“Later this morning,” Mr Jasper said. “Instead of running around the block, we will be playing basketball.”
The kids around me made various kinds of noises. Most of them sounded positive. I felt queasy. I hate sports – especially the kind where there is a ball, and every time it gets thrown in my direction, everyone looks!
I spent the next hour dreading the game, while Mr Jasper got us to read a poem about Narcissus, who was apparently some ancient Greek guy that was so into himself he got trapped looking at his own beautiful reflection. It made me think of Felicity, and the way she often stood in front of the mirrors in the bathroom, putting on lipstick even though we aren’t allowed makeup at school.
As we went to get changed into our PE gear, I contemplated all the excuses I could come up with for why I had to leave exactly NOW. I have a headache, my Mum called, I forgot, my Dad was picking me up to take me to an appointment… I have a medical emergency… I didn’t think Mr Jasper would believe any of this, and so I got into my shorts and T-shirt, my heartbeat hammering in my chest. I wish we were just running…at least that way no one is looking at me, and I can’t mess it up.
“Are you okay?” Ella asked as we walked out of the changing rooms into the gym.
“Not really,” I said. “I hate sports.”
Ella’s mouth lifted into a small smile. “Me too,” she said. At least I wasn’t alone.
I put all my effort into carefully avoiding the ball, as much as possible, but I must have gotten distracted because about halfway into the game, a boy with dark hair called out: “Hey.”
I looked up, and he threw the ball at me.
I panicked and ducked. The other kids laughed.
“That’s not how you play the game, Awa,” Felicity said.
My stomach tightened into a knot. Everything around me went grey. I tried to leave the gym, but Mr Jasper stopped me.
“I can’t,” I said to him, trying to hold back the tears.
“Just hang in there,” he said, pushing me back onto the court.
I stood at the edge of the court, frozen, not looking at the game. I didn’t care what Felicity and the others thought. I just couldn’t...
Finally, Mr Jasper blew his whistle, and it was over.
“Half time!” he said.
Damn, I realised, it’s only halfway through!
The boy with the dark hair came over to where I was standing. “Hey,” he said.
I tried not to look at him.
“I’m sorry,” he continued.
“For what?’ I asked, looking at my sneakers.
“I didn’t realise… when I passed the ball to you. You looked terrified. I didn’t mean to do that.”
I nodded.
“Look, I’m Evan,” he said, holding out his hand. I didn’t move. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m going to talk to Mr Jasper for you,” and he ran off.
No!
But it was too late to stop him. He was already talking to the teacher. I heard Mr Jasper disagreeing with him, and Evan using words like “health” and “wellbeing” and “duty of care.”
I felt even worse; that was until Mr Jasper waved me over and asked me if I was okay.
“I’m not feeling okay,” I admitted.
“You can sit here, on the bench,” Mr Jasper said. “But next time, I expect you to try a bit harder, Awa.”
I sighed and sat down, just grateful that I didn’t have to play that stupid game anymore, at least today.
I was the first back in the changing room, and I was almost dressed by the time Ella came in.
“Are you okay?” Ella asked me again. I just looked at her.
“That was awful,” she continued. “Charlie Henson bumped into my chest, and it really hurt. I’m sure he did it on purpose. I wish we could go back to running.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Hey, that was nice of Evan Chang to talk to Mr Jasper for you.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “That was awkward but nice.”
“He’s my neighbour,” Ella went on. “Remember how I told you?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I told you my only other friend at school was my neighbour – well, that’s Evan.”
“You don’t seem to hang out with him,” I said.
“That’s because Felicity teases us too much, and so we decided not to hang out at school anymore.”
“That’s sad,” I said, picking up my bag.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Ella said. “But hey, maybe now you’re here, it won’t be so bad – you know, power in numbers and all that.”
The bell rang for lunch, and we walked out to the tables in the courtyard.
Ella waved Evan over; of course he wanted to know if I was alright, and I was so sick of the question, so instead of answering it, I just said. “Do you want to sit with us?”
“Sure,” Evan said, he pulled out his lunch box and picked up his sandwich. “Want to swap my peanut butter for your ham?” he asked Ella.
“In your dreams,” she said.
It was nice hanging out with Evan and Ella; they were both so funny and goofy when they were together, I guess they knew each other so well from being friends for practically their whole lives. It made me miss Melody, and the way things used to be, which made me think of my old house and my old life…
“So how are you finding Magnolia Heights?” Evan asked.
“It’s… uhh,” I tried to find the right words.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Evan smiled.
“It’s not that bad,” Ella said. “At least there aren’t any uniforms.”
“It’s okay, I guess,” I said, “…apart from Felicity.”
“She’s awful,” Ella agreed.
“She’s kind of…”
“… racist,” Evan said. I nodded.
“You said that before,” Ella said. “I never really noticed...”
“Maybe because you’re so freaking white,” said Evan, gently punching Ella in the shoulder.
“Maybe,” Ella said, “or maybe she just never says anything racist in front of other people – that’s kind of how her bullying works – she tries to get you when you’re alone, to say things that no one else hears, to figure out what things make you feel terrible and then she really twists the knife.”
“That sounds about right,” I said. “But where does she even get that from?”
“She has a bunch of older siblings,” Ella said, it could be one of them.
“Nah – I reckon it’s her dad,” said Evan. “I’ve seen the way he glares at me whenever he’s picking her up from school.”
“Really? People glare at you just because you’re not white?” Ella asked. “Oh man, that must be awful.”
Evan and I looked at each other.
“You don’t say,” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Ella asked him.
“I don’t know – lots of people are racist, it sucks… and that’s about it,” Evan replied.
“Why don’t you tell the teachers,” Ella asked, looking at both of us. “Or your parents.”
“Hah!” I laughed. “There’s no way I’d tell Mum anything like that – she’d make such a big deal about it.”
“It sucks that you have to deal with it… so much that you never really talked about it,” said Ella, looking from me to Evan.
“I don’t want it to get me down,” Evan said, shrugging, and he smiled at me.
I walked slowly out to the front of the school to wait for Mum to pick me up. That was when I saw him again – the man with the snake tattoo.
I froze.
He was standing right by the school gate, looking in the opposite direction. A chill ran down my spine. Does he know I’m here? Is it too late to run? He must be looking for me – the snake was just like the one in my nightmare… it’s not the first time I’ve seen him… he must be following me.
I started backing away, wondering if I would be able to run fast enough. I backed
right into someone.
I turned to see Evan, smiling at me.
“Watch where you’re going!” he called out, then he saw the serious look on my face.
“What’s wrong?” Evan asked.
How can I explain when the snake man is standing right there? I wondered. I wished Evan would stay quiet so that the man might not notice me in the sea of other kids leaving school.
“Nothing,” I said quietly. “See ya,”
Evan moved past me. Should I have warned him? I wondered, or is the snake man just after me?
I looked across to see Evan was talking to him!
I couldn’t help it – I just stood there with my mouth open, staring.
“Hey Awa!” Evan called.
I wish I had the power of invisibility.
“Come over here!” Evan continued to yell. “Come meet my uncle Pete.”
I looked up at the face of the man who had looked so tough and terrifying, only to see a friendly smile.
It turned out that the snake man wasn’t waiting for me at all – I was just being paranoid. He was waiting for Evan and was, in fact, Evan’s uncle, and actually seemed quite nice. I talked to them for a while before Mum arrived. On the drive home I wondered how I had been so wrong about that guy – why did I jump to conclusions and think he was evil? How did I misread the signs so badly?
The next few days went past in a blur. I hadn’t had the chance to talk to Ella much. She never seemed to be around at breaks. It was almost as if she was avoiding me.
Evan had started to talk to me more, so at least I wasn’t completely alone, but I didn’t feel like I had any real friends at this school.
I missed Melody, which also made me miss my old house, and even my old school. I had one less problem though: Felicity hadn’t spoken to me lately, which was great.
The bell rang for the end of the day on Friday, and I saw Ella packing up. Everyone else had already left the classroom. They must have packed up before the bell even rang.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m not sick if that’s what you mean,” Ella said. She smiled, but it didn’t seem to be a real smile.
“I was starting to think you were avoiding me. I’ve hardly seen you all week.” I said.
“It’s just…” Ella looked down at the floor, and I realised there was something wrong. What did I do? I wondered; did I offend her somehow?
“It’s not you,” Ella said. “I’ve just been feeling really weird and…” she looked around again. “Do you want to go and get a shake?”
“Sure,” I said. I was curious to know what was going on, and it wasn’t like I had any other plans.
We walked out of the school together, and Ella seemed to relax. It wasn’t until we had ordered our chocolate shakes at the ice cream parlour down the road that she started talking.
“Okay, the thing is, I have this crush, and it’s driving me nuts.”
Ella looked at me, testing to see if I was going to laugh at her.
“I hate it when that happens!” I said, throwing my arms up in an exaggerated way. This was kind of a lie because I didn’t really get crushes, but I knew they were a pain. Melody was always crushing on different people in our old class and being dramatic about it.
“Do you?” Ella looked at me. “I mean, do you like anyone at school?”
I blushed. It wasn’t because I did like anyone, but because I was a bit ashamed to admit that I never got crushes, as if there was something wrong with me.
“I only just got here!” I said.
“Yes, but you blushed,” Ella said.
“It’s just an awkward question,” I told her. “I honestly swear that I don’t have any crushes.”
At all.
“Okay,” Ella said. “It’s just that. I think Evan likes you.”
I could see from the pain in Ella’s eyes that this was a problem, not just for me (because AWKWARD) but for her, because obviously Evan was the one she had a crush on.
“The feeling’s not mutual,” I assured her. “He’s okay, as a friend, but…”
“He’s not your type?” Ella said, the spark returning to her eyes.
“I guess not.” We both took big sips of our shakes. They were delicious.
“So…” Ella said, really smiling now, “…what is bothering you then?”
“Is it that easy to tell?” I asked. “I guess everything is. I miss my old house and even my old school!”
“And your friends?”
“I guess… and Mum is really stressed. I hardly see Dad. Also, I’ve been having these weird dreams.”
I figured it was okay to tell her a little bit, without sounding totally crazy.
“I don’t even remember my dreams,” Ella said.
“I didn’t use to, either,” I said.
It was true. Before recently, everything was a blur when I woke up – with just pieces left behind, like the bits of plastic and sand-polished glass you find on a beach, parts of a puzzle from a story you will never know. “Now, I remember every last detail.”
“Are they scary?” Ella asked, “like nightmares?”
“Not always... just really strange,” I said.
“That’s pretty cool, like free entertainment. You should write them down.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t even know where to start!” It felt good being able to talk to someone about this, even if I couldn’t tell her the whole truth.
“Have you ever…” I started. “Have you ever had a dream where you were kind of awake in it?”
“You mean like a lucid dream?” Ella asked.
Lucid, my mind started to spin. I almost knocked over my shake.
“Is that a real word?” I asked. I had only heard it in my dream, from that strange glowing creature.
“Sure,” Ella said. “My brother used to have them sometimes. He even trained himself to have them. He said he liked to fly in his dreams – but it was more like taking really big jumps, slowly… into the air.”
No way…Not only did those dreams feel real, they were also using real words that I don’t even know!
“Are you okay?” Ella asked me. “You look pale. Too much shake?”
“Sorry – I just remembered I was supposed to meet my Mum,” I lied. “I hope you have a good weekend!”
I got up and left the ice cream parlour. I couldn’t trust myself not to be weird around Ella when there was so much going on in my head.
How is this possible? I wondered as I walked home. Lucid… It’s obviously not a common word. Maybe I had heard the word before and had just somehow forgotten that I knew it. I could have seen it in a movie or something. I tried to reassure myself, but I went around in circles. There were only two possibilities: Either I’m going crazy, or my dreams are… real.
Chapter Seven
I was so tired when I went to sleep that night. Mum said it had been a long week, and she was right. It didn’t help that she kept bringing up that she wanted me to see a shrink.
“It might help, honey,” she insisted.
I wasn’t convinced. I just felt awful, but at least she didn’t tell me to turn the lights out these days. I had won that argument – for now – but tonight I felt brave, so I just had my little night light on. Maybe I would get a better sleep and have better dreams!
I drifted off to sleep, wondering if I would ever meet Veila again… and I was also worried about how much the shrink would cost when Mum was already broke, and how awkward it would be to talk to a stranger, and how they obviously would also think I was crazy if I told them the truth.
The carnival spread out all around me – rust-coloured and shifting like a magic-eye. The scent of grease hung in the air. I had a feeling I had been there before.
Crowds bustled past me with candy floss and popcorn. People were throwing strange things at large red and white targets: handbags, road cones, live rats.
Eugh… yuck!
I backed away.
I had the creeping
feeling that I was being watched again. I started running, faster and faster, through the crowds, out of the carnival, to the edge of the cliff. The sea spread out in front of me in both directions. I looked down at my feet. The ground was crumbling.
No!
I was falling.
The terror rose up as I fell.
I woke in my bed, a garbled noise coming from my mouth as I tried to scream in my sleep. As my heartbeat slowed back to normal, I reassured myself:
Just a falling dream... Nothing unusual about that. I’d had them before, lots of times. It was actually kind of a relief, like, hey, I can still dream normally!
I rolled over and drifted back to sleep; I was in the carnival again, but it was empty, and this time I was awake in my dream; I was lucid.
I remembered what Ella had said about her brother flying in his dreams, so I thought I would give it a try. I lifted my arms and took a big jump. I kept rising, slowly, higher, and higher. I felt that roller-coaster feeling in my gut, the one when you’re going up so high that you get butterflies about coming down.
I wasn’t flying like superman; it was more like a big, slow bounce that took me up, up, up, over the carnival, and then slowly back down.
I guess gravity works differently here. I jumped from building to building, from hill to hill. It was fun looking at the shifting changing view of the carnival city all around me.
What is this place? I wondered. It looked familiar but strange, as though my mind had just made it up randomly by piecing together other things I’d seen before.
I drifted back down to the middle of the carnival to have a look. It was still deserted, which made it seem spooky.
“Hello!” I called out.
I heard a bang and a creaking noise.
“Is someone there?”
I had the creepy feeling I was being watched. Not again! I started walking – not running. Running shows you’re scared. I walked fast as if I was busy and had things to do.
I saw a glimmer in the corner of my eye and turned to find…
“Veila?”
She was hovering in front of a stall of clown faces with open mouths – you know the kind you’re supposed to throw things into to win prizes, only I knew there were no prizes in this strange place, at least none I would want to win!
Awa and the Dreamrealm Page 4
