Just Dreaming

by Kerstin Gier

  4

  “DID HE REALLY say Perpetua?” I asked automatically, for what was probably the hundredth time that day. “I mean, you can easily mishear something. And you know what Jasper’s like. He always calls me Liz.”

  “It’s different for you.” Persephone’s lower lip began trembling ominously again, and I hastily propelled her on ahead of me down the school corridor, making for the main exit.

  Since all that Jasper had said to Persephone this morning was a brief, throwaway Hi, Perpetua, her world had turned upside down. She had always admired Jasper, but only while he was away in France had she fallen desperately in love with him, don’t ask me why. Meanwhile, Jasper had obviously entirely forgotten that Persephone even existed, at least if you interpreted that Hi, Perpetua less charitably and more realistically. Which of course I didn’t, because Persephone was crushed anyway, so the last thing she needed right now was realism. In today’s break periods, she had made her way through two family packs of tissues (and we had discovered that her mascara probably wasn’t waterproof), and it hadn’t done any good for me to invent a disorder called face-and-first-name legasthenia and suggest that Jasper suffered from it. I was running out of helpful ideas.

  At least school was over for this week; it was Friday, the sun was shining, and it was the start of the weekend. I’d been longing for the peace of my own room for hours, so as to get away from Persephone’s wailing and think a few things over clearly. With a bit of luck, I could even allow myself a relaxing afternoon siesta before kung fu practice—I had a lot of sleep to catch up on, and maybe clear thoughts would come of their own accord if I wasn’t so tired.

  It was now two nights since Henry and I had met Anabel in our dream, and we had walked up and down the corridors without much of a plan, keeping an eye on the doors of the people we loved and looking out for Arthur or Anabel, always hoping to find some new clue. But in vain. Absolute silence had reigned, a silence that I found suspicious, but Henry thought it was reassuring. So reassuring that last night he had even begun talking about Rasmus in the middle of the corridor. Apparently he had found a Rasmus Wakefield on Facebook and wanted to know if he was “my” Rasmus Wakefield. At least I could deny that with a clear conscience and tell him that “my” Rasmus wasn’t a fan of social media. So then Henry had asked what his hobbies had been.

  “He liked playing ball games,” I said. And to avoid having to say any more about my invented South African ex-boyfriend who was really a dog, I began kissing Henry, ignoring any potential observers. It was a distraction maneuver that always worked. But this time—if only after a while in which I for one forgot everything else: Rasmus, invisible spies, dangerous demons—it just made Henry ask what Rasmus was like at kissing.

  It was enough to drive me crazy. I’d never get rid of the wretched guy I had invented.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a tiny bit jealous,” I said, instead of saying, “Wet kisses with a lot of licking.”

  Henry nodded. “Very likely” was all he said, stroking my cheeks and throat with his fingertips. “I’m just interested to know who taught you to kiss so well.”

  Hmm. Not Rasmus, anyway.

  “Who says he taught me kissing and not vice versa?” I murmured. “Could be I’m a natural talent.” But, anyway, I was a bad, bad liar. I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer: sooner or later I’d have to tell Henry the truth. I just didn’t know how to do it without sinking into the ground in my embarrassment.

  “But that wasn’t all,” Persephone was wailing again. “Jasper didn’t even really look at—”

  “What’s going on over there?” I said in a loud voice, pointing to the main exit, where a crowd had gathered. Sometimes diverting another person’s attention was the only thing to do.

  And it worked. Persephone wrinkled her nose, smoothed out her plaintive expression, and hurried inquisitively over to the circle of students, eager for a sensation, listening to a conversation that was obviously going on in the middle of the crowd. I followed her, rather more slowly. But when I saw who was at the center of the circle, I stood on tiptoe, just like Persephone, to get a better view.

  Although he haunted my mind almost all the time, I hadn’t seen Arthur again in daytime since Mrs. Lawrence’s nervous breakdown. Even in the school cafeteria, we never seemed to come across each other, and I couldn’t say that I was missing the sight of him. But I kept catching myself expecting someone else to stand up and do something crazy or outrageous. Henry and Grayson said they felt the same during basketball practice. And the fact that so far nothing like that had happened didn’t set our minds at rest. Far from it—it just heightened the suspense. Who was going to be Arthur’s next victim? And what would he do to that victim?

  I was beginning to sound paranoid—for instance, I asked Mia as casually as possible, every evening, whether she had lost anything (having checked up on my own things), and only when she assured me that nothing of hers had gone missing could I go to bed with an easy mind. I thought a lot about when an object became personal. Did a pencil you had just bought count? Or did you have to chew the end of it to give it that personal touch? And how long did the effect last? After a while, wouldn’t it count as the possession of whoever had taken it, and then it wouldn’t work anymore for the previous owner? Last time, it had been a glove that let Arthur invade Mia’s dreams, and I knew I’d sooner die than go through that again. So I didn’t mind knowing that in the end Mia was bound to think my constant questions were odd. I’d really have liked to tell everyone to take extra good care of their personal possessions, especially when Arthur was around. But of course that wouldn’t do. And presumably he’d acquired what he needed ages ago by now. I imagined him collecting his loot in his room, labeling every item conscientiously with its owner’s name, and wondering, every evening, whose dreams to haunt that night. To keep from being taken by surprise in his own sleep, of course he had stopped using the secret hiding place for his key that had allowed Grayson to break in and retrieve Mia’s glove in January. And as Grayson had found out, the secret way to Arthur’s house, a route that the boys had known and used since childhood, had recently been blocked off by a new fence, so there was no way of getting at Arthur in his sleep, or the stuff that he had stolen. All kinds of influential, famous figures went in and out of his parents’ house, musicians, politicians, industrialists—it was scary to think of all the people Arthur might be spying on after stealing something of theirs.

  At the moment, however, he wasn’t dealing with influential friends of his parents, he was confronting the number-one hate object at Frognal Academy, who went by the name of Theodore E. Ellis.

  Theo Ellis wasn’t, as you might think, unpopular because he was a puny, scheming show-off, or a fat, nasty bully, or unpleasant company in some other way—no, the trouble was that he was outstandingly good at basketball, a huge talent, always scoring points, someone who’d do any team credit. He was also good-natured, smart, and attractive. The problem was that Theo Ellis wasn’t a student at Frognal Academy but at Roslyn High. In other words, he played for the wrong team, which was a good enough reason to hate him like poison.

  Theo would surely never have ventured into enemy territory of his own free will, but it was his bad luck to be studying Ancient Greek as an exam subject, and since not many students were learning that language, Frognal Academy and Roslyn High School shared the course. And the lessons were here in our school.

  When Theo came for Ancient Greek classes on Fridays, the booing that met him in the corridors and the rest of the school building was not by any means the worst of it. If rumor was correct, the Ancient Greek teacher, Mrs. Ritzel, always gave a test and extra homework when there was an important game against his team coming up. Mrs. Ritzel was a great fan of the Frognal Flames.

  And over the last few weeks, the situation had deteriorated, if possible, even more. Because Theo’s team looked likely to win the school championship, while the Flames had slumped to number four i
n the rankings. And since, as everyone knows, fans are even worse about losing than their teams, there was even a “We Hate Theo Ellis” forum on the Internet, where people made up rude rhymes about Theo.

  He must feel sorry he hadn’t opted for Spanish instead, but I kind of admired him for walking so casually along our corridors every Friday, ignoring the concentrated hostility of all present with stoic calm.

  Like today.

  At least, if he was feeling at all uncomfortable, he didn’t let it show. With his legs apart and his arms crossed, he was standing in front of Arthur, looking like nothing so much as a massive oak wardrobe. Arthur, over six feet tall and very fit, looked feeble by comparison. That didn’t keep him from calling Theo names. Not such primitive names as the Frognal Flames fans shouted, but names in Arthur’s own line, which were even nastier.

  “Not that your A levels are suffering,” he was saying in a soft voice. “After all, your mother expects at least one of your family to amount to something. But I heard that your brother is on probation.”

  Murmurs of approval from the onlookers. I saw Emily’s shining brown hair among the other heads and was surprised. She’d taken no interest in basketball when she was going out with Grayson. All the same, she was listening to the conversation as if spellbound. Her brother, Spotty Sam, who was always telling me to be ashamed of myself, was standing beside her, filming it all on his cell phone.

  “What interesting things you do hear, little Goldilocks,” said Theo, and Persephone, who was clinging to my arm, took a deep, audible breath. “I expect you pick them up at the hairdresser’s when they’re putting the curlers in your pretty hair.”

  Arthur favored him with a tolerant glance. “It must be awful, being under such pressure, and the only member of your family who can read and write, at that. Can’t be nice imagining yourself ending up as a house cleaner, like your father.” He sniffed ostentatiously, looking at Theo. “Well, good cleaners are always in demand.”

  A few of the crowd giggled, and some idiot from the lower school murmured, “Theo, Theoderant, doesn’t use deodorant.”

  Theo sighed, sounding bored. “Of course I always knew what a snob you are, little Goldilocks, but you used to be better than that. Before your team made you captain. Why, as a matter of fact, did they do it?”

  Aha! That hit home. I was beginning to like Theo a lot.

  Arthur kept his superior smile going, but I wasn’t the only one who could see him losing his cool. Theo had found a sore point. No one was giggling now; they were all waiting to hear what Arthur had to say in reply. Because no one but us knew the reason for the obvious bad feeling between him and his former best friends Grayson, Jasper, and Henry, which dated from last fall.

  While Arthur was still at a loss for words, Theo shouldered his schoolbag. “Well, we can’t all be popular, Goldilocks. Don’t take it so hard; you have rich parents to make up for it. I must be going,” he added, making his way through the crowd of students. “I’m off to practice with my team. Who, incidentally, voted unanimously to make me their captain last week.”

  Strolling along at his ease, he disappeared through the double glass doorway, and I couldn’t suppress a small smile of glee. Because everyone present, not just me, could see only too well that Theo Ellis had won that little exchange. And Goldilocks hadn’t.

  “I think Theo Ellis is definitely sexy,” I said to the girl next to Persephone and me.

  “Me too,” admitted the girl. “But I hate him, all the same.”

  The gawping onlookers were dispersing, muttering angrily, and I was about to urge Persephone to move on as well, when Arthur’s eyes fell on me. Although it was the briefest of glances, it was so cold that I spontaneously tried to turn into a jaguar.

  “That stupid Theo is just jealous. Arthur’s hair looks great,” said Persephone, dreamily, staring at Arthur as he turned away. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to style natural curls so that they’ll look masculine and cool?”

  I ran my hand over the place where the fur at the back of a jaguar’s neck would be standing on end, and looked at Persephone, shaking my head. She was a hopeless case.

  “Let’s go, or we’ll miss the bus,” I said, pushing her toward the door. Unfortunately that meant passing Emily. As usual, Emily ignored me but greeted Persephone effusively, probably hoping that would make me feel ignored twice over. And in the normal way, Persephone would indeed have felt flattered, but then Emily made a grave tactical error.

  “Do you have hay fever, you poor thing?” she asked sympathetically. “Your face is so swollen. Like me to write down the name of the stuff that helped my brother, Sam, so much?”

  “No, thanks.” Persephone sniffed and threw back her hair. “Does my face really look swollen?” she asked me as we went on.

  “Oh, it’s not too bad.” Anyway, not too bad considering all the tears she’d shed since that morning. I was afraid Persephone might start on about Jasper again, but her thoughts were still with Arthur.

  “I feel sorry for Arthur,” she said when we had reached the bus stop. “Without his friends, he’s kind of … oh, I don’t know. Henry, Grayson, Jasper, and Arthur were like the Four Musketeers. It’s funny that they don’t get along anymore.” She gave me an inquiring glance. “I still think it’s something to do with Anabel. He must have done something last fall, and she can’t forgive him for it. And I think you know what it was, but you just don’t want to tell me.”

  She was dead right there. “Persephone, the closest of friends grow apart when they develop in different directions,” I said, realizing that I sounded like Lottie in one of her instructive moods. “As Theo Ellis pointed out just now: Arthur is a terrible snob. And who wants to be friends with a snob?”

  Persephone looked as if she were having difficulty not saying, “I do!”

  “Hmm,” she said instead, not sounding very convinced. “You and I are totally different, but we’re best friends all the same.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” I said, and I couldn’t help laughing. At first I’d thought Persephone was a horrible, superficial girl, a real pain in the neck, and in fact, she probably was. I’d never have expected to get so fond of her, but now there’d certainly be something missing from my life without her.

  As the bus stopped and its doors opened with a hiss, I put an arm around Persephone and hugged her. “Mind you take good care of your things, won’t you?” I told her. “Especially little things like key rings, jewelry, hair scrunchies, gloves…”

  “You keep saying that lately. As if I were totally scatterbrained.” Persephone pushed an underclassman aside and forged a way up to the top deck of the bus for us. “Or even worse, as if you were my granny, warning me of thieves all over the place. She even puts out her garbage cans at the last moment in case someone makes off with them before the truck comes to take the garbage away.” She dropped into an empty seat and began crying again. Don’t ask me why, but obviously the garbage cans had somehow reminded her of Jasper again.

  “Perpetua!” she sobbed. “He might as well have called me Aphrodite!”

  “Well, at least he got the initial of your name right,” I said, sighing. Yes, it was a fact, there’d be something missing from my life without Persephone. All the same, I was glad when she got off the bus at her stop and I knew I wouldn’t have anyone weeping all over me for the rest of the day.

  But unfortunately I’d rejoiced too soon. Because instead of relaxing in heavenly peace and quiet, as I intended, Mom summoned Mia and me to the kitchen for a crisis meeting. No hope of relaxation after that. All I really wanted was to crawl into bed with Mr. Twinkle, my favorite teddy bear from early childhood, and cry into his soft, brown, nice-smelling teddy-bear fur. But stupidly I didn’t have him anymore, because I was way too old for cuddly toys and I’d already thrown dear old Mr. Twinkle away in Utrecht. I could always cry into a pillow, but it wasn’t the same. I wanted Mr. Twinkle back. I wanted to be the right age for cuddly toys again. Four, or thereabouts.
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  Of course Grayson wasn’t to know that when he burst into my room, without knocking, a few hours later. He hadn’t come home after school, and he’d not been there for supper either. If I hadn’t been distracted by recent events, I’d have been worried, because Grayson never skipped a meal.

  He looked excited, and he hadn’t even stopped to take off his jacket. I pushed my damp pillow aside and stared at him in confusion. Or more precisely, I stared at what he was holding out to me. Was that by any chance…?

  Yes. It was. Grayson really was holding a black sock out to me, looking as pleased and proud as if it had been a red rose.

  “There,” he said. “I’ve ticked off number one on my to-do list. Take good care of it.”

  “Of a sock?” It wasn’t like Grayson to burst in just like that. He seemed strangely full of himself. And what did the sock mean? Was this another British custom that I didn’t understand? Or had Buttercup run off with the other sock, and now he wanted compensation? I looked more closely. “Yuck! Is that…”

  “Yes, of course. Fresh from the man’s own foot,” said Grayson. He somehow reminded me of Buttercup when she retrieved an enormous branch instead of a little stick, and wanted to be praised for it. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be a personal possession. Here, you look after it.”

  I was still skeptical. “It smells cheesy.”

  “Liv, this is no ordinary sock!” I was so slow on the uptake that Grayson shook his head. “It belongs to Senator Tod, a.k.a. Dr. Otto Anderson, a.k.a. Anabel’s psychiatrist. Armed with this, we can open his dream door. You remember—phase one.”