Once upon a time

My daughter slept on the floor of her brother's room the whole year that she was seven. She said that when she'd turned seven, she became afraid of shadows and darkness and needed her brother's presence; but when her eighth birthday arrived, she assured us, she wouldn't be afraid anymore. She could go back to her own room. And she did.

Sometimes she slept in a sleeping bag and sometimes between blankets but most often she made herself a nest: a round pile of every stray pillow, blanket and stuffed animal in the house. She liked to build two nests, actually, to entice Blake to sleep on the floor with her – and me, too.*

So: many nights during the year that Sasha was seven, she and Blake and I snuggled together in the nests Sasha had made, and I would tell them stories about their alter egos. The stories always began like this: "Once upon a time, a long time ago, there were two children named Slake and Basha. They lived in Bend, Oregon, with their mother and father and two guinea pigs.** One night the children were woken by the sound of..."

My written stories always start with place and character, and I like the places and the characters so much that I never can get them into trouble, which means it's not really a story – nothing happens; the story never goes anywhere. The tales I told my children, though, were set right here with people who are known (like a coyote story) and so they had to be all action. And improvised. And modified on-the-fly when the children lost attention – or got too involved: the stories were, after all, intended to settle them to sleep.

One night the children were woken by the sound of footsteps on the roof. They ran out the back door, into the yard, and looked up. It was a female dragon building a nest!

One night the children were woken by a terrible rushing grinding sound. They ran to the front window to see what it could be. It was a rocketship landing in the street!

It was a baby dragon and they were worried that all the grown-ups would be afraid of it so they hid it in their closet and Slake used his slingshot to kill squirrels for its dinner.

It was a pterodactyl that took them for a ride; it was a rocket full of aliens who took them to other planets; it was a baby snow leopard and they taught it to hunt and then took it up to Broken Top, where it lives even now, eating deer just like the cougars do...

Sasha's nearly nine now. She sleeps in her own bed. She can read novels herself, and more often than not she wants to read herself to sleep. She seems still to have affection for Slake and Basha, though. Maybe she'll continue their adventures in stories she tells her own children. Maybe I will!

And then the children came back home. They settled into the nest that Sasha had made. Their mother began to tell them a story, and they continued the story in their dreams.


* Once her teacher told me that she had asked the students if they liked to build forts and Sasha said oh no, I build nests; my brother would wreck a fort. Retelling this, the teacher could barely contain her laughter – but Sasha's response seemed to me perfectly reasonable. Isn't it?

** At that time we had two guinea pigs. Now we have only one. She's five. I think she must be the longest-lived guinea pig in Bend.