Lying half asleep in bed long after my alarm has rung, I faintly hear my mom slipping into my room. I know what is coming now: a loud and disruptive admonishment that it is time to get up, that I have to take the bus this morning, that the bus is coming in 15 minutes, that it is time to get up!
Instead, she says very quietly, “April?”
“Mrmph,” I reply.
“Can you hear me?”
“Umphrm?”
“There is no school today.”
There is a pause. Carefully, I poke my head out over my covers and rediscover my powers of diction. “Really?”
“Yes. Tim called.” (Tim! Tim is my mom’s coworker and has no connection with the school district whatsoever, yet somehow it is he who learns that school is canceled and has to call us.)
Anyway, this is sufficient information for the 7 o’clock me. My mom leaves, shutting the door softly behind her.
I bury myself deep in the warm caverns of my covers and fall asleep for another three blissful hours.
