Colby continues her father’s mission to visit towns run by a motto. On her next stop, she finds a sleepy city and wonders what can cause it to rise from its slumber.
Colby and her friends arrived to a deserted town when they finally managed to make it to the town with the motto “Early to bed, Early to Rise.” Sure, it was 3:30 AM, and they should have arrived hours before, but a confused traveling circus delayed them. Still, it was weird not to hear a sound in the town.
“They take their motto very seriously,” Colby’s friend Allison said as they looked for the Inn, where they had booked a few rooms.
“They’re going to think we’re so lazy when I sleep all day,” Jason added. He mimed falling asleep on a lamppost, which caused Colby and Allison to laugh.
Just then, they saw movement at the end of the block. A man dressed in knight’s armor stood on a ledge looking down at them on the street. He rushed to a bell on his podium, and as it rang, he yelled, “First ones to rise, 3:38 AM!”
Bells began to ring all across the city.
“We were never asleep,” Colby yelled to the man. “We just arrived from out of town.” But the knight clearly couldn’t hear her over the bells. Within moments, there was movement everywhere. Shutters clanged open, and folks yelled into the street, “Good morning!”
Each yell startled the trio, and before they knew what was happening, the shops on the street level were alive with vendors—people yelling for them to buy coffee, flowers and even fish.
“Fish?” Jason said, “Who can think about fish at four in the morning?”
They saw a man holding newspapers with the headline: 3:38 AM. They were stampeded as dozens of commuters in suits with briefcases raced by them. It was like watching the New York Marathon, but it seemed like just people going to work.
They stumbled through the streets as the pace of life seemed so fast. Around them, people were performing tasks at double speed, washing windows with haste and serving breakfast rapidly. They even passed a small park featuring multiple speed chess games.
“It feels like we’re in a musical,” Colby told her friends. “But no music, just the urgency of an opening number.”
Just then, they passed some street musicians in front of the local playhouse, playing a ballad they knew, but at the speed of a pop song. A person out front was yelling about how they were about to perform “Five-minute Hamlet,” and people flocked to see the show.
“Hamlet’s usually five hours,” Jason said, “Should we go?”
“Let’s check-in at the Inn,” Colby said, and pointed to it. The bellman outside hurried people along.
They walked in, and the innkeeper at the front desk spoke to them quickly, “Good morning, hope you had a nice trip. Checking in? ID, please.”
“Hold on,” Colby said. “What is going on in this town? Why is everyone in a hurry?”
The innkeeper laughed. “Our town motto is early to bed, early to rise! We must be fast because no one wants to be the last person in bed.”
“So everyone competes to get up first, get as much done as fast as possible and go to bed quickly?” Colby asked
“Precisely.”
“What time do people go to bed?”
“It just depends on the day. If everyone’s grooving, we can stay up to 8:30 PM, but sometimes, the days are as short as 30 minutes. We have knights, the Knight Watchmen, who alert us when someone sleeps.”
“Great stuff,” Jason said, “But I’m going to bed.”
“Jason, no!” Colby said, realizing the error, but it was too late. The innkeeper rang a small bell on his desk. They heard the bellman outside yell to the Knight Watchman above, who rang his bell—other bells followed.
Outside, the shops began to close. The marathon commuters raced by in suits, and people closed their shutters. A newspaper boy threw a paper through the door with the headline for the end of the day: “4:12 AM.” They watched as the whole town went to sleep.
“I’m really sorry,” Jason said. “I’m just so tired.”
“Off to bed,” the innkeeper said. He’d pulled on a nightcap that made him look like a Charles Dickens character. “Who knows how long we’ll sleep? Another day could be any minute.”