Owen Hides

Owen was under James' bed. He had brought three stuffed animals with him and was hoping that his parents would either forget about naptime or forget to look for him.

It had been a boring morning. His family had gone out on a long bike ride first thing, but then he had to do schoolwork on the front step while Felix rode his tricycle, and he would have much rather kept riding his bike. His father was trying to teach him about reading time from an analog clock, but there were at least three different types of ants on the stairs and two types of spiders, and Owen didn't much feel like paying attention to Math. He told his father that he didn't want to do math several times, but Father didn't always do the best job listening.

Somehow they managed to get through Spelling, Reading, and Writing as well--Owen still didn't really know how to tell what hour it was on an analog clock, but he didn't think he'd ever need to know, since the clock in his room was digital--and school was finally over. But even when school had ended he didn't get to have much fun. James was still stuck doing his school on the step, and Mother and Felix were doing laps around the block with Felix on his tricycle while Mother read her cookbook. Felix was slower than slow. He wasn't even riding his tricycle, just pushing it. Every four sidewalk squares he would have to pull his trike out of the grass and start over.

Owen changed to his scooter to keep things interesting, but when he tried to do zig-zags on the scooter he tipped over on the pavement. This was no fun at all. He had wrestled James (who didn't want to wrestle) and then wrestled Felix (who cried when Owen pinned him) once they were all back inside, and then at lunch he had to eat chewy salad that was hard to swallow. So once lunch was over and he was finally free "hide-out" seemed like the best option.

Owen was very good at "hide-out." Felix was a better "hide-out" partner than James, because he took up less space and was better at staying still and quiet. Sometimes Owen and Felix could hide for a very long time before one of their parents found them. They hid in the downstairs closet on the piles of flute choir music that their mother kept in there, and they hid under Owen's bed which was uncomfortable because you had to lie on all of the LEGOs that were under there. Last week they hid in the van for so long that Mother and Father started going out to ring the neighbor's doorbells. They hid in James' closet, which smelled like the dresses Mommy had hanging up in there and was pitch dark except for the little line of light that came in from under the door, and now Owen was hiding underneath James' bed. The space underneath James' bed, like the rest of James' room, was perfectly clean.

James and Owen used to share a room, and then James' bed was just as messy as Owen's. (This was because Owen would climb into James' bed and play in it.) Now that James had his own room he made everyone stay out and kept it organized just so.

James came in the room after Owen had been hiding for a few minutes and poked his head under to look at him.

"Are you going to stay there for all of nap?"
"Is it nap time?"
"Almost."

James had an analog clock in his room. Owen could tell that it was late enough after lunch that it should be naptime soon, but he couldn't remember which hand did what on the analog clock face. The big hand was pointing at (and a little past) the 12, which might mean that it was 12:00. Or it might mean that it was something-else o'clock. The ticking from the clock was making Owen drowsy--the only other sound in the room was James turning the pages in his book.

Maybe his parents wouldn't put him down for a nap today. Everyone once in a while they surprised the kids and skipped naptime to do something like a trip in the car or even to watch a movie. But Owen didn't even want to do those things today. He just wanted to be in charge of his own day and not have someone telling him what to do and when. He wouldn't even mind falling asleep under James' bed--he was sucking his fingers, and it was making him very drowsy--as long as no one knew he was here.

On the other hand, he wanted to make sure that no one forgot about him either. It would make him feel terrible if Mother and Father remembered to put James and Felix down for naps and just forgot that they had a third child. Plus, his father would probably get down on his hands and knees and yank him out from under the bed with a big noise and a giant whoop. Most of the time his father sat around being boring and not doing anything exciting, but every once in a while he would do something that reminded Owen of just how big and strong he was. He had even seen him reach up and touch the ceiling on his tiptoes once. If Owen could touch the ceiling by standing on his tiptoes he would do it all the time.

He heard footsteps on the creaky staircase, and then the familiar noises of Felix having his diaper changed and put into his crib from the next room. His father's voice called out, "Owen, are you hiding somewhere?" The footsteps came out into the hall again, and Owen burrowed deeper under the bed.

"James, have you seen Owen?"
"No."
Owen's heart leapt. James was playing with his game! He was helping him to avoid being caught and put down for nap! Maybe his father would never find him
"Well, let me know if he turns up somewhere up here. I'm going to go look downstairs."

He heard the footsteps go down the hall, and then down the stairs. Was he really going to escape nap?

He heard another noise--James had hopped out of bed and was going down the stairs as well. Both sets of footsteps stopped, and then he heard them coming back up into the hall. James was snickering. This wasn't good. Owen trembled as he saw his father's carpet slippers stop in front of the bed, and then a crouching hand braced on the ground.

"Naptime, Owen."

"JAMES, YOU TOLD HIM WHERE I WAS, YOU BOOGER! I'M NEVER GOING TO LIKE YOU AGAIN!"

Owen resisted as he was dragged out from under the bed, but it was much nicer to be put to bed kicking and screaming than to go peaceably. It made him feel like he'd earned his rest.