The clock hits three and the last bell rings, another school day has ended. The empty halls quickly flood with happy, screaming children pouring from the opened classroom doors - higher and higher the tide, its current, strong, carrying all past the gym, the lunch room and library, bursting through the front doors and spilling out onto the open yard. The children run to their parents, showing construction paper projects and page after page of practiced cursive letter "P". After a while, the steady stream of students get thinner until the last and final drip slowly drips out - his name, Sebastian Goodnight. At the corner across from school, the nanny leans against her car and waves the boy forward, smiling. Sebastian runs to her and seeing his wrinkled and red face, she opens her arms, wishing he would speak, just a word or two, to explain, to let it out, "You would feel so much better," she whispers into his ear, now snuggled safely deep in her hug. But Sebastian says nothing. He climbs into the front seat and shuts the door, but through the car window, he catches a glimpse of someone, a little girl, standing by the flagpole with her mother, holding an ice pack to a black and rapidly swelling eye. "What happened, Penny?" cries the mother. "Tell me what happened?" Sebastian turns and sits forward, staring straight at the open road ahead.
Earlier today, Sebastian was excited about the evening's possibles, but now, he just wanted to be alone. Good boys deserved good things, Sebastian deserved nothing. Should such cowards be rewarded with loving parents and a homemade birthday dinner, the biggest piece of Red Velvet cake, ten candles, and presents? No! And as the car rounded the curve and his house approached fast, all he wanted for his birthday this year was an empty driveway...and that's exactly what he got. The nanny parked her car, no problem, plenty of room - hers would be the only car parked tonight. The nanny turned to Sebastian and gave him a slight smile, "More cake for us, huh?" Out of the car, they walked through the front door, and in the hallway, sitting alone on the small table, a gift, wrapped in brown paper and covered in stamps from some far away country, waited for Sebastian. Comforted by the overwhelming pain of it all, he grabbed the gift and ran straight to his room.
Hours had past and Sebastian had not come out. The nanny, on her third trip to his door, noticed the plate of food she left on her first trip - lasagna with meatballs and hard boiled eggs and a piece of Red Velvet cake, had still not been touched. "He likes cold lasagna," she thought, and decided to leave the plate be. She did not knock, he would come out when ready and when that time came, he would open the door and see, sitting beside the plate of lasagna, a new package, one that had just arrived a few minutes earlier, but from who, she did not know. A mysterious box, wrapped in the same brown paper his parents had used, but this box was different - no stamps from some far away country, no return address, no lame excuses. To: Sebastian, it read, and nothing more. She set down the box beside the lasagna and Red Velvet cake, turned and walked back downstairs.
Inside Sebastian's room, the boy, wrapped up in his brother JoJo's old grey blanket, sat quietly in front of his open window, staring out into the night, still ashamed by his behavior at lunch. Sampson, his tiny yellow parakeet, perched still on Sebastian's shoulders, silently lending his support and comfort the only way he knew. Quiet, still, then startled at the loud bang, bang, banging coming from Sebastian's bedroom door. Such a disturbance, and not from the nanny the boy was sure. This racket could be only one thing - Evelone, and she wanted in!
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