Tradition Comes Third

Lock and Key

"What are you doing?" Ava asked. "Don't you know that yawning is contagious? If you start yawning I'm going to start yawning, and the next thing you know, both of us are asleep and getting punished."

"What is with this sleep thing anyways?" i asked her.

She shrugged her shoulders and sat down on the edge of my bed.

"I have no clue," she said. "You're Mom never wrote about it, and I've read nothing about not letting the girls sleep. They must have a reason for it."

I sat down next to her. Ava's eyes were locked on the closed curtains. I put my hand on her knee, and she let her eyes dart over toward me.

"We'll take turns," she said. "Go to sleep and when I hear someone get near to the room, I will wake you up."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "What if you don't hear anything?"

"Your Dad is so loud when he unlocks the door," she said. "I will hear it."

"What if you fall asleep?"

"Thanks for having faith in me." She rolled her eyes. "My back is too sore to let me fall asleep anyways."

Ava got up off the bed and sat down in my office chair. She wheeled herself over to my desk. She flipped through one of my notebooks, and ripped out a blank page. She grabbed a pencil off of the desk. I noticed she sat at the edge of the chair.

"Go ahead, Hunter," she said.

I looked over my shoulder to my bed. My eyes felt heavy, and everything seemed to ache. Dad was loud when unlocked the door, so she would be able to wake me in time. I was sure that a few minutes of sleep would be better than not sleeping at all.

I crawled back on the bed and set my head down. I closed my eyes and quickly fell asleep to the sound of a pencil scratching on a piece of paper.

--

I groaned as I felt my body shake. I barely opened my eyes to see Ava leaning over me. She had a grip on my shoulders, and was shaking my body. She reached out and opened my eyes with her fingers. My hand shot out to push her off of me. She sat on the edge of the bed and pressed her thumb into my sore nose. I opened my mouth to complain, and she shot her hand over my mouth.

"Meg and I had to go talk to Mrs. Black about the type of paint they were giving us," Ava rambled about nothing. Her voice seemed to be a little bit louder than she normally talks.

The door opened up, and I pushed myself up on my elbows to see Dad walking into the room. Ava was trying to wake me up before he came in.

"What are you two up to?" he asked.

"We're just talking," Ava said.

"Are you two ready to eat?" he asked.

Ava and I both shook our heads.

"Not hungry yet?" he asked.

"We're not eating that stuff," I told him.

"You'll change your mind soon," he said. "You'll have another chance to eat at breakfast. I'm going to bed, so Taylor is going to check on you two in an hour. Don't fall asleep."

He left, and we heard him jiggle the key in the lock as he locked us in. I dropped my head on the pillow. I groaned and dug the heel of my hands in my eyes.

"Wow, you're difficult to wake up," Ava said. "That was a close call."

"How long was I asleep for?" I asked.

"Probably like an hour," she said. "Your Dad took the alarm clock out of your room."

I turned my head to see an empty spot on my nightstand where my alarm clock usually sat.