It has to be close to midnight when my little brother Alex wakes me up on Christmas Eve. He went to bed hours ago, and it seems like I just turned out my light and closed my eyes when I feel him tugging on my covers. “Brandy?” he asks in a loud whisper.
I squeeze my eyes shut and say nothing. Maybe if I ignore him, he’ll think I’m still asleep and go back to bed. Even though I don’t know what time it is, I know it’s too early to be up. If our dads hear us…
Alex’s small hands pat their way up the side of my bed, following my legs beneath the sheets. “Brandy? Are you awake?”
How no one else can hear him is a mystery to me. “No,” I grumble, rolling over to turn my back to him. “You’re in the wrong room.”
“Brandy, listen,” he starts.
But I pull the covers up over my shoulder and tuck them under my chin. “Go back to bed,” I tell him. “If Daddy hears you, then he won’t let us open any presents until after breakfast. Don’t ruin Christmas for me, you hear?”
Alex is right behind me now, leaning heavily onto the bed so he can breathe against the back of my neck. “No, listen,” he says, his voice low and urgent. “I had to pee—”
“Thanks for the news flash,” I mutter, pulling the blanket over my head. “What do you want me to do about it? Post it on Facebook?”
A small fist pounds me between the shoulder blades, the punch muffled by my covers. “Listen,” he says again. “You never listen to me.”
“You’re talking about using the bathroom, and I’m trying to sleep.” I scoot over a little to try to get out of reach, but there isn’t much room in my narrow twin bed. Any farther and I’ll roll off the other side and plop onto the floor. “Just go back to bed, will you, Alex? As long as you’re awake, Santa can’t come and give you any presents, so—”
“That’s just it!” he cries, triumphant.
I half-sit up in bed. “Shh! Not so loud!”
He clamps both hands over his mouth, his eyes wide in the faint glow coming in through my open door from the nightlight in the hallway. “He’s already here,” Alex says through splayed fingers, his voice quieter than before. His eyes twinkle with mirth.
I roll onto my back, propped up on both elbows now, and frown at my brother. “Who’s here?”
“Santa.”
The word is whispered with awe, and his eyes threaten to pop right out of his head. I can almost feel him vibrating with excitement, and as I watch, he does a little dance that jiggles the bed
Santa, here,I think, shaking the disheveled hair out of my face. Yeah, right
“Alex,” I say with a sigh, “look, you need to get to bed—”
“It’s really him!” my brother insists. “I saw him, out in the living room, putting our presents under the tree! He ate the cookies I left out for him! He took the drawing I did! He’s out there with Daddy right now.”
Suddenly I get it. “Are you sure you didn’t just see Daddy and Papa?” I ask. “They’re probably both still awake. You know how Papa raved about your cookies earlier when you made them. He ate most of the first batch himself.”
“No!” Alex cries, striking the bed with both tiny fists.
“Shh!” I remind him. I throw a quick glance at the bedroom door, but no one hollers down the hall to tell us to get to bed, so hopefully his voice didn’t carry to the living room. “What are you trying to do, get us in trouble?”
“It’s Santa, I know it,” Alex insists. “I sawhim!”
“Please,” I say, falling back to the pillow, dismissing him. “Santa isn’t…”
Real, I almost finish, but I cut myself off before I let it slip. Still, Alex leans onto the bed and stares at me in the darkened bedroom. “Isn’t what?” he wants to know. I shake my head, refusing to answer, which only makes him madder. “Isn’t what? Brandy? What?”
But I promised our dads I wouldn’t be the one to tell him, so I clamp my lips together. When I do finally speak, all I say is, “Go back to bed, will you?”
To my surprise, Alex grabs my arm. “Come see for yourself.”
“What? No.” I try to shrug him off, but he clings to me like a leech. “Alex, no. Let go.”
“Come see,” he says again, tugging me towards the edge of the bed. “One look, that’s it, and you’ll see I’m right. Then I’ll go to bed.”
I sigh, exasperated. “What if I say no?”
He grins, his white teeth flashing in the darkness. “Then I’ll stay here all night with you instead. I brought my DS—”
“I thought you went to the bathroom,” I point out.
