Backyard.(Kevin Hughes) “Okay, Kevin, what’s the big deal?”

“You’ll see. I bet you will be amazed. All of you!”

“We’ed better be, or it is going to be a horrible Monday at School for you on Monday.”

Everyone laughed. Five kids, all seven years old. Two girls, three boys. It took Kevin almost a month to get everyone’s permission for a sleep over. Melinda’s Mom made all the kids giggle when she asked if Kevin’s Parents had filtered water…they never told her that they drink out of Mr. DiGreggorio’s garden hose when they play in the corner park.

Kevin’s Parents did have filters water…reverse osmosis (whatever that is) took out all the bad things. Kevin guessed the Heppa Filters (whatever those are) did the same thing for the air. So as far as the kids were concerned, the air and water were clean. Kevin’s parents didn’t let them have pets: “Too expensive.” Said Kevin’s Dad. “Too dirty, you can get ringworm from puppies!” Said Kevin’s Mom. If they knew that Kevin and his gaggle of friends fed the kittens of the cat living under Marvin’s front porch…well, she would throw a hissy fit. So the kids never mentioned it.

But Friday, Friday was different. Kevin was going to show the kids what his older brother Jimmy had shown him earlier in the year…stars. Yep. Stars. No moon, Kevin had his older brother Mike find out if there was going to be a moon. Nope. Good. No rain in the forecast. No clouds, and sleeping bags on a tarp would be their home for the night.

Kevin’s Dad had gotten Mr. Majoric (who lived on the big lot next to theirs), and Mrs. Beverly (who lived behind Kevin’s house, and lived alone) to turn off all their Security Lights, motion detectors, and back porch lights. So there was complete darkness in the backyard. Or at least as dark as it could be in a lot in a subdivision. Luckily, the subdivision didn’t have street lights.

Everyone showed up Friday. The first few hours were in the house. Pizza and ice cream (along with a small salad, which everyone had to eat…or no ice cream!) Then the kids were allowed to go set up the backyard for the sleep over. A huge tent was set up…just in case. But everyone just laid their sleeping bags on the tarp…and then laid on top of them, or sat on them.

When the door closed and the Adults were safely inside…Kevin took over.

“Okay, everyone sit still. Now, close your eyes. “

Marvin piped up:

“Wait, is this a trick?”

Four sets of eyes popped open.

Kevin was a bit miffed, but he stifled his initial irritation. He needed calmness to make this work.

“No Marvin. I just want everyone to close their eyes.”

“Okay.” Said Little Elaine Wellington. She was the smallest of the five children. Yet, somehow she seemed bigger than all of them. When Elaine made up her mind, almost everyone went along with her.

“Okay, now, I want you to breathe in through your nose…feel how cold the air is, then hold it while you count to four, the let it out slowly…through your nose…and notice how much warmer it is.”

There were a few giggles, a couple of booger jokes, but soon everyone was quietly breathing in and out. The silence was broken when Derick said:

“Holy cow! There is a difference. A big difference.”

Elaine clapped her hands with glee. Everyone started laughing when Melinda said:

“I guess we are all filled with hot air!”

“Especially Marvin!”

That got a sock thrown at Derick….and more laughter.

Now Kevin had them hooked.

“Okay, now I want everyone to go to different part of the yard…lay in the grass on your back, close your eyes…and just listen and smell.”

“Smell what?”

“Just smell.”

“You mean like Marvin?”

This got another sock thrown and it took a while for the giggles to settle back down.

“No Marvin just stinks, smelling is something we all can do.”

Another flurry of socks were flung as five seven year olds decided who stinks the worst.

Kevin got them all back on track.

He brought out an egg timer and set it for five minutes.

“Now, go lay down. No talking. Close your eyes and see if you hear, smell, or feel anything. Anything at all.”

Five minutes later the egg timer went off.

“Hey, too soon, give us another five minutes.”

Surprisingly, that plea came from Marvin, the boyest of young boys, never holding still, never focusing…just a blur of boyness gone feral.

Tiny voices came from all corners of the yard:

“Yeah, give us more time!”

“Okay, I will set it for fifteen minutes. “


Kevin’s Mom peeped out the window. She lifted the window just enough to hear outside. Not a peep. She saw five little mounds of children scattered around the backyard.

“Tom, what do you suppose they are doing back there?”

Tom looked out for a second. A big smile broke out on his face.

“Listening. They are listening to the night.”

“What?”

Tom put his arm around his wife. She was a Big City girl…so he had to explain it.

“If you shut your eyes at night, it is amazing what you can hear…or smell. I was showing Kevin how I used to lay in the field after planting to smell the earth and sky. I guess he is teaching them now. “

“You can’t smell Earth! Or Sky!”

Tom turned his wife towards him. Looked her right in the eyes and said:

“Oh, dear, I don’t often think you are wrong…but this time…well, come on we can go lay down in the side yard by Mr. Majoric’s truck garden. Come on. I will show you.”

There was as much giggling in that side yard as there was earlier in the backyard…and then the same kind of quiet awe…and Tom’s wife learned the different smells of grass, plants, dirt and …earth.

After a while, all the kids gathered back on the tarp. They all had stories to tell. Several times one child, or another, would lead the group over to smell the roses in one part of the yard, the squash and melons in another. Marvin made them all laugh when he lured them over to the compost pile and had them try to smell the difference between supper scraps and breakfast scraps.

Kevin made them all horribly disgustedly interested in the compost pile when he shined a flashlight with a red filter on the compost pile. The number of bugs, and the different kinds of bugs, made the kids skin shiver, but still they couldn’t peel their eyes away.

“Why the red light? Can’t the bugs see red light?”

“I don’t know, maybe they can. Will have to look it up tomorrow. No phones or tablets tonight. “

“Then why are using a red filter?”

Elaine was genuinely curious…all the kids were.

“My Dad says the red light saves our night vision. We need our night vision tonight. We are going to look at stars!”

And they did.

Five little children looking up at the night sky from comfy sleeping bags. Kevin’s Dad had borrowed a few Binoculars from his friends, so every kid had a pair. There were many “Oooh’s" and “Ahhss” as meteor flashed occasionally, and the kids identified three planets- Venus being (by far) the brightest. Kevin tried to remember all the things his Dad taught him.

Later, when it got cool enough to crawl into their sleeping bags, quiet chatter filled the night in soft hushed tones. It was well past midnight when the last of them finally closed their eyes. They had wondered how far away the stars might be. They thought maybe those stars had planets. They had a wonderful time figuring out what an Alien would look like…and if it could breathe water…the way we breathe air.

Marvin was the only scary alien advocate:

“What if they eat people, like we eat chickens?”

And that made them all huddle a little closer.

Elaine made them all think when she wished them good night:

“Well, I think there must be other planets with kids on them, and I bet they are looking at the night sky too. I bet if we met them, we could teach them to eat marshmallows on a stick.”

All five kids dreamt that night about having an Alien as a friend. Breakfast was filled with wonderful cross examination of each other’s dreams. Even Kevin’s Mom chipped in with a story of how she wanted to be a mermaid when she was their age…and maybe there is a world with Mermaids in it.

Later that night, the phone kept ringing.

The other Parents wanted to know if the kids could do it again next Friday.

Carol, (Melinda’s Mother) said: “My daughter said she smelled the Earth…and she saw a rock fall from the sky…she looked up the word “Meteor” and said: “I saw one last night. A rock from heaven. She wants to see the moon through binoculars now. What did you feed those kids?”

Kevin’s Mom laughed into the phone.

“I fed them Pizza…Kevin fed them Nature. “

---