Chapter 21
The time passed very slowly during these two hours. Miss Peregrine was laying on the black couch, she had finally closed her eyes, after an endless discussion with Emma about her sleeping until the reset. After Fiona and Olive had fed Peanut again they sat down on the floor next to the others. Enoch and Emma said on the red couch, Claire had asked to sit on Emma's lap. "Please wake me if I fall asleep," she had asked and was now asleep sprawled out on Emma. The twins and Bronwyn were lying on the floor in between the couches and Millard, Hugh and Horace had started playing cards again to prevent them from falling asleep as well.
At quarter to 9 nearly everyone was asleep. Only Enoch and Emma had managed to talk the whole time to stay awake. As Enoch stood up because it was time, some of children opened their eyes. "Is it time already?" Millard asked. Enoch nodded, so the boys were slowly getting up. Emma didn't want to wake up little Claire, she was sleeping so peacefully. But she had to stand up and as she began to move, Claire opened her eyes as well. "Can we see the reset now?" she asked yawning. Emma nodded as well and put her back on the ground while she stood up to wake Miss Peregrine. Claire began to wake up the other children and Enoch had gone outside to prepare everything for the reset.
Carefully, Emma woke Miss Peregrine, she really didn't like to because her headmistress looked so tired but she had to. Yawning, Miss Peregrine lifted herself up and looked at the watch on the fireplace. It was nearly 9 o'clock, so she stood up and went into the corridor to get her jacket. Emma and the others followed, grabbing their gas masks on their way. They all went outside and watched their house, waiting for the bomb. Everything looked like always, Miss Peregrine was standing in front of all her children, her pocket watch in her right hand. Only the older ones could see that their ymbryne still looked sick, they just hoped that the reset won't worsen her state any further. Then the bomb dropped and before it could hit, Miss Peregrine stopped the time, she began to reverse and the bomb disappeared again. The sun returned and disappeared. Suddenly it was dark again and the clock changed to September 2nd. Relieved, Miss Peregrine put her pocket watch back into her pocket and removed her gas mask, as did the children and they went back inside together. Emma hurried to Miss Peregrine to see how she was and if she needed help but fortunately she saw that Miss Peregrine was still ok. She smiled at her. "Thank you, Emma, but I'm fine. I'm really tired though." "Of course you are," Emma said. "You can sleep now." Grateful, Alma nodded.
Inside, Emma made all the children go to bed immediately. "Miss P., can you come and read us a story?" Claire and Bronwyn begged. For them everything was back to normal since they had seen the reset as always. Miss Peregrine didn't know what to say, she didn't like denying her children anything. Fortunately, Emma stepped in. "I'm sorry, but Miss Peregrine needs to sleep. Olive and me can come and tuck you in later, ok?" Emma explained. "I'm going with you now," Olive agreed and left with the children. Enoch brought in the things they had needed for the reset and was now tidying the parlour for the night, so Emma and Miss Peregrine were left in the corridor alone. " You should go to bed now," Emma said. Miss Peregrine nodded slowly, she was really tired and had problems keeping her eyes open, the reset and her fever were taking all her energy. "Do you need anything? " Emma asked. Miss Peregrine shook her head. "I guess not," she replied." "I can make you another cup of tea, you still need to drink," Emma offered. "You don't have to, you've already done enough," Alma said. "I can do it myself." "No way!" Emma replied. "You're still sick and you need to lie down, I'm not letting you prepare your own tea," Emma stated. Alma gave up, she was too tired to argue. "Ok," she said and made her way up the stairs. Why did her room have to be upstairs, she just wanted to lie down and the stairs were killing her. On her way she passed the rooms of her children, it was mostly quiet inside, she could only hear Olive reading to Claire and Bronwyn.
Finally she had arrived at her room. She took off her jacket and her dressing gown and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. Brushing her teeth felt so good after the last two days. Her hair still looked terrible but she didn't have the energy to redo it especially because it would look the same in the morning. She let herself fall into bed as Emma knocked at her door. As Emma entered she gave her the cup of tea. " I put some cold water into it too, so you can drink and don't have to wait until it's cold enough," she said. "Thank you, you're wonderful," Miss Peregrine said grateful. "Ok, then sleep well and call if you need anything," Emma said before she left the room. "Thank you Emma, you too," Alma answered as Emma closed the door behind her.
Emma went to the twins' bedroom. Luckily they hadn't fallen asleep yet. She went over to their beds and gave both of them a good-night kiss. "I just wanted to say that I'm really proud of you, that you tried to get Claire's doll. I'm really sorry that I didn't understand what you wanted to tell us. Now it seems so logical what you tried to show me." The twins made a sound that obviously meant that they were happy. Emma patted their heads and left them to sleep. Only 25 minutes past 9 the whole house was quiet and everyone fast asleep, they had all needed the sleep. It was a peaceful night except for Olive, Fiona and Hugh getting up to feed Peanut every 3 hours. But because they took turns, everyone had to get up only once.