Tim's notion was still a bit hazy in my mind as we made our way onto the pasture and hence to the playground. In the sandpit, Tim and my brother used a tree branch to draw their best imitation of what the Sleepwalker's house looked like from overhead.
"Reckon we enter from the left side, Tim?" my brother asked, then glanced at Tim, who was glued to the sandy blueprint.
"That's not exactly what I had in mind," Tim replied as he drew something else in the sand.
I took a good look at the two idiots crouched on the ground as I towered behind them, blocking the rays of the afternoon sun. "So you all are actually gonna try to catch the Sleepwalker?!" I questioned with an angry face. The two of them looked back at me, then John replied.
"We're not actually going to catch him; we just want to see how he sleepwalks." I sulked, and then Tim asked, "What exactly does he do when he sleepwalks?"
We both looked at him, then John opened his mouth to say something, but I beat him to it: "We don't know because we've never seen him, and my dad says he's just a myth, so maybe we should just forget this whole thing."
John scowled at me, "Ignore her; I heard everything from Miss Marcy Topping."
I knew it, despite my warnings. John gulped down anything that came out of her mouth. She always had some gossip to tell us whenever we stopped by for her delicious cheesecakes. Marcy Topping was like the neighborhood gossiper, who was in everybody's business.
My mother would always tell us to take anything she said with a grain of salt, but that seemed to fall on deaf ears. In fact, if I were to make my own assessment, I think the only good thing about her was her excellent baking skills.
"Tim, don't listen to him!" I warned. That was my last attempt to save the boy from being misinformed, but John quickly shut me up.
"Lucy, you need to keep your mouth shut sometimes. Only girls talk a lot."
I flared up, "And what about boys like you? Do they listen to any crap some big-mouthed woman has to say?" I was honestly sick of his hints, but John was like me; he didn't like to give up.
He painted his face with a disgusted expression, "You see, this is what I mean, just drop it, Lucy." I could have kept going, but then it would be a back-and-forth argument amounting to nothing, and Tim seemed interested in what he had to say anyway. So I folded my arms and looked the other way.
John explained to Tim what Marcy told him. Apparently, the Sleepwalker exits his old house every night at 12 a.m. sharp and holds a newspaper in his right hand. As he walks down the sidewalk, he extends his head to any open bedroom windows to see if he can find any children who are awake. If he does, he will call them to his side.
That sounded like a load of nonsense. Miss Topping even told us once that she peeked out her bedroom window late one night and saw the Sleepwalker walking down the street with a trail of children behind him.
I asked her why she didn't run outside and stop him or call the police. She couldn't say a thing, that one kept her quite for about a week. I honestly never understood why John believed anything she said.
Tim wasn't like me, though; he took everything at face value and went on to explain his plan to catch the Sleepwalker. His aunt Jennifer, who was taking care of him for the summer, would play a significant role in this operation. She was in her late 30s like my mother but still kept her youthful appearance. Despite the financial climate she managed to operate a sort of buy-and-sell business from the comfort of her home. So her house was always packed with items.
Apparently, Tim thought of using 3 brown bins he saw her bring in the other day. They would act as hiding spots for us to catch the Sleepwalker. He concluded that we could come to his aunt's house at 11 p.m. that night. "11 p.m.!" I exclaimed, and they glanced at me. "Isn't this going too far, John? You're going to get us all killed," I pleaded.
"No one is going to get killed, Lucy," John said, dragging out his voice and moving his head all over the place. "If the Sleepwalker catches us, we'll just get shipped off to some random place. And guess what? Then we won't have to go to school."
He stopped moving his head and stared at me, but I simply squinted, signalling that I wasn't buying his talk. So he continued, "Anyway, if you don't want to come, just go home and say nothing." John's reply caught me off guard, but it also made me realize that his belief in the bogeyman was also wavering. He wasn't afraid of getting carried away anymore.
"What if our parents find out you're gone? Remember, Mom checks on us at night sometimes," I asked, hoping to win his favour.
"So what if she does?" John replied, gesturing his hand. "I'll be the one to get in trouble, not you, and if you want to stay out of it, then you better act like you knew nothing."
John's defense was well thought out and sound. It was as if he knew I would protest. Whether I came or not, the only way I would screw up their plan was to be a tattletale, so I stayed quiet and listened to Tim.
He intended to place the four bins right next to the Sleepwalker's side gate since the man was more likely to exit through there than the front door, which is where we would hide. Once we heard the gate open, we would peek out to see what he looked like.
I asked what we would do if he noticed the bins, and John told me he wouldn't since the Sleepwalker only focuses on capturing children through windows. I accepted this answer with great reluctance. I just had the uneasy feeling something was going to go wrong.
Once the sun had left the horizon, we said our goodbyes and hurried home. As we approached our apartment door, John cautioned me from the outside, "Now Lucy, you've got to act as normal as possible and don't make Mom or Dad suspicious."
"Ok, but how exactly am I supposed to wake up at 11 p.m.?" I looked over at John, who stood thinking, and then he replied.
"I'll wake you up; just make sure to sleep with one eye open." This meant I had to be half-asleep.
My mother cooked a lovely dinner that night, which made me feel guilty because of the mischief I was about to take part in. But there was no point in beating myself up about it. After munching down the meal. I remained as normal as possible until my mother saw us off to bed at 8 p.m. And the countdown to our stakeout began.