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Seven Minutes

After Midnight

It was green

Marvin stared up at it He didn’t knohat it was He was lying on his back, in a sleeping bag, in Nick Tuffle’s backyard

It glowed as it ht sky

Nick and Stuart were in sleeping bags beside him They were asleep

Today was Nick’s birthday Or maybe that was yesterday Marvin didn’t know if it was after ht yet

Seven kids had coot to sleep over

But Marvin couldn’t sleep He had eaten too round was too hard

He heard a low hu hovered directly above hiround shake beneath him

He wondered if he was drea It had to be a dream Maybe he really had fallen asleep and didn’t know it

There was a bright flash, then the thing zooer see it, hear it, or feel it

Marvin couldn’t fall asleep after that He stayed up all night, staring at the sky

At least, he thought he stayed up all night In the , he woke up, so he must have fallen asleep sometime Maybe he was really asleep the whole time