16. Tingles in the Night

To her disappointment, it was way dark when Everest woke up. What had meant to be a short nap had spun into a long sleep. She groaned when she checked the time to be nine o'clock in the night.

Great. Now she'd have trouble going back to sleep later.

Her stomach moaned as she got up from the bed and she rubbed at her flat tummy. Her plan to cook up a nice meal on waking up was gone with the evening wind now and she'd had nothing but a bowl of cereal in the morning and a quarter dozen of cakes in the afternoon.

Everest then realized her skin was steaming from the heat that had refused to depart with the afternoon. She found herself wishing the small house had air conditioning. Making a mental note to mention it to Mrs Casss, she headed to the kitchen to get a bite of a cupcake.

She had planned to muster up the trekking courage to go into town tomorrow and buy a bunch of flavoured frostings to add to the remaining. And if she wasn't able to summon the courage she was going to have them l