I woke up quickly, feeling refreshed. A few seconds passed, lying there with my eyes still closed, before I realised why I was feeling quite so comfortable today. The last two or three mornings I had been startled awake by an alarm, but now I had silence, and this was infinitely better. I couldn't be sure how much of my comfort was because of the lack of electronic screeching, and how much was because I was more relaxed. But I decided that this was pretty good evidence that having something in my mouth might be a source of calm.
Yes, I was sucking on the pacifier. I'd been curious about how it would make me feel if someone treated me like a baby; but for now treating myself like a kid was the closest I could get. It felt kind of comforting, like I was pretending to be a kid who didn't have to worry about standardised tests at the end of the year, and just pretending might help me get into thinking like that. Or maybe it was the simple repetitive action of sucking that gave a rhythm to my breathing. Maybe that made me sleep better, and feel more relaxed. Either way, I thought I could call that experiment a success.
I felt vibration from my wrist again, a faint but insistent tingle. I had to get up, I knew. That was why I didn't hear the harsh buzz of an alarm. A delivery had arrived after dinner, with the new SVX-3 that I had spent the last of my birthday money and two months of allowance on. I'd had to go back to an audible alarm for a few days while I'd been waiting for the new smart watch, and I had regretted that. It wasn't just the difference between sound and vibration. My first one had been top of the range when I'd got it; and this new one was a generation later. Instead of setting a time for my alarm to wake me in the morning, I would give it a range of half an hour. It would measure my sleep, tracking my pulse and other measurements to identify if I was in alpha, beta, or theta sleep; and it would pick the best time to vibrate so that I was neither startled nor too deep to notice. It was amazing how fancy tech had gotten in the last couple of years.
Fully rested, I opened my eyes. I shook my wrist to make the watch light up with the time. Just after two in the morning; that would explain why it was still dark, and there were no faint sounds of Mum starting to prepare breakfast and get everything ready for the day ahead. I didn't need to be awake now, really. I certainly didn't need to be up for school. But I felt pretty rested, so I could afford to spend a few minutes awake before I returned to bed. I glanced towards the curtain that separated my room from my sister's.
Did I need to torment her? I'd already found out that a pacifier seemed to help me calm down after a long day, and maybe helped me to sleep. Surely that should be all the proof I needed. But the voice in my head said no: if one childish thing helped me to relax, would others? It just made me more curious, more interested to discover if I would be comfortable wearing a pull-up again. I had no intention of using them, I just wanted to know if wearing one would feel right in the same way the paci did. Comfortable and safe, like I'd presumably felt when I was a kid. But if it helped in the same way, I needed to know about it. Even if it wasn't something I could carry on doing, I wanted to know. And the only way I would get the chance...
I picked up my phone, and called up my sleep states graph. Pulse and temperature, and coloured blocks on a chart to indicate sleep depth. I tapped the settings button in the corner, and then 'devices'. It gave me a choice of two watches, imaginatively named 'Sallys SVX2 Pro', and 'Sallys new SVX-3'. I picked the old one again, and it told me that I was in a theta state – the deepest phase of sleep – and that there were hours of rest left before my alarm window. That was good; I wouldn't want to accidentally wake myself if I made a little noise.
I put my phone down on the bookcase closest to the curtain, and found a playlist that I'd created earlier. White noise could make it harder for the sleeping brain to register unexpected sounds, at least according to the experts of the Internet. I had a couple of audio files, but the one I'd found was titled '90 minite loop will garantee make you pee'. It was a dumb title for a file that was just the audio of a flowing stream behind various short video clips of toilets flushing, waterfalls, and water being poured into glasses. There was supposed to be some lame challenge like betting if you can watch the whole thing without a bathroom break. I'd actually just been looking for audio loops of quiet nature background sounds with a lot of white noise, but when I'd seen that one I thought it had to be some kind of omen. I was ignoring the title and treating it like a sound file of a flowing river, but that caption seemed oddly appropriate, given what I was using the white noise for. I had no idea if anyone really felt like they needed to go when they heard water, but I was sure it would be a good choice to hide the sound of me filling the bowl.
I started out with the sound on low, and slowly increased it until it was right there. Not loud enough to wake Lindy, but probably loud enough to insinuate itself into her awareness if she went from theta to beta sleep; so that other noises wouldn't be able to wake her. Then I grabbed my bowl from under my bed, and hurried quietly to the bathroom. This time, it took me a little less time to get the water to body temperature. I guess that I had more experience now, so I could do it better. And I was glad of that, because I was just stirring the water with my fingertips when my phone told me that my sister had gone from a theta to beta sleep state. After that she would either spend three to five minutes before going back into deep sleep, or progress to alpha and start tossing and turning until she was more comfortable. Knowing Lindy, the last seemed quite likely. But organic white noise was supposed to reduce the time spent in an alpha state, which was one of the reasons we were listening to a river right now.
I came closer, and watched her pulse slowly decrease. If her hand was in water when the screen went from beta to theta, that was the best chance of the trick working. At least according to an anonymous Japanese scientist of the previous generation. And if I'd understood him correctly. It was hard to believe that their report had gone into such detail about expensive medical sensors and monitoring equipment, when any smartwatch or fitness band over about twenty bucks would have the same functionality now.
This was the moment of truth. Did I really want to do this? Was I really willing to put my sister through this much embarrassment, just so that I could risk embarrassment myself in a couple of weeks? I might not have been sure; but earlier in the evening she had said some pretty mean things about my friends, and then said I was cheap for giving her a second hand watch instead of buying her the new one. That meant I had quite a bit less sympathy than usual.
I slid the bowl gently under her hand, and allowed her fingers to break the surface. She didn't respond, didn't move. There was no sign of a response. My phone showed no response either; her sleep state was sitting comfortably in beta. I crouched on the floor, with one hand on the bowl to prevent it being upset if she moved. Two minutes later, there was a slight shift in position. Her other arm flew out, catapulting an old brown teddy out of the bed. The bear – which might have been called Lincoln, but I wasn't sure – thudded off the bathroom door and rolled under the curtain into my room. I left it for now. I knew I should move the bowl away, but I didn't want to touch Lindy when my phone said alpha. I waited in silence, desperately hoping she wouldn't wake up while I was here, until she rolled half over and clutched a pillow against her chest. Beta was back, and I still had an arm.
The next five minutes were the most stressful I had ever experienced. I knew this probably wasn't worth it now. I'd spent money on this plan, sure. But I'd been telling the truth when I said that the SVX-3 was better for tracking exercise intensity for skating. It was something I'd been wanting, and the thought of giving Lindy a gift had just given me an excuse to buy it. I told myself that if I could get out of here without disturbing her, then a pacifier would have to be enough. That would satisfy this irrational curiosity about being a little kid again, and the bowl could go back to being a floating soap dish for the bath.
The indicator in the corner of my phone screen changed colour again. Theta. The deepest stage of sleep, the point at which she would have no way of knowing if I moved. She wouldn't feel a gentle touch, she wouldn't notice the water being withdrawn, she wouldn't hear my footsteps. That much was guaranteed. But I was still locked up with nerves, and it was another two minutes before I could relax enough to move. Then Lindy's foot twitched, and she gave a little sigh. I froze again. She was still deeply asleep, and there was nothing to indicate that she was any closer to waking either in her face or on my screen. She drew the breath in again, and I heard a faint whistle that turned into a quiet grunt. The first stages of a snore. I knew she wouldn't wake now, but it took every ounce of self-control to stick around long enough to dry off her hand before leaving the room.
I walked, I didn't run. And a careful sweep for obstructions prevented me tripping over a phone charger that she'd apparently left stretched across the floor. And then I was back in my own room, safe.
With the next step, I almost tripped over a chocolate-brown bear.
"Hey, Lincoln," I whispered. "I guess Lindy's too big to want stuffed animals now. You can stay here until morning." Once I'd emptied the bowl and dried it out, I used it to carry him over to my bed. I thought about leaving the bear on my desk, and saying something in the morning about how he'd been thrown through the curtain some time in the night. That would be worth a laugh; it had been a running joke in past years that my sister was trying to assassinate me in her sleep, and I was sure I could bring back all the old running jokes. But then I decided that there were more sensible places to put a teddy bear.
I switched my phone back to controlling my own watch, and reset the alarm for the same time window as Lindy's. I slid the bowl under the bed, pushing my seldom-used basketball out of the way. And then I curled up under my blanket with a pacifier and a teddy bear. Now I would see if pretending I was a little kid really did come as naturally as some of my dreams had suggested.
It took me five minutes or less to be fast asleep again.
Author's Note: Was that what you were expecting? I'll give a virtual cookie to anyone who anticipated that turn of events. And yes, I would love to see more comments speculating about possible outcomes... it's hard to pitch the right balance between formulaic and unexpected when I don't know what you're expecting.