The bedroom of the anniversary holiday let was very dark.
“Look at that! It’s 9.30 – we’ve overslept!” announced her husband cheerfully out of the gloom. “Any chance of a cup of tea?”
She opened her eyes reluctantly, consciousness brought back the awareness of the myriad tingling mosquito bites, poised for one accidental brush against something to turn into full scale tortuous itchiness. The little bastards had found them on the first evening before they’d had a chance to protect themselves.
Consciousness also brought resentment. It overwhelmed her.
“Well I don’t see why I should make one – it’s YOUR fault I nearly crashed the car because I was so tired and hungry because YOU wouldn’t heat up my dinner when I wanted you to because YOU were so busy chatting up that that elfy girl.”
“Was she really an elf?” he asked cheerfully, sitting up and getting his tabletop clear for a cup. “Petite and cute?”
“I’m petite and cute” she reminded him, “just not so petite round the middle anymore.”
She stomped off into the kitchen, which was also dark, because of the continental shutter thing. She was really annoyed with her mother too. Her mother, who had kept that secret ALL those years and now it turned out her father HADN’T been a werewolf after all. Him and his OAP cronies. They were just a bit bonkers – not supernatural.
The kettle took an age to boil and she took the great betrayer some orange juice. He thanked her graciously.
“And I had to take my dinner to the Women’s Institute to warm up” she complained “And they brought me some posh soup instead of my nice beef casserole.” She thought about this a bit further and conceded: “Although at least they took the time, given that there was a cheese festival going on and all the ladies in crinolines had to carry cheeses on their heads…”
She brought the tea in and got back into bed.
“But I suppose that after you’d finished flirting, you DID discover the traitors on the Hogwarts Express.”
Her husband grinned and pointed at the socket on the wall.
“Gets you everytime, doesn’t it” he said, “Like you don’t have weird enough dreams anyway, there’s nothing like a plug-in mosquito repellant to send them off the scale, is there?”
She grunted. It was still his fault.
Copyright 2016 by Paula Harmon. All rights belong to the author and material may not be copied without the author’s express permission