We all lied in our beds, taking in the familiar glow of the starlight pattern projected onto the ceiling. My brother had installed the projector as a sort of nightlight for my nephews because they were still really afraid of the dark, mostly due to a particularly terrifying, R-rated, horror, monster movie they had secretly watched in the basement together on Webflix…
I could tell things weren't right at first, everything was wrong; I felt it so clearly. I was supposed to be a grownup, not some curly-haired, little, blonde boy with two identical brothers, and I couldn't just stay at my nephews' house all night. I had to get back home. I had to go to work in the morning and I was supposed to go on a date with that hot dental hygienist next Thursday… I couldn't remember her name but she was very pretty and she had a little girl my age who loves puppies, and she said we could all go to the dog park and feed the ducks if me and my brothers sat on our hands and behaved ourselves at the dentist's office like little gentlemen… And we DID!
I was being inundated by waves of anxiety and confusion as I tried to make sense of my jumbled thoughts and emotions. I subconsciously brought my thumb to my mouth and started nervously chewing and sucking on it to try to calm down. "Everything was fine", I thought. "I was never a grownup. That was just a dumb game. Mikey was pretending to be a grownup earlier when he was wearing Dad's shoes, and they didn't even fit, and he could barely walk... It was pretty funny, but it was just a game… Like how we pretended we could swap places with each other." I rationalized to myself. "But that game was the funnest to play. Mom thinks she can tell us apart, but she can't when we switch around on the inside… She thinks I'm Andy, but I'm really Ollie!"
I started to laugh quietly to myself when my brother jumped out of bed and landed on the ground with a thud. I instinctively froze in place, bracing myself for Mom or Dad to shout something from downstairs like they usually do whenever we accidentally make a loud noise at night, but I guess we got lucky that time and no angry shouting happened, so I slowly looked around the room to see what my brother was doing, but I didn't see him and the door was cracked open. He was gone!
I quickly bolted out of bed and found my other brother on the bottom bunk, all tangled up in his sheets with one foot sticking out. I yanked on his ankle and startled him awake.
"Hey!" Ollie yelped before quickly growing calm at seeing my face in the dim light. "That's scary. Don't do that, Andy! I'm trying to sleep... I thought you were actually a monster or something!"
"Shhhh… Mikey's gone." I whispered. "He sneaked out of bed!"
"Maybe he just got up to pee."
"I don't think so." I said solemnly. "He NEVER gets up to pee, and plus the bathroom light is even turned off… I think he's trying to get the shoes out of Mom and Dad's closet. I think he wants to try to get to be a grownup again!"
"That's just pretend." He said, snuggling back up in his sheets and moaning with irritation.
"I know it's pretend, Ollie, because it's a game, and you and me are on the same team, OK? Don't you wanna win?!... We gotta keep Mikey away from the shoes and make it so he's stuck like us forever, remember? That's the only way we get to win, now come on!"
Oliver slowly came alive as I pulled him out of his comfortable resting place. Once he was out of bed he became increasingly onboard with our shared objective. Mikey was our rogue brother, and it was up to the two of us to keep his feet out of any grownup shoes or we'd be the losers and that was not OK!
He and I quietly crept into the hallway, finding it empty. The bathroom door was propped open and only the dim glow of the Wonder-Kid nightlight shone from inside. There was no sign of Mikey and the hallway looked extra scary that night. There was only one nightlight on in the hallway and it didn't shine very much. The stairwell around the corner on the far end of the hallway was pitch-black and that's where the light switch was, it was also the only way to get downstairs and into Mom and Dad's room.
"Do you think he really went into the dark?" Oliver asked, audibly grappling with fear.
"He must have…" I observed. "Maybe he still has grownup courage from wearing the shoes…"
"I don't have ANY grownup courage." Oliver replied, shaking his head with a serious, wide-eyed look, causing his cute curls to bounce around adorably.
"I think maybe I do." I offered, immediately regretting it.
"OK." Oliver said quickly, not giving me a chance to take it back. "You sneak into Mom and Dad's room and stop Mikey, and I'll go to the bathroom and find the socks in the laundry hamper so I can hide them and that way Mikey can't use them."
"Ok." I said with a determined nod. I tried to hold on to that fleeting sense of bravery I had felt just a moment ago and turned into the dark depths of the hallway while Oliver ducked into the bathroom.
I was relieved when Oliver turned on the bathroom light and the hallway got a bit brighter, but even that extra burst of illumination didn't fill the hallway very far. I told myself I just had to get around the corner and turn on the light switch, but I couldn't see anything at all, and I thought I heard something moving around!
"Mikey?!" I harshly whispered as loud as I dared to. "Is that you?"
Nobody answered, but something was definitely making noise. The floor was creaking and the sound was headed right for me. I wanted to run back to my room but the light switch was closer now so I lunged around the corner to grab at it but I ended up running into something that made a frightening, high-pitched groan like a monster. I gave a muffled shout and fell to the ground. I could feel the monster rustle around in the dark. I wanted to scream but I couldn't make another sound. I quickly stood up and backed against the wall, hoping the monster couldn't see me, but of course monsters can see best in the dark. My only chance was to find the light switch and make the monster disappear. I turned around and frantically felt around for the light switch, but I couldn't find it. "Which wall was it on?" I couldn't remember. "Maybe it was on the other wall behind the monster! What should I do?"
Just then, my left hand brushed against the light switch and the hallway became flooded with bright, comforting light. I froze in place. Too afraid to move. The monster had to leave now, but I wanted to give it a good, long chance to go away before I turned around. I was about ready to make my move when I suddenly felt something lick me behind my left ear! I was startled and almost screamed, but it tickled too much! I turned and looked, and was so relieved to see my dog Kobe!
"It sure was a good thing I turned the light on and got rid of the monster!" I thought. "...Kobe might have been eaten otherwise…".
Even though the light was back on, I was still deeply rattled by the ordeal with the monster and hugged Kobe super tight for comfort, burying my little face in his thick, black fur. I wanted to keep him with me for the rest of the way, just in case, so I grabbed him by the collar and led him down the steps. Kobe was a little faster than me and started to drag me forward for the last few steps, but I held tight and made it all the way down without slipping.
As soon as we got to the landing, I turned on all the lights I could before heading on to Mom and Dad's room. I really wanted to bring Kobe in with me but I was afraid he'd be too hard to control, so I left him outside.
The first thing I noticed inside the room was Dad's snoring and the eerie green light coming from the closet which was somehow even scarier than pure darkness! My mind was running wild with explanations for the creepy glow, and none of them were remotely good. I let out a frightened yip of terror, but luckily Dad's snoring covered the noise.
Before I had a chance to run away, Mikey slipped out of the closet holding a pair of Dad's church shoes and our green laser sword. "So that's how he made it through the dark." I thought, "He doesn't have any grownup courage, he just used a toy as a flashlight!"
"Put those back." I whispered harshly.
"SHHHHH." he replied, holding his finger up to his lips and gesturing for me to follow him out of the room.
"What are you doing?" I asked once we were safely out in the hall. "Put Dad's shoes away and come back to bed, Mikey."
"They're not your Dad's shoes, Andy, they're mine. I need to go back to being your Uncle. I have a real life and responsibilities. I'm already starting to forget myself. I can't spend the night like this or I might not even be me in the morning!" Mikey said with desperation in his eyes.
"That's just pretend, Mikey. You're our brother, remember?!"
"I'm sorry" Mikey said, stepping into the giant shoes. "I have to go back."
Mikey stood there for a few moments, waiting for something to happen, but nothing changed. He looked down at his feet, still able to see his toes wiggling inside the giant openings. He shuffled his feet forward, sinking himself even deeper into the footwear, hoping the change would suddenly take effect, but before anything could happen I did the only thing I could think of and pushed myself into his body.
Suddenly I was where he had been standing, in my Dad's shoes, and he was barefoot on the hardwood floor. He looked as confused as I felt for a moment, as though he had felt the sudden change in his body and assumed he was returning to an adult form, but it didn't take long for him to realize he was Andy and I was Mikey and neither of us were becoming adults.
Just then Ollie came running around the corner, using his arm to swing around the banister like we all always did, which Dad hated...
"I hid the socks!" He declared in a high whisper.
The new Andy slapped his forehead, remembering the transformation socks. Of course the magic wouldn't work without those!.. "Where are they?" He demanded.
Ollie was surprised Andy would ask that right in front of Mikey, it was supposed to be a secret after all…
"I can't say." he said with wide eyes and through clenched teeth. "Mikey will hear."
"That's alright." I said, stepping out of the giant shoes. "I moved into his body so he couldn't use the shoes. Now Mikey is in my body." I continued, pointing at Andy.
"This is getting confusing." Ollie observed.
I was about to put the shoes back in Mom's closet when suddenly I remembered who I really was. I wasn't Andy, I was Mikey, I mean Mike! An adult trapped in a kid's body. One of my nephews had switched places with me and started thinking they actually were me! I didn't have much time to change back. I needed to pump Ollie for information right away and find out where he hid those socks!
"It's ok, Ollie. You can say where you put the socks. I've got the shoes so Mikey can't use them any more." I assured him.
"Don't listen to him, Ollie." Andy said. "Mikey's trying to trick you. We're a team, remember? We have to keep Mikey from growing up!"
"I remember." Ollie assured him, "I won't get tricked!"
Ollie folded his arms, closed his eyes, and put his nose in the air obstinately.
"Fine, don't tell me." I said, folding my own arms, and mirroring his obstinate pose perfectly. "But I bet I'll know everything you know once we swap bodies, and that includes where you hid the socks!"
Upon saying that, I pushed myself into Ollie's body and felt the familiar shift occur again. I immediately found myself standing by the stairs while Ollie looked back at me in shock through my body's eyes. I quickly went to work probing Ollie's memories for the secret sock hiding place. I remembered going into the kitchen and thinking about putting the socks in the freezer, or in the toaster, but that's dangerous, or in the waffle iron, or in the air vent, but we always hide stuff there… I thought about putting them in the air-popper but I didn't want my popcorn to always taste like feet, so I put them in the sink, but they were too easy to see there so I was going to take them out and put them somewhere else, but I pushed them down the drain by accident and I was too scared to put my hand in the dark rubber hole, so I left them… IN THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL!?