?” he shouted, glaring at his parents.

They spun around. He had expected his parents to freeze, their wide smiles to disappear, and their faces to fall in embarrassment when they saw him watching them. Instead, they beamed at him and raised their now-empty glasses as if to toast him.

“Happy New Year!” they chanted in unison.

“It’s August!” he shouted back in frustration.

“No, it’s September,” his father said, looking at the clock. “For the last thirty-five—no, six, seven, eight—"

“Happy new school year!” his mother shouted, raising her glass again.

Dylan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you seriously celebrating us going to school?”

His parents frowned at each other, as if considering this for the first time. Then their smiles broadened.

“Why not?” his father asked. He raised the empty glass to his lips and tilted his head back. The last drop of champagne fell onto his eager tongue, and he looked at Dylan with a grin.

Dylan could only stare at him, unable to believe his own eyes. “Why not?” he asked. “Why not? I’ll tell you why not! First of all, you might wake everyone up. It’s a school night, so we all need our sleep! And we are your children! Why are you celebrating us going away—”

“Second of all,” his mother chimed in.

Dylan blinked, momentarily taken by surprise. “What?”

“You left out ‘second of all’,” his mother pointed out. “You began with a ‘first of all’, so you should continue with a ‘second of all’.”

Dylan sighed and shook his head in disbelief. “How much did you drink?” he asked, exasperated. His parents exchanged glances before shrugging their shoulders in non-response.

“Maybe it’s time for you to go to bed and get some rest,” Dylan suggested. “Don’t you think?”

His father burst out laughing as if he had been told the best joke ever. He wiped a mock tear from his eye and turned to Dylan’s mother. “Hey! Do we still have the leftover fireworks from the last New Year’s Eve?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, brightening up.

“Don’t! Just … don’t,” Dylan said with a sigh.

“Let’s get them!” his father shouted, completely ignoring Dylan’s feeble protests, and they hurried out of the house and into the garden.

Dylan could only watch in disbelief. Defeated, he turned to go back to bed when he saw his four siblings standing on the stairs, watching in amazement after their parents.

“Well,” Dylan said with a sigh, “maybe we should try and be better next summer. If we had behaved, they wouldn’t be so happy about us going to school.”

“On the contrary,” his eleven-year-old brother, Mike, responded with a mischievous grin. “Next summer, we should have a party every single night! And well past midnight!”

“What? No! You shouldn’t—”

“Why wait till summer?” his fourteen-year-old sister, Susan, interjected, folding her arms. “Let’s have a party this Friday! And Saturday! And Sunday!”

“Yeah!” Mike shouted in support, and the others nodded.

“Sunday is school night!” Dylan snapped, frustrated with his siblings. They all stared at him, momentarily taken aback. He sighed and shook his head. “Have you ever considered that maybe—just maybe—having five kids, three of whom are constantly in trouble, might be difficult for our parents?”

“No,” said the youngest, Lucy, looking at Dylan like he was crazy. Then she turned to the others with a big smile. “Can I choose the music?”

With a heavy heart, Dylan left them to plan the worst possible party and returned to his bed. As he lay in bed, watching the fireworks outside, he let out a weary sigh. His siblings were a handful, but so were his parents. Sometimes he felt like the only sane person in the family.

“Two more years and then it’s off to college,” he whispered to himself. Another burst of laughter erupted from the living room, accompanied by the loud bang of fireworks. “Two … more … years.”