Melrose Comedy Nights

Night after night my brothers got in big trouble for goofing around instead of going to sleep, but they never told on me, even though it was all my fault. I felt bad about it, but not enough to confess to my parents.

The upstairs of the Melrose house had two bedrooms, but no doors. After climbing the stairs you could look left and see my room, or turn to the right and that's where my three younger brothers slept. There were walls between them, but a hallway joined the rooms at the top of the steps. My brothers and I could easily hear one another if we wanted to talk.

One summer night we were all awake and I started telling a story. It caught their interest immediately because they were the star characters in my imagination. I don't even know where the storyline came from, but I made it up as I went along, weaving each of the boys into wildly comic adventure stories complete with dialog. The guys loved it, and begged me to continue. The stories were often a continuing series that went on several nights in a row...one in particular was called “The Blue Whale”.

I spoke loudly enough for them to hear, but quiet enough that my parents, with the door shut downstairs , could not. We all stayed in our beds, because footsteps were easy to hear down below, but my brother's giggles grew louder and louder as the story continued. Mom or Dad would open the door and yell up the stairs that we needed to be quiet and go to sleep. The boys would muffle their laughter for a few moments and when they were in control again, they told me to “keep going!” Shortly, they would be laughing again and there would be another warning from the parents, and a repeat of the calming down and a request for me to continue.

Then the worst would happen. Mom would come storming up the stairs, and the boys would start to howl because they knew they were going to get a spanking. I laid quietly in my bed, cringing and feeling awful as I listened to a few well placed swats and the cries of my brothers. Then it would be quiet and finally, one of them would sniffle and say, “Tell the rest tomorrow, okay?”

I don't know why they didn't give me away. I know I should have admitted my part in the nightly laugh-in, but I didn't. The activity was simply too much fun for all four of us....and if I had been told to “stop it” by my parents, I probably would have obeyed. I think it was simply an unspoken agreement between the boys and I that a swat here and there through the summer was a price we were more than willing to pay for the enjoyment we got from our make-believe adventures.

A few years ago, while reminiscing with my Mom, I finally told her what had been going on all those nights, upstairs in the Melrose house. She didn't laugh. She just looked at me. I think I probably earned a well placed swat myself.