An Early Start

The scrambling of a little person wrenched me from my dreams this morning as she made her way up our bed in the dark, and sought warmth in the bedclothes between us. I half woke, and looked at the alarm clock. Some time after 5am. I murmured “you need to go back to your own bed” into the pillow. “Why?” I had no answer. Little Miss 6 had walked into the study to find me while preparing my bag the previous evening, hugged my leg, and asked if I could put her to bed. “Why?” “You not here tomorrow night… I miss you Dad” As I stared at the alarm clock again, the small body in the bed began breathing deeply, and was lost to the land of fairies again, like some switch had been thrown. After the few fleeting moments between closing my eyes and the alarm on my phone erupting into the darkness, nearly an hour had passed. Sliding out of bed, and tiptoeing from the room as quietly as possible, I looked back at our youngest charge in the twilight shadows - a tuft of blonde curls creeping from the bedclothes next to her Mum.