"Shirley, what are you doing?" Mike asked as he walked in the room.
Shirley let herself fall on her butt on her bed before giving Mike the perfect puppy-dog face. "Noooothing..." she sung.
Mike sighed. "Why are you jumping on the bed instead of sleeping?"
Shirley looked down at her feet, her black curls covering her eyes. "I can't sleep."
Of course you can't, Mike thought. You had an entire can of soda during dinner. "Have you tried using your moon rock?"753Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWVRPMWBjzd
Shirley nodded and picked up the smooth, grey, oval rock from her nightstand. She found it by the creek, but she claimed it fell from the moon because the stars wanted her to not have nightmares at night. "It didn't help."
Mike sat next to her. She was in the first grade, and had just learned to count to 100. Time to teach her his old trick. "Do you know what I do when I can't sleep?"
Shirley shook her head.
"I count backwards from 100 to 1. Do you think you could do that?"
Shirley nodded, then frowned. "But Beary doesn't know his hundreds!"
"Well you can teach Beary tonight, okay?"
Shirley nodded and grabbed Beary, her stuffed polar bear. Mike turned on Shirley's nightlight and turned off the lamp. "Do you want to start?"
Shirley thought about it, and shook her head, pulling her duvet up to her neck, still hugging Beary. "You start."
Mike rolled his eyes. "100...99...98..."
Shirley joined in. "97...96...95...This isn't working," she yawned.
"Just keep counting. I rarely make it to 0," Mike reassured.
"94...93...92...91...90..." Shirley counted until Mike couldn't even hear her voice anymore, she was just mouthing the numbers.
"15...14...1-13...12..." she drifted off before she could say 11. Mike smiled and kissed her forehead lightly. "Sweet dreams, Shirl," he whispered before walking out of the little girl's room and closing the door on the peaceful sight of Shirley with Beary, an angel in her sleep.753Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ90AoUZ4Kka
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