A Badtime Story

‘And both children were swallowed up whole and the ruby path was never seen again. The End.’

Nurse Mariam slammed the book shut, snapped to her feet and clicked her heels.

‘Now sleep well, both of you. And don’t cry out in the night.’

The elderly lady turned away, and then stopped as though a memory from her younger days had come loose in that dark mind of hers. She turned back to where the twins, Jacob and Jacob, lay wide-eyed and silent in their bed. Bending like a broken deck chair, Mariam managed to come within a few inches of the children in order to send an awkward air kiss in their direction. The twins did not blink.

She tightened the already taut white sheet over the boys and scraped out of the room. ‘Not a cry,’ she said, pressing the door shut behind her.

Minutes passed. Outside, the moon gave up trying to enter through the slender crack of curtain and hid itself behind a cloud.

Nothing could be seen, barely a breath could be heard. Minutes more crept past.

‘Do you,’ began Jacob.

‘NOT A CRY,’ shouted Mariam from somewhere on the third floor.

They both waited. Then Jacob nudged Jacob and Jacob wriggled. At first his shoulders could hardly move but after a while he managed to free himself enough to manoeuvre a hand out from beneath the sheet and reach towards the bedside lamp’s brass knob.

With a twist and a hiss, the lamp threw up a sickly throat-full of yellow light at the exact moment a fierce crack of thunder shook the house. Shadows leapt from behind every toy in the room and the tall cupboard doors sprang open, spilling out clothes and wooden blocks and at least eight clowns which had been stuffed there years before.

Jacob and Jacob broke free of their bedding and, each choosing a different side, dived under the enormous bed. A cat, eighteen spiders and three mice darted out from the darkness, closely followed by the twins who tripped over the nightshirts and fell flat onto the wooden floor.

Then they lay still. Jacob opened his mouth but Jacob quickly covered it.

And there they lay until morning, never once crying.

Because that would have been far, far worse.

Goodnight.

—

Illustration © 2017 Carl Pugh

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