Email: Hannah Williams

Dear Friends,

It’s 3:00 a.m., but the eight teenage voices coming from the back hall of the church drown out any indication of the hour.

Wooden chairs are placed back to back in a long line across the room. They’re covered in t-shirts, jackets, blankets. Pillows surround the feet and seats of the chairs. All five boys have combined their ingenuity and resources and have produced a fortress.

On the outskirts of the safe-haven, the girls are making bedtime preparations. Decked out in polka-dot pajama bottoms and sweatshirts, they spread out Kelly’s inflatable air mattress. Victoria and Sarah take turns pumping the mattress inflator as Kelly holds the mattress up to allow the air to spread. Victoria accidently pulls back on the pump handle too hard and goes flying back onto the floor on her backside.

Kelly and Sarah rear back their heads and erupt in laughter.

While the girls sit trying to catch the breath lost in their chronic giggles, the boys scurry to and fro, gathering white plush balls inscribed with Manchester football logos. They tuck themselves behind the mounds of pillows forming a human catapult. Twins Matt and Tom sit on their knees, holding Kyle in place, who flails his back from the floor, releasing a ball.

The girls shriek as the ball whizzes past their heads and hits the glass frame on the door that serves as my spy-glass into their late-night escapades. Three more balls pound the glass with the emphatic smack of a misguided bird, each followed by a series of screams.

Owain and Sam, the two guards of the fortress, quickly scramble over the wall of chairs, thrusting aside pillows and overnight bags to retrieve their make-shift hand grenades. Victoria and Sarah quickly follow suit, racing to their tickets for revenge. Owain collides with Victoria as both reach for one of the balls, and the two go falling backwards onto the mound of pillows scattered on the floor.

I smile, amused. At this rate, their edifice probably won’t stand the night. And it doesn’t look like anyone will be hitting a REM cycle tonight, including me. A bit of interference is needed.

I open up the wooden door to the hall enough to peep my head through.

“All right!” I shout into the room. “Time to get some sleep!”

All eight pairs of eyes look up at me, squinting, as if trying to make out as to how I have managed to stay up this late.

“Awh, come on, Hannah,” protests Kyle. “We can’t possibly go to sleep now! “

“Hannah, tell them to stop throwin’ stuff at us!” exclaims Kelly.

“All right, everybody into your sleeping bags! You have to get up to eat breakfast tomorrow. I’m turning off the lights in 10 seconds and counting, and everyone needs to start getting quiet and try to get some sleep.”

All bodies start moving away in different directions, something I imagine rather close to the dispersal of the twelve disciples. Owain makes his way toward his sleeping bag, tiptoeing over Kelly’s mattress, much to her disgust. Matt and Tom quickly attempt to collect more grenades to stash away in their sleeping bags as they scramble for their designated dreamland zones. Sarah and Victoria simultaneously bounce onto their air mattresses on their stomachs. Kyle wraps his head underneath his bag, morphing into a human cocoon.

“Three … two … one!”

The light switch clicks. Feet swish back and forth in sleeping bags. Mattresses grunt as bodies shift from side to side trying to find a comfortable dozing position. A couple of defeated sighs resound from the behind the destructed chair fortress.

“Goodnight!” I call.

“Good-night Han-nah!” they echo.

I allow the door to the hall shut slowly behind me. I shove a doorstop on the carpet below leaving just enough space for voices to carry down the main corridor.

I turn to walk down the main corridor of the church to my designated sleeping quarters. As I reach to turn the handle to my room, a wave of giggles and laughter catches my ear.

The banter has resumed, and it looks as if the night’s not over yet.

A short laugh escapes from my mouth. All I can do is shake my head, smile to myself, and prop open the door to my room with a chair.

I turn of the light, and roll onto my air mattress. With hands behind my head, I lay back to take in the ebb and flow of voices from the hall. It’s a tide that hasn’t run its course in several years, and as the minutes pass, it gradually lulls me into a short satisfying sleep.

Hannah