When my eyes fluttered open, the first thing I wondered was why my pillow was so hard.
I slowly lifted my head, blinking madly as my eyes adjusted to the light, and contemplated the possibility of Millie having snuck into my room and filled my pillowcase with rocks. However, when I propped myself up with my hands and opened my eyes properly, I realized this was not the case.
I wasn’t in my bed at all.
I happened to be lying on Andrew, and our faces were so close my brown hair was tickling his cheeks.
And, just as this thought crossed my mind, his eyes opened too.
A sort of strangled sound of surprise escaped him as he caught sight of me, and I took the opportunity to leap off him. This, however, turned out to be a much more difficult feat than I was expecting – due to the fact we were both squashed onto the tiny couch and our legs were tangled together. My foot got caught somewhere and the only action I managed was a clumsy sideways roll that ended with me falling off the couch with a thud.
“Uh… are you okay?”
Above me, Andrew was peering over the edge of the sofa. His long-ish hair was falling forward, looking even more disheveled than usual. The two-seater was small for even me, but his height meant his legs were hooked awkwardly over the armrest, and a comfy position just wasn’t achievable. For a moment I just blinked up at him, wondering what had happened in the mere thirty seconds I’d been awake, before I gained enough composure to speak.
“I’m okay,” I assured him, pulling myself into a sitting position. “Just, uh... you surprised me.”
“You surprised me,” he said. “What time is it? Did we fall asleep on the couch or something?”
“Yeah, I guess we must-”
My voice trailed off just as my attention caught on something lying a few meters away from me. An empty pink baby carrier. And, like a dam had been opened somewhere inside my head, everything came flooding back to me.
It was then that I noticed the room was eerily quiet.
“Um, Andrew?” I said slowly.
“Yeah?”
I turned to look at him. “Where the hell is our kid?”
His brown eyes widened as the realization sunk in; his horrified expression mirrored my own feelings. We’d only had the doll for a day, and it’d been misplaced. How was it even possible to lose a plastic baby with about the same capabilities for movement as a rock?
Somehow, Andrew and I had managed it.
“We definitely had it last night,” he said, pushing himself off the couch and running a hand through his hair. “Because we couldn’t get it to stop crying... remember? I guess we eventually fell asleep.”
My mind flickered back to the previous night. After returning from the bathroom, things had gone downhill and never really came back up again. We exhausted all our options – feeding, changing its diaper, shaking its rattle, changing its clothes, rocking it – twice over, but its crying refused to let up. Around two a.m. we’d flopped, exhausted, onto the couch with the baby between us, feeling well and truly defeated.
I guess at some point after that we’d fallen asleep on each other, but the baby…
Well, that seemed to have disappeared into another dimension.
“Where can it have gone?” I said incredulously, as I overturned all the couch cushions in the hope of finding the doll concealed behind them. “We haven’t left the room all night!”
“It’s got to be here somewhere,” Andrew stated rationally. He stepped up onto the couch, leaning over the back of it to check the doll wasn’t lying abandoned behind there.
It wasn’t, but it took a while for that to register. Because, I realized with horror about ten seconds later, I had been completely rooted to the spot with my eyes transfixed on something best friends definitely weren’t supposed to look at.
I’d been checking out his butt.
The thought crossed my mind just as he turned back around, and my cheeks burst into flames.
“Avery?” he said, frowning as he stepped back down onto the floor.
“Huh?” I squeaked, desperately hoping he hadn’t noticed what I’d been doing. The strange awkwardness of yesterday had thankfully vanished – probably in the panic of misplacing our child – but I was pretty sure catching me checking out his butt would be a sure-fire way of bringing it right back.
“I asked you if you woke up at all last night.”
“Oh, um...” I shook myself from my thoughts as best I could. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Right. Okay.” Luckily, he seemed ignorant towards my spectacularly red cheeks and took to chewing nervously on his lip as his eyes darted around the room.
“Look, I’ll go ask my mom if she’s seen it,” I told him. “You carry on looking down here.”
He nodded and I took this as my cue to leave – an action which caused a great deal of relief on my part. As I climbed the stairs, I mentally slapped myself. What was I doing? After the weirdness of the previous night, I should’ve learned my lesson. Andrew and I were friends, nothing more. And although I hadn’t consulted any sort of handbook for the rules on this sort of thing, I was pretty sure friends didn’t go around checking out their other friends’ butts.
Even if it did look good in those jeans.
I was halfway across the hall when a noise made me stop in my tracks. A noise that could only be described as a giggle. Then, originating from the same direction, came the sound of muffled speech. I couldn’t be totally sure, but it sounded a lot like gibberish from where I was standing.
Millie.
The realization hit me with such force I was surprised I didn’t stumble backwards. Where else did all seemingly vanishing objects in this house end up?
My little sister’s room.
I twisted on my heel and bounded towards the door. When I approached, there was no hesitation in pushing it open – who knew what Millie would do to her new-found favorite toy? She wasn’t exactly known for her gentle nature; the thought of all the dolls she’d decapitated and defaced only heightened the sense of urgency to get into her room.
And as the door swung open, I braced myself for the worst.
Millie was sat cross-legged on the carpet, facing the doll. It was balanced on a makeshift chair that took the form of a hot pink Barbie convertible (the previous Barbie driver had been carjacked, and was now lying discarded on the floor). Spread around her were various items from Mom’s make-up bag, including the darkest shade of red lipstick she could find, which she was currently proceeding to smear all over the baby’s face.
“Millie!” I cried, rushing forwards and prying the doll from the car.
Unfortunately, it now looked like it had suffered some kind of horrific accident – Millie wasn’t exactly the world’s most skilled make-up artist, and deemed lipstick too pretty to stop at the mouth. On top of all that, she’d found a particularly fascinating glitter eyeliner, and the baby looked considerably more sparkly than it had done last night.
“No! Mine!” Millie protested.
She reached up to make a grab for the doll, but I quickly moved it out of her reach. This, however, only agitated her, and she stamped her foot angrily.
“It’s not a toy,” I told her. “It’s mine.”
She bared her teeth, growling. I didn’t trust her not to bite my hand, so I began to back away slowly. I didn’t want to risk any sudden movements. My back met the door and it was at that moment I realized I was cornered by my three-year-old sister.
My three-year-old sister, who was more similar to a wild animal than a toddler.
“Look at that!” I cried suddenly, pointing to the abandoned Barbie (which was so far into the splits there was sure to be some permanent damage).
I knew Millie probably couldn’t care less about it – especially when she had her sights set on the brand new, way more interesting doll I was currently holding – but my outcry kept her distracted for a second, and that was all I needed. I wrenched the door open and fled from the room, emerging back in the living room in record timing.
“You found it!” Andrew said, unmistakable relief crossing his features.
“Yeah,” I breathed, running a hand through my wavy hair. We hadn’t even passed the twenty-four hour milestone and already I felt exhausted. As if functioning on only a few hours’ sleep wasn’t bad enough, my limbs were stiff from being squashed onto a tiny couch and I was willing to bet I looked a mess.
And on top of everything, I now had to worry about keeping the baby well out of reach of my terrorizing little sister.
One down, six nights to go.
Not that I was counting.