Every night, just as the ice-cream man made his last round and the crickets set up their harmonious midnight chorus, a peculiar occurrence began to shape on the cozy Maple Street. This was not your average neighborhood where people buttoned up in their houses just after sundown. Instead, Maple Street was alive, and not with grown-ups, but with a bustling, eager, pajama-clad army of kids.

An hour past bedtime, lights under blankets flickered on up and down the street. It meant one thing: the parade was about to start. The Bennett twins, dressed in their footie pajamas, necks adorned with glow-in-the-dark beads, transformed their bunk bed into a strategic command center. Meanwhile, Daisy, the mayor’s daughter, sewed glittering patches onto her favorite turtle-themed sleeping bag and brushed her Dollie’s hair one last time.

As midnight ticked closer, they slipped from their beds, grabbed their flashlights and homemade lanterns, and crept downstairs like little mice. On tiptoes, they eased open squeaky screen doors and then hovered for a moment in the seemingly gigantic, magical and still summer night.

At the end of the block, under the grandest, oldest oak, they gathered for the parade. They formed, not in straight institutionalized school lines, but higgledy-piggledy – a delightful mess of flushed faces, tangled hair, and radiating excitement basking in the moonlight. Grouped under their whimsical, moonlit assembly, with the expansive night as their playground, they looked like a band of misfits ready for an adventure.

The rules were simple. Wear your favorite pajamas. Bring a homemade lantern. Don’t forget your sense of adventure. And most importantly – don’t wake the grown-ups. The parade was secret, you see, the best thing about summer nights on Maple Street, and adults were strictly forbidden.

Each parade had a leader, and tonight it was Daisy. In her hand-twisted papier-mâché lantern, her flashlight blazed with a mongoose’s high spirit, casting a dancing, playful light down the street. The Parade of the Pajamas began, and the nightly adventure unfolded as flannel-footed soldiers fell into line behind Daisy.

There was laughter and whispered tales shared. Tales they’d heard from their older siblings, tales spun from their own dreams, and tales about the mysterious Hansen’s vacant, ancient triple-story house. Stories whispered half in jest and half in trepiday gave courage to their overblown imaginations, sparking unspoken ‘what if’ challenges along the way.

Suddenly, the bravest little boy, Max with his lantern made from his dad’s old coffee jar carved into the shape of a superhero, dared to shout, “Let’s march past the old Hansen house!” His words hung heavy in the air hushed by the midnight whispers.

Their heartbeats quickened and the formation tightened. Glances exchanged were full of fearful delight, questioning if they had the same bold excitement flaming within them. After a moment, Daisy, with all her eight years of wisdom, nodded. She was, after all, a still and courageous leader under her glowing turtle shell lantern.

And with that nod, their nightly adventure was about to take a turn they hadn’t adventured before. As a collective gulp took over Maple Street’s pajama-clad army, the old and usually avoided Hansen house awaited their steps, ready to reveal its moonlit secrets. The night was young, their hearts were ablaze, and the parade – it was just getting started!