Copyright J.B. Norman
“Gah! Bears!” Matilda Lyte exclaims as she is suddenly shaken awake. “Wolves! Bear-wolves!”
She bolts uptight, her long, dark hair falling inelegantly across her face. Her heart hammers in her chest until she is comfortably assured that she is not, in fact, being assailed by bear-wolves.
“Oh,” Matilda says when she sees the familiar figure of her little sister standing before her. “It’s only you, Sally.”
Sally beholds Matilda with large, pleading eyes, clutching her beloved stuffed rabbit Count Bunnyescu — the thing was once a bright blue, but has long since faded to a dingy, threadbare grey.
The youngest of the Lyte siblings, Sally is a decidedly nomadic sleeper. Though she starts every night in her own room, she will invariably wake up in the middle of the night and trek over to someone else’s. In a family with seven siblings, there are plenty of others for her to choose from.
And yet, more often than not, she will make her way to Matilda’s room, showing up unannounced in the middle of the night and looming over her bedside in the gloom like some sort of tiny ghost haunting Matilda’s nights. Like other small wildlife, she seems to have an instinct for seeking out whomever she will most bother by her presence.
Sally opens her mouth to speak.
“No,” Matilda says bluntly, pre-empting Sally’s question.
Sally doesn’t take the hint, or simply elects to ignore it entirely. “I can’t sleep, Matilda,” she says. “Can I—”
“No.”
“Count Bunnyescu can’t sleep, either,” Sally notes.
“Go bother Nolan,” Matilda says, rolling back over. “Or Addy. Or Mom and Dad.” She pulls her blanket up over her head in an attempt to disappear.
Sally shakes her head. “Mom and Dad say I’m too big to sleep in their bed,” she answers. “Nolan snores. And Addy drools. Please, Matilda?”
Matilda sighs. “Fine.”
“Yay!” Sally says, burrowing under Matilda’s blanket and nestling close to her sister.
“Go to sleep, Sally,” Matilda commands.
“You smell nice,” Sally tells her sister.
“Ugh,” Matilda groans. “Sally, don’t make this weird. Now, go to sleep.”
“Okay,” Sally says. “Good night, Matilda.”
“Good night,” Matilda says tersely.
Sally clears her throat at her sister.
“And goodnight, Count Bunnyescu.”
“Count Bunnyescu says goodnight,” Sally says.
The next morning, as the dawn’s first light begins to stream into her room, Matilda finds herself waking up with a foot in her face.
Somehow, someway, Sally has managed to get herself sprawled across the bed, orienting herself on a diagonal with her head towards the foot of the bed and her foot almost stuffed into Matilda’s mouth. Despite her improbable, absolutely ridiculous sleep position, Sally remains comfortably asleep, as ever holding Count Bunnyescu close.
Matilda tries to pry Sally’s foot away from her face, only for Sally to promptly roll back into her original position, thereby kicking Matilda right in the face.
“Ow!”
“Good morning, Matilda,” Sally says with a yawn as she sits up at the foot of the bed, managing to kick Matilda in the face once again. “Did you sleep well? Me and Count Bunnyescu did.”
Matilda regards her sister through narrowed eyes. “So help me, Sally,” she sternly tells her little sister. “Tonight, you are sleeping in Nolan’s room.”
Nolan Lyte sleeps. As he sleeps, he dreams and as he dreams, he speaks: “Just let Matilda have it,” he murmurs into his pillow, “she likes tongue casserole.”
He is torn out of his dream by the sensation of hands shaking him.
“Gah!” he cries as he jerks upright. “Bears! Wolves! Bear-Wolves! We’re all — Oh, what’s wrong, Sally?”
Nolan peers into the gloom of his bedroom and squints to see the familiar figure of his little sister, clutching, as ever, the equally-familiar figure of Count Bunnyescu.
“I can’t sleep,” Sally says. Not for the first time. Or the second. Or probably even the thousand-and-second.
“Come on,” Nolan says, pulling aside his bedsheets and allowing Sally to climb in beside him.
Sally smiles broadly and snuggles close to her favourite brother.
“Nolan,” she asks. “Could you not snore tonight?”
“I’ll try,” Nolan says.
“Goodnight, Nolan,” Sally says.
“Goodnight, Sally,” Nolan says, rolling over and burying his face in his pillow.
“Ahem,” Sally says, poking her brother.
“Goodnight, Count Bunnyescu,” he says into his pillow.
Sally soon finds herself thoroughly unimpressed to find her brother snoring into his pillow.
She reassuringly pats Count Bunnyescu’s head. “I know he’s loud,” she tells her beloved companion, “but just try to get some sleep.”
The sound of Nolan’s snoring is occasionally interrupted by the sound of his sleeptalk. It is only a marginal improvement.
“Wow, Falcata!” she hears her brother say into his pillow. “You kicked his leg out of his leg!”
Even in spite of her brother’s snoring and the strange situations he must be finding himself in within his dreams, Sally manages to drift off to sleep.
When Nolan wakes up in the morning, he is momentarily very, very bemused to find that he has apparently been struck blind overnight. A brief moment of panic fades as he regains his senses and realises that he is not, in fact, blind.
Sally has simply managed to drape Count Bunnyescu over his face as she tossed and turned at night. She has also managed to drape most of herself over him too.
He manages to free his arm out from under and gently shakes her, trying to get her to walk up. All he accomplishes is getting her to roll over slightly.
“But, Nolan,” she mutters in her sleep, “you said Matilda likes tongue casserole.”
Her shakes her more forcefully. “Sally,” he says. “Wake up.”
She rolls again, groans and reflexively whacks him in the face with Count Bunnyescu.
“Wake up!” he says again.
Sally groans again, pushes herself off of him, sits up on his bed an blinks up at him.
“Good morning, Nolan,” she says, rubbing her eyes.
“Yeah. Good morning,” he replies.
“Ahem.”
“And good morning, Count Bunnyescu.”
Sally pouts. “You snore too much, Nolan,” she tells him.
“You could always just sleep in your own bed,” he offers.
She resolutely shakes her head.
He watches as she stares thoughtfully at him. “Hey, Nolan,” she asks. “Who’s Amara? You were talking about her in your sleep.”
Can you believe she even does this on Wintermorn?
Also, you can read about the adventures of the Lyte Brigade in Charge of the Lyte Brigade and Charge of the Lyte Brigade.
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However, my previously-published books will be delisted as of January 30 as I prepare to roll out new versions later on in the year.
