With Betty on Vacation

He woke up, no light shown in the room or through the window, the air was crisp with nighttime chills. He tried to pull the blanket up to cover his shoulders but it wouldn’t move. He slapped around with an arm to grab more blanket but when he felt the quilt, he also felt something else, a big solid lump. What the hell? His hand roamed over the lump, up to the top then his fingers grazed across skin. Bare skin. Someone was in the bed with him. Kit rolled to the side facing the lump in his bed and poked it. The lump protested, “Uhh- “in a feminine voice. He sat up, pulled the quilt down then pushed on her shoulder. There were three females in the house just then, his mom, his older sister and his younger half-sister. Who was sleeping in the bed with him? He was pretty sure his mother wouldn’t sneak into his room so it was either Maggie or Betty. Kit reached for his LED night light and turned it on then prodded the unknown invader again. She turned her head to him, “What?”

It was Betty, his fifteen-year-old half-sister. “What are you doing in my bed?”

“It’s cold.”

“And?”

“And Maggie keeps stealing all the blankets and I was freezing. Mom has dad to keep her warm so I came in here. Can I go back to sleep now?”

“No, go back to your room, you can’t stay here.”

“Please Kit, I was careful not to get close to you and you have a big cover, I’m warm and we haven’t fought over the blanket.”

“We just did fight over the blanket.”

Betty looked at the clock on the nightstand, “It took you four hours to do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been here since about one, Maggie kept kicking me and tugging on the covers so I gave up and came in here. This bed is really comfortable and you haven’t fought over it, until now.”

“I’m not fighting you.”

“But you’re trying to kick me out too. Let me stay Kit, we have to get up in a couple of hours, I’m still tired so want to sleep till then.” She flopped back down on the pillow she’d brought with her, tugged the blanket to her chin and stared at her older half-brother.

“What the hell do you think mom and dad or Maggie will say if the find you in bed with me? They’ll totally freak out.”

“Why, we aren’t doing anything?”

“Yeah? Well you and me would be the only ones to believe that story.” Betty didn’t say anything more, she rolled to her side away from him, jostled a bit to get more comfortable then tried to go back to sleep. She wasn’t about to give up her warm, cozy bed cave just because he was worried the family might think they did something besides sleep. Kit looked at the tangle of reddish blonde hair and conceded half his bed to her. They would just have to be damn careful to be up before anyone else. He laid back down and turned his back to her.

They were on a family vacation, dad, step-mom, sister, brother, half-sister. Maggie and Kit were the children of the father and his first wife; she died. Betty was born a few months after his father married his step-mother, hence she is the half-sister born of the step-mother. The family unit was close knit and generally everybody loved everybody else as they should. There were occasional sibling spats but never any hate or serious familial damage done between them. The family didn’t take vacations during the summer, most destinations were too hot or too crowded to enjoy for two weeks, so the Christmas/New year school breaks were the vacation times for the Cutler family. This time it was a holiday in a cabin in Whistler Canada. A mountain resort near Vancouver on the Canadian west coast. As a snowboarding, snowmobiling vacation spot, it was fucking cold, especially at night.

Kit didn’t go back to sleep. He could tell Betty had. but he was to paranoid to close his eyes. He was alert to the slightest sounds in the cabin, he knew without a doubt they would be caught sleeping together. Finally, around 6:30 he couldn’t take the strain, woke his sister up and chased back to her own room, back to Maggie. After that he relaxed and drifted off for another half hour.

Betty got away with spending half the night in her brother’s room; Maggie was clueless, she didn’t realize Betty had abandoned her in the late night. Actually, she probably would have been glad to know she had the extra room, the full benefit of the down quilt. Their parents had no reason to suspect. Once the pressure of having his sister lying next to him was gone, Kit wasn’t concerned either, he let the matter fade away. It was Betty who spent time thinking about where she slept. For the first time in three days she was relaxed, felt more energetic; she was ready for a day on the slopes.

That night Betty and Maggie prepared for bed, Maggie got in first and cuddled up with her pillow under the thick blanket, barely leaving enough room for Betty to lie beside her. Maggie didn’t hate her sister, she wasn’t trying to start a ruckus, or ignore her, she just was accustomed to sleeping alone and didn’t realize she was being a bed hog. Betty tried to settle in but just as the nights before, her butt was exposed to the night air, her pajamas were not enough cover to keep her warm. Her protests were heard by Maggie who did reluctantly give up a couple of inches of space and blanket, but it didn’t last. As soon as the older sister was asleep, she again curled up in as much of the bedding as she could get. Betty was cold, unable to sleep.

She didn’t wait as long as she did the night before. As soon as Betty heard her parents go to their room, she gathered her pillow, her guardian dragon, Cooper, then crept to her brother’s room. Kit was not yet asleep; he was texting his girlfriend who was 1800 miles south of them. He looked up when Betty came through the door but said nothing when she lifted the quilt and laid beside him again.