And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon.
Little boy blue and the man on the moon.
Coles hands were shaking and his shoes were untied as he trotted across the street in the canvas of night-time. He looked back over his shoulder at his house, which was quiet and dark now. His heart was thumping in his chest and his head was spinning with the thrill of having snuck out for the first time - even if it was just to go across the street.
He gathered a few little pebbles at the base of his friends tree-house and stuffed them in his pocket before climbing up the latter, which was a task for a short seven year old. Once up, he crawled to the window and stood on his tip-toes, tossing them at the closest window, which was Dawsons, missing the first few tries. Finally a bedraggled Dawson pushed aside his curtains and squinted out at the tree-house which was cast yellow by the streetlight.
He smiled when he saw Cole, his confused head of dark hair pointing every direction and only his eyes and arms were visible over the edge of window. He shifted nervously, not wanting to wake his parents, but when Cole waved at him he quietly donned his sneakers and inched downstairs to the front door. He ran across the faded green of his yard and scaled the ladder, much more accustomed to climbing and swinging and pulling his own weight around than the other.
Coles mouth split into a smile, "Hey!"
"What are you doing here? Aren't you gonna get in trouble?" he looked across the street as his friends house which was as quiet as all the others in that hour.
Cole shrugged. "Not if I don't get caught." he crawled over where the roof tapered off and you could lay on the wood and see the sky. He did, rolling onto his back and letting the stars overwhelm him. "Look! There's millions of them!" he threw his hands up and made as if to grab each little pinpoint in his small palms.
"Shhh." Dawson snickered and covered Coles mouth with his hand, but his tittering slithered between the others fingers and they both laughed in a hush - excited about being up so late while everyone else slept on ignorantly.
He lifted his hand off Cole's mouth and saw his lips going blue in the mid-March wind. He grabbed a blanket from the corner of the little play-house and dragged it over the two of them as he lay back and let his eyes sink into the waters of oblivion.
"Whoa. There is a lot."
"I wanna be one of them." Cole twisted his head and held his hands up again, reaching.
"One of what?"
"The stars. I just wanna float up and only come out to play when everyone else is asleep. And you could only see me if you lay on the ground, or tip your head back so far, you'd fall right over."
"That'd be lonely." Dawson stared at the dots which seemed trapped each and every one in a large black mass of tar and he felt them to be sad friend-less things.
"You would come with me." he propped up on an elbow and cocked his head. "Right? Wouldn't you? We could go and never ever come back. No one would tell us anything we didn't want to hear and we could play all day and all night if we wanted and no one would ever yell out the door for us to come inside."
Dawson frowned, the innocent conversation beginning to make him uneasy. He didn't want to leave and never come back. He was happy where he was.
Coles smile faded and the look of hopelessness sat much better on his face than any other expression. Like he was well-practiced in the art of misery. "Does your mom and dad love you?" he fell back down onto his back, "Like, do they give you hugs and stuff and tell you goodnight and read you stories before bed?"
