Mystery of the Midnight Robin.

For three afternoons, Peter had watched a pair of robins build a nest. It was in the apple tree outside his bedroom window. There was one egg in the nest, and the female robin was sitting on it.

That night, a sound woke Peter from his sleep. He sat up in bed and turned on his light. It sounds like the robin, he thought. But it couldn't be. Birds didn't tweet at midnight.

Besides, the noise had stopped.

The next day, Peter saw yet another egg in the nest. And that night, he heard the tweeting sound again at exactly twelve o'clock.

At breakfast, Peter said, "Last night and the night before, at the midnight, I head the robin sing."

"A robin wouldn't sing in the middle of the night," said Peter's dad.

"She wasn't really singing," Peter said. "She was tweeting."

"Maybe it was a cat howling," said his mom.

But the next two nights, the same thing happened. Both times, when he looked at the clock, it was midnight.

Peter had an idea. "I know it's not a cat that I'm hearing," he said as he set his alarm clock to five before midnight. "I know it's the robin, and tonight I'll prove it."

When the alarm rang, Peter was out of bed in a flash. He knelt before the open window and listened. All he could hear was a dog howling in the distance and the clock ticking.

His eyes blurred with sleep. The dog stopped howling.

Then he heard a car coming up the street. It slowed down.

"It's Mr. Edwards from next door coming home from work," Peter mumbled.

Mr. Edwards came home every night at midnight. As his car turned up the driveway, the headlights shone on the robin.

Peter saw her pull her head from under her wing. He heard a tweet, tweet. Then she tucked her head back.

Peter exclaimed, "So that's the mystery! The lights wake her up, and she thinks it's morning.

He stuck his head out the window and called softly, "Good night, you midnight robin."

Then Peter crawled back into his warm bed.