Thump
"Grandmary, I've already practiced the minuet five times now, must I play it again?"
Thump
Samantha's eyes flew open. 'All that stress over playing for the party must be coming after me', she thought, as the remaining fragments of her dream floated away. She shifted her head to see the clock face lit in a shaft of moonlight. It silently declared the time to be one o'clock in the morning.
One o'clock! Samantha inwardly groaned. How on earth was she supposed to get back to sleep? Her nerves were beginning to reawaken at the thought of the party. If it was truly one o'clock, the that meant the party was…today! She cursed whatever had woken her up.
Thump
Samantha jumped. The noise came from the direction of her window. 'Oh!' she thought, 'I guess it wasn't just my imagination after all.' Slowly, Samantha rolled out of her bed and softly stepped over to the window, carefully avoiding the creaking floorboards. Hesitantly, she pushed back the white crisp curtains (they had just returned from the wash after Grandmary had declared them to be, 'full of more dust and dirt than an African desert'. Apparently, she had a friend who had actually traveled to Africa, and could readily attest to the amount of dust therein), and peered into the midsummer night. There, far below her window, stood Eddie Ryland, Samantha's troublesome, and often infuriating, neighbor. The boy had one foot on the stone walk that wrapped around the house and the other in the garden, nearly trampling Grandmary's poor lilacs.
Samantha moved to open the window, but a movement from below caught her eye. She looked down to see a fat gray pebble flying toward her. It hit the center of the windowpane spot-on.
Quickly, before any more pebbles could come pelting at the glass, Samantha pushed up the window and leaned out into the sweet-smelling midnight air.
"Edward Ryland!" she hissed. It was unlikely anyone in the house was awake, but it was best to stay quiet and keep it that way. "What on earth are you doing knocking on my window at this time of night?"
Eddie, who had been preparing for another wave of flying rocks, dropped the stones on the path and stuffed his hands in his pockets before answering. "I couldn't really sleep. Nerves, I guess," he let out a hoarse laugh. "Imagine, me being nervous for some stupid party."
Samantha smiled at him, but bit her lip to keep from laughing. "So you just thought the best thing to do was to come over here and disturb me from my restful sleep?" She rested her arms on the window ledge.
"Um…" Eddie kicked at the one of the pathway stones. "Honestly, I didn't think you'd be sleeping, from the way you looked at practice yesterday."
Samantha nodded in remembrance. She supposed she had looked a little green yesterday, if her reflection had been anything to count on. "Well, I was. However, now it seems sleep has left me. So, what do you want?"
He looked up at her, a sliver of moonlight cutting across his cheek from between branches. "Do you want to come down? I mean, unless you… erm, don't."
This time Samantha allowed herself a laugh. "Come down? I should like to, but I can't imagine how I'll manage to get through this old house without waking everyone up!"
Eddie shrugged. "You could try the princess method. Tie some rope together, climb down…"
"And land in the arms of my handsome prince, I presume?" Eddie smirked. "I'd rather risk waking the sleeping dragon. I'll come down in a few minutes." Samantha leaned back into her room and, as quietly as possible, pulled the window back down.
Once again, she softly slipped across the floor to pull on a pair on moccasins her Uncle Gard had brought her from New York, and tossed on a violet dressing gown over her white nightdress. Opening her door just enough for her to slip through, she latched it behind her and crept down the hallway to the stairs.
A/N: Please review! This is not my first story, but the first on this site. I appreciate any and all feedback. Thank you!