Tucking In

I returned home last night after a three day two night field trip to Mystic, Connecticut with my fifth graders. While there, we sleep in the bottom of this ship--the Joseph Conrad--in tight quarters, triple bunks with thin mattresses hung by chains. This year, I was left to supervise the thirty boys on my own in the evenings, and because we had exactly thirty bunks with thirty boys, my bed became two of those mattresses laid on the floor (which was actually a lot better for my back) in the middle of the room, which felt a little bit like a wounded gazelle laying in the middle of a bunch of lions ready to pounce.

Yes, such an assignment would fill most normal people with a sense of dread, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't experience the same sentiments most of the time. But in the quiet of Thursday night as I fell asleep, the responsibility felt more like a privilege, bringing an exhausted smile to my face.

Have you ever tried to tuck in 30 eleven-year-old boys all at the same time? It's not easy.

Each step gets progressively more difficult. Getting into pajamas? No problem. Getting them through the bathroom for bed-wetting prevention and cavity protection? A little harder. Getting them into their bunks? Trickier, as there are always a few that need to keep hopping out of bed for something different. It's almost like the proverbial Lucy with the conveyor belt of chocolates, as soon as you take care of one, you're turning your back on another that slips by. Getting them to quiet down? The most important step, perhaps the hardest. Getting them to fall asleep? Nearly impossible.

So, in the past two years, I've turned to bedtime stories. Without fail, they ask for a bedtime story in a way that makes it sound like they're joking in order to preserve their machoness, but it's apparent that they really want (and need) a few.

It was a spur of the moment idea last year, when all I had was my Bible I turned to the story of Jonah, a fittingly maritime tale. And so, I returned to same this year. They were still restless. I found a Native American myth in the teacher's section of the boat, and read that. Still restless. I couldn't keep them waiting or all that hard work would go to ruin, so I hurriedly turned back to the only storybook I had to the first story that came to mind: Joseph. I started with the coat, skipped Potiphar's wife, and continued on until I thought it appropriate to stop, but it was at least a half hour of reading in all, and there were only a few interruptions.

In the middle of my reading about Joseph, I heard a small whisper to my right, top bunk. I looked up, and saw four little eyes peering over a small red light. My little monkey of a boy had hopped over to his best friend's top bunk next to him, and he was using the old school video camera he brought along to video tape my stories. Apparently, the silent look I gave him told him to shut it off immediately and get back to his bunk, which he did, but looking back, I really wish he would have spent the rest of the story videotaping with his friend. I don't want to call it precious, but that's exactly what it was.

But I wish you could have shared the experience of the sound in that room. That was the privilege. It lasted about an hour in all, the subtle, slow decrescendo of adamantly restless boys trying so hard to resist the rest their bodies desperately need as all kids do. The talking eventually fades, the rolling back and forth on noisy mattresses gradually slows, a few more low whispers until each and every one finally gives up the fight in one large and quiet exhale, letting the barely audible steady pulse of sixty restful little lungs at last take over, keeping time, filling the room with the most glorious silence you've ever experienced.