Touch the Skye- A Penderwicks Fanfiction

Chapter 5: Night Crawlers

"Skye."

I tossed and turned, hoping the whispering voice would cease.

It didn't.

"Hey, Skye," The voice turned to become a louder whisper.

Groaning, I threw the pillow resting on top of my head into the wall. "What?"

Batty seemed alarmed at the loud thump that the pillow had made. "I can't sleep. Can you tell me a story?"

"No. Ask Rosy."

"Rosy said to go to Daddy."

"Then why didn't you go to Daddy?"

"He was asleep."

"I was asleep, you nuthead. Why did you wake me up?"

She hesitated, clutching onto her stuffed rabbit named Yaz as she looked to the floor. "Uh... I don't remember."

"Ridiculous," I muttered, throwing my covers aside. She happily leapt up and pounced onto my bed, rocking it enough to cause me to hit my head on the headboard. "Ouch. Yeah, you should be happy."

"Now tell me a story," she looked at me from her Bambi-like, big brown eyes. All my sisters had the doe-eyed look. Thank the universe I was the one born with icy blue eyes. It suited me better.

"Uh," I felt beyond awkward, stiffening up. What the heck do 7-year-olds want a story about? The only thing I could remember wanting to hear about at 7 was about black holes. Something told me that Batty didn't want to hear about that.

I looked down at the curly haired head laying on my pillow. As annoying as she could be sometimes, she looked... kinda cute. What was wrong with me, feeling angry about a girl talking to Jeffrey, melting on the inside whenever he looked at me, now thinking my pesky younger sister was cute? I must be going crazy.

"Hurry up." She said, tartly.

Yup, definitely going crazy. So much for cute.

I lifted my hands up in a shrug and dropped them, sputtering out air in a ppppppbbtthhh sound. 

"Once upon a time..."

Ah yes, nice start. Jane would be impressed.

"There was a luminous sphere a plasma beginning to form in space."

Jane wasn't here right now, but I know for a fact that she WOULDN'T be impressed with that line. Darnit, two lines into the story and I'm already messing up.

"Like a baby star?" Batty asked, sleepily. I looked down at her in surprise. She was really that intelligent?

"Uh, yeah." I said, playing with my thumbs. "The, erm, 'baby star' wanted to be big, but she couldn't."

"Why not?"

"She needed more time until she could be big like the other stars."

"How does that work?"

"Ugh, you know what, just listen to the story. I'll explain everything when you're older."

"Okay- keep going."

"So the baby star shouted to the neighboring star, approximately 32.47 light years away, that she wanted to be big like him." I stared at the door, a sliver of moonlight leaking into the room from the open door.

Batty yawned, "and then what?"

"Well the star," I cleared my throat. "The other star said to pass the time by playing a game."