You can't see me. I'm invisible.

This happened about six or seven years ago. I was, of course, much younger than I am now.

It's midnight. Eight children stumble into a small room, rubbing their eyes and yawning. Meaningful looks are exchanged, but not a word is said. They all immediately climb in their beds. An astute observer would notice that not one of them bothered to change clothes before doing so. An even more astute observer would comment on the fact that they're all wearing black clothing.

Time passes, albeit very slowly. Every minute or two the ceiling is lit up by the green glow of an illuminated watch dial.

Three beds emit a beeping sound at more or less the same time. Their occupants slap at their own wrists, and the noise is eventually silenced. Each of the kids gets out of bed. They all converge upon a cot in the middle, and a much larger form is produced from its depths. It flails its limbs at the tacit attackers, then realizes where it is and freezes. Someone turns on the lights and is backhanded. The room is plunged into its former darkness, and they all exit. The back door slams. The tallest one, the counselor, whispers angrily at the last person out of the door.

Cut to a view of a piece of land about thirty feet long. On the right side are a few trees, on the left side a brick building, between them is an empty space. Behind and above all of this sits a building with the words "Pill palace" inscribed on a sign hanging from the roof. It's a few minutes later. Lights flash on the right, and one can see flickers of movement. All of a sudden a dark, blurred form dashes across the clearing and takes up residence behind the building. Eight more follow suit. Once everyone has made it across, they huddle together for a moment and then the largest silhouette produces a set of keys. He unlocks the screen back door and they all dash in.

Cut to a dark room, empty except for a waist-high cabinet that takes up the space of one of the walls. Shadows flit to and fro. A muted clattering emanates from the back, and a happy child carrying piles of bowls and spoons hops out of a closet. The equipment is passed around. Now suitably armed, the men crack open the top the container. A wedge of light spills into the room and causes the children to squint. Slowly, reverently, the senior burglar reaches in with a spoon and serves forth cold, ice-creamy goodness to all those present. All is well.

Suddenly, the door bursts open. A flashlight-wielding man runs in and announces that all of the participants are, in a word, "busted". Unless, that is, they let him in on the gluttony. They all shrug and someone gives him a bowl. He grins. There is silence for five minutes, broken only by slurping and the sound of metal and plastic clinking together. The bowls and cutlery are abandoned, and the pleased group happily exits out of the back of the cafeteria, then regroups outside before their escape attempt.

The group begins to migrate, one by one, from the building to the shelter of the trees nearby. Halfway through the grand getaway, someone from far away shines a light over in their direction. They panic and the rest simultaneously run for it. The light traces their route, and distant yells are heard.

Silence has gone out the window at this point. All of the participants, including the counselor, dash to their cabin. Once they arrive, the kids jump in bed and pretend to sleep while the counselor looks for a way to appear as if he were working, neglecting to take into account the fact that it is now 1:30 in the morning. Someone enters through the front door brandishing a flashlight and demands to talk to the counselor, who's now busily sorting through his clothes, messing them up and then folding them again. He looks around to make sure that the intruder's speaking to him, then gets involved in a hushed conversation for a few minutes. Someone says "The nurses saw lights." The kids can hear someone else, presumably a counselor from the cabin ten feet away, come up and assert that they've all been in their beds the whole night. More muttering. Someone walks in the room to make sure they're all there, shrugs, and leaves. The counselor comes back in, gives a thumbs-up sign, and collapses into a sleeping heap on his bed.

The story, however, does not end here.

The sun breaks free of its mountainous fetters and begins its slow pilgrimage. The children eat a substantially smaller breakfast than usual and grin stupidly at each other. The day passes normally until one of them goes to canoeing, a class which just so happens to be taught by the counselor "guarding" the cafeteria the night before - the very same one who shirked his duty in exchange for a dollop of Bluebell. He and the kid get to talking, and once they are sure nobody else can hear them, their conversation turns to the aforementioned raid. The counselor - Garland - reveals that he stuck around after the burglary occurred, just for kicks. It turns out that as the kid's cabin was departing through the back door, another cabin entered through the front. It was a fantastic sight; even as the back door was opening, the front door was being unlocked. They were immediately caught and no mercy was shown, as other people were beginning to notice by this time (hence the flashlights).

It's still not over.

After all of this occurred and everyone was sent back to their beds, Garland went for a final look. While he was scoping out the cafeteria, he happened to glance at one of the nearby trees. It seemed a little odd; some of its leaves were white instead of green, and they seemed to be shaking quite a bit. On a whim, he went in to investigate. He found the fattest youngster in the whole camp hiding behind a tree no bigger around than my right wrist. The white "leaves" were the ninjas which dotted the trembling offender's pajamas. His eyes wide with fear, he stuttered something about waking up and finding his cabin gone, then recalling hushed conversations that occurred the day before. Garland tried not to laugh and sent him on his way.

It was a good night to be on cafeteria duty.

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Let us continue to save Christmas. (The story so far)

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Story ideas? Send 'em to electricidiom@aol.com.

Comments

[Molly]

NICE

[Mirage]

This story is entertaining and very useful! I came downstairs because I couldnt get to sleep and I knew the mask was on TV at 1:50. Darn, it was 1:30, what could I do? I got on AIM, went to your profile and started reading this story and passed all of my twenty minutes clicking on the wonderfully funny and very pointless and out of the blue links randomly sprinkled throughout the story. Maybe one day I will actually finish the story, but its 1:47 now and I have to get to my movie.

[electricidiom]

Very pointless? I'm hurt.

It's the story of my first cafeteria raid, back when I was probably seven or eight.

Good times.

[Bonnie]

FIRST cafeteria raid? Hmm...

[Brian]

Oh Mr. Heard,

Your childhood shenanegans have entertained me. Whoa. Did I spell shenanegans right? Yeah, sorry that this reply is like 2 months after you actually wrote it. Oh yes, and I hate you.