Bill and Igey prove excellent bedtime stallers

Tired as they were from a day of standardized tests, soccer, and visiting friends, Bill and Igey did not want to go to sleep last Wednesday evening. Igey, who favors layers, stripped off his soccer shirt and the four beneath it; Bill climbed under the sheets; I read them three chapters of "Nate the Great and the Big Sniff" from the foot of their side-by-side twin beds - and then the stalling began.

Bill did an impressive job, asking probing questions about bed-wetting (a challenge attested to by Igey's garbage-bag-and-towel-lined mattress), the perils of bears while camping, the unsavoriness of cafeteria lunches, and the possibility of boys turning into girls (I assured him it happens only rarely).

"But then why do I laugh like a girl?" Igey asked, which kept us going on voice-changing for another good while. Then Bill teased that Igey was really 7, not 8, which made Igey sob. It took a few more minutes to get him giggling again.

But in the end, it was Igey who proved the master of the bedtime stall. I already had my hand on the light switch when he offered this gambit: "Um, um, wait, um, what made the world?"