✅ My Sister's Problem

20. Waterfall

I woke up and I knew something was different, but it took me a few seconds to work out what it could be. It wasn't that I'd woken in the middle of the night; that wasn't entirely unheard of. Or that I felt completely rested, like I'd slept for a full night already. I opened my eyes, and one of the first things I noticed was the glass standing on my desk, glinting in third-hand moonlight that came in through the blinds. Oh yes; my sister had tried to drug me. I started to move, hoping to figure out what my current situation was, and stopped at a brief feeling of dampness.

My pillow was wet, right next to my head. Not enough to be visible, but enough that I could feel it with the back of my hand when I shifted position slightly. What the hell? I carefully checked Lincoln with the other hand, but he was still dry. Well, that was no surprise. Stuffies don't wet the bed, even in my weirdest dreams. But I didn't understand what could have happened. Did this mysterious concoction make me drool or something? That certainly wasn't the effect I was expecting.

The second thing I noticed was my pacifier. When I slept with it, I would frequently wake up to find it trapped between my body and the mattress, pressing uncomfortably into me. Or it would be on the floor, rolled under the bed and hidden by some of my other junk. But it wasn't lost today; it was sitting neatly on the corner of my desk. Could I have put it down without thinking and failed to get it in my mouth? It didn't seem likely. That corner of the desk was close enough that I could just about reach it from my bed, but I certainly wouldn't think of that if I was looking for somewhere to put it down.

I was fully awake now, all these mysteries spinning around in my head. And I didn't have a clue what was going on, but I was determined to get to the bottom of it. I checked my phone, and found no reply from Harper. Of course; it would have been past her bedtime already when I sent the question. If she didn't get back to me tomorrow, I could see her at practice. Next, and wondering why I hadn't thought of it first, I checked my diaper. Still dry, I hadn't expected any different. But somehow I felt like I needed to confirm it. Then I decided that it would be good to see how I was sleeping, so I called up the app on my phone.

Lindy had been restless; her graph between alpha and awake for quite some time after I went to bed. She'd finally got to sleep about twenty minutes ago. I, on the other hand, had slipped straight into theta and stayed there for an hour before quickly waking. That wasn't normal, but I couldn't see anything wrong with it. I could only conclude that whatever my sister's weird concoction was, it hadn't had much effect. She was probably just trying to make me worry; and then had found herself worrying about what she would do if Mum found out. Or she hadn't thought that far ahead, and was nervous before camp; it was quite possible that her sleeplessness tonight was nothing to do with me.

There was nothing I could really do about it now. Knowing Lindy, there would be some evidence lying around in the kitchen to suggest what she'd added to my drinks. But there was little to no chance I could get downstairs without waking Mum, and she wouldn't let me go without telling her what had happened. And even with Lindy going so far, I didn't want her to be seriously punished. She hadn't done anything more serious than what I'd done to her, just using different methods. And, when it came right down to it, my methods had worked. That had to make me more guilty than her.

I was just thinking about going back to sleep when sudden stomach cramps sent me running for the bathroom. Whatever Lindy had done, it was hard to believe that this was unrelated. Fifteen minutes later I was feeling better for the most part, but I was starting to think that I couldn't just let something like this go. This was too far, more than just revenge. I tried telling myself that we were sisters, that anything she did was just teasing. That she wouldn't do anything that would cause a real problem. But I'd just had a very uncomfortable experience, and I just couldn't convince myself to let her get away with it. A couple of minutes after I left the bathroom, hoping that I could get some sleep now, I decided that this wasn't something I could just ignore.