Dream Guy

by Clarke, A. Z. A;

  “I’ve been hearing things, Charlie,” began Ben. Charlie did not answer. His eyes shifted away, focusing on the laces of Ben’s tan work boots. “Things about the way you’ve been talking to my brother. Things about the way you’ve been talking about my boyfriend. The way you’ve been talking, Charlie, is going to get you into a lot of trouble, unless you apologize to me and to my brother and to Zahid. A nice formal apology right here. I haven’t decided exactly when you’re going to be apologizing, Charlie, but it will be in the next couple of days.”

  “You can’t do anything to me here,” said Charlie. His defiance was short-lived when Craig McDonald looked at him. Craig was a champion of the Schoolboy Boxing League. He was about to move into the Seniors as a light heavyweight.

  Charlie tried to step back and found himself making contact with Connor Reilly, who had reached fifth dan in his judo classes. They were Ben’s friends.

  “I’m not saying anyone is going to do anything to you anywhere, Charlie. That would be a threat, and threats are against our Anti-Bullying Policy. You do remember the Anti- Bullying Policy, don’t you Charlie? I seem to remember you have to sign a contract at the beginning of each school year.” Ben held out a hand. Connor handed over a blue spiral-bound diary. Ben flicked through it.

  “That’s my prep diary,” yelped Charlie. “I been looking for that.”

  “Not hard enough. It’s been in the Lost Property office for over a month, so I thought I’d return it to you and remind you of the contract you signed.” Ben held up the relevant page for Charlie. “See. You made your mark. Now, I’m assuming you have trouble reading, so I’ll just refresh your memory.”

  Ben started reading the school behavior contract. “Respect others. You do that every day, I’m sure, Charlie. Behave well. You’re conspicuous for your good behavior, aren’t you, Charlie? Follow instructions given by a member of staff. You jump when they say to, don’t you, Charlie? Come to all lessons fully equipped and prepared to learn. You equip yourself with other people’s belongings, don’t you, Charlie? Shall we go through the contract again, Charlie, just remind ourselves of the deal you signed?”

  Then one by one, other sixth formers planted around the canteen stood and began to speak the words in chorus with Ben.

  “Respect others. Behave well. Follow instructions given by a member of staff. Come to all lessons fully equipped and prepared to learn.”

  The call was repeated then reduced until it became a simple chant of “Respect others.” All the hordes of year seven, eight and nine children who had been terrorized by Charlie for weeks and months and years rose up and took up the call, repeating over and over again, “Respect others. Respect others.” They did not shout, simply spoke. Charlie looked around him and saw the faces, some spiteful, some rejoicing in his situation, others neutral and blank.

  Ben and his friends stepped away from Charlie, melted back toward the doors. The space between Charlie and the other children in the canteen widened. They were all retreating from him, but they sustained their steady repetition until the bell went, and he found himself standing alone in an echoing cafeteria where a row of dinner ladies stood, their arms folded, nodding at the sentence passed on Charlie.

  He was frozen in the canteen, rage surging through him, aware that his humiliation was being relayed around the school by every kid who’d been at lunch. His reign had been dissolved and his crown was rolling around in the gutter. There would be no more acolytes. His spell had been broken.

  Then an adult walked through the canteen—a new one, a supply teacher, surprisingly dapper for a schoolmaster, wearing a freshly ironed shirt, pale blue, toning with his trousers and his tie, his hair a little on the long side, but swept back from his brow, his eyes pale and detached, his beard and moustache neatly trimmed.

  “Where are you meant to be, Charlie?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I made it my business to find out.”

  “Who are you, then?”

  “I’m Mr. Dolon. You must have seen me around. I’ve been here, teaching drama.”

  “Drama’s for poofs.”

  “If you knew anything about it, I might take that remark seriously.” Dolon crossed his arms and inspected Charlie with a faint air of disappointment. “You’d better get to your next class.”

  Charlie mooched off, but he turned and looked at the new teacher before leaving for sociology. Dolon was standing there, his arms still crossed.

  “What are you waiting for, Charlie?”

  Charlie shook his head and replied, “I don’t know.”

  Dolon smiled. “You don’t now, but I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough. See you in detention, Charlie-boy.”

  * * * *

  Joe heard about the canteen showdown from various people who’d seen it. He’d been in the library, wondering how to discover at lunchtime the source of his evolving dream-traveling, so he’d gathered only stray whispers and murmurings as the afternoon had worn on. He had to leave promptly to collect Liesel. As he walked out of school, he saw various villains mooching into the classroom where detentions were held. A teacher was there, walking from desk to desk. Joe didn’t recognize the slim blue back, although his casual air, the thick sweep of dark hair and the stance with one hand in a pocket pinged some bell in his subconscious. It was only sitting on the bus, tuning out while Liesel prattled, that he realized who it had been.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ten Thousand Doors

  Joe did not want to dream. He wanted to rest. He wanted his aching body to recover and he wanted to avoid Eidolon, whether in the guise of a doctor, a teacher or his own suave and polished self. In the still of the night, he woke over and over, sometimes drifting to consciousness then regressing, other times smashing into wakefulness as another place or time beckoned. Once, he found himself being sucked against his will toward another world that he knew was Eidolon’s and he had to heave himself back into his own, scrabbling for purchase in a deep tunnel of some friable material. He woke just before the alarm went. There was no point in snatching any more time in bed. In fact, it was almost a relief to have made it through a night with no complications. He rose and set about the routine of the morning, although a residual stiffness from the riding hampered him from moving as smoothly and unselfconsciously as normal. Every action, from putting gel in his hair to slinging on his shirt was creaky and ungainly.

  He grunted over breakfast. This time last week, he had been ill, thanks to Smokey’s intervention in his dreams. Now it was Smokey who was sick. Even if he recovered, it was highly likely that he’d be permanently excluded from school, thanks to his fundraising activities over the weekend. He’d be lucky to escape a prison sentence. According to Mrs. Knightley, the police had already told Smokey’s parents that he would probably be sentenced to something called an STC—a secure training center, basically, a kid’s prison. Smokey hadn’t been told yet. He was going to be in the hospital for another week, having tests. Then he’d be arrested and charged with possession and supply of a class-A drug. His parents were devastated. They’d known things weren’t going well, but they hadn’t imagined that their son would break the law—still less that he’d get caught, face trial and a custodial sentence.

  Sooner or later, Joe thought, someone would demand to know where Smokey had gotten hold of the cocaine. There was more than enough of it to test. Joe guessed from what Liesel had said about his deals in the park that Smokey had been bagging it up in half-gram measures, hiding the bulk of it in his bedroom. If Eidolon wanted it back, he’d have to dream his way into the police station or wherever evidence for court cases was stored, since the gear had been seized from a shoebox in Smokey’s room.

  There was half a kilo left, but enough had gone to get him nailed for supplying.

  On the way to the bus, Ben said, “I wonder if Charlie Meek got the message yesterday. I want to break that fucking maggot’s face, but I’m not going to play his stupid games and get done for hurting him.”

/>   “What are you going to do if he carries on like yesterday morning?”

  “He won’t dare, because I’m going to get in there first. Wherever that little toerag is, I’ll be there too, and when I’m done, it will have penetrated even his thick skull that he’s not getting away with beating anyone up.”

  They’d reached the bus stop by this time. Joe leaned forward. “Listen, Ben. Be careful. He’s got a knife, and if you get him riled, he’s just the sort of cretin who’d actually use it.”

  Ben’s face hardened. “How do you know this?”

  Joe managed a save. “Just something I’ve heard. You know, his mates put it around. Maybe it’s just to make him seem harder, but maybe it’s true.”

  “He was threatening you the other day. He didn’t pull a knife on you, did he?”

  Joe shook his head. The bus came and they were crammed in too tight amid the drizzle-dampened bodies to talk.

  As they reached the school gates, Ben turned to his brother. “Don’t forget that it’s your turn to get Liesel. I’ve got a rehearsal this afternoon, and I can’t do it, okay?”

  “Okay. Mum only told me a hundred times over breakfast. I won’t forget.”

  Joe ambled toward his form room. It was open. He took out a maths book to do more revision for McKechnie’s latest test. People began piling in, all talking about Charlie Meek and how no one had seen him that morning. It would be quite an achievement if Ben and his friends had stopped Charlie from coming to school. He was all kinds of hoodlum, but sadly, the one thing he’d never done was to play truant, much to the distress of the kids in the forms beneath him.

  There was almost a holiday air about the kids in the lower school, free for once from Charlie’s malignant presence. At break, Joe was in the canteen. All sorts of little kids emerged like moles blinking in daylight, sniffing the air in case their nemesis appeared, but gradually relaxing, scoffing crisps and fruit gums without fear of a grim hand appropriating them. They chattered like starlings, swigging their Cokes and Sprites from the vending machine instead of taking surreptitious sips, laughing, recalling and replaying the moment when Charlie had been left alone as the last of his tormentors turned their backs on him.

  Even if he did come back and try his old tricks, Ben had provided the lower school students with a chant against him. They would just start reciting the school code of conduct. It was easy to talk when there was no sign of Charlie.

  It was only during break, after his maths test, that Joe remembered having seen the new supply teacher. The thought curdled his enjoyment of the day. It was time to track down Eidolon and find out how he was managing to juggle two stressful jobs simultaneously.

  Subterfuge did not come naturally to Joe, but he had to try something. He went up to the reception desk at the main school entrance. Miss Wickens had steel-gray hair falling straight to her shoulders and a fringe, like a chain mail helmet. Her eyes were ice chips and her skin was leathery from her regular trips to Valencia. She was always showing off her latest snaps to the two secretaries who worked in the same office.

  Her voice could laser through armored steel. Very few students ever went near her and those who did were always subdued in her presence.

  He stood at the hatch behind which she sat like a vulture, hunched over the school switchboard. She ignored him for minutes. He gave a little cough. She continued to ignore him, but she was running three different conversations simultaneously with her colleagues and two different callers, her raucous voice bouncing around the small office without modulation in tone or volume.

  She put the receiver down and looked at him. Her eyes were like knives. He could almost hear her flicking through a mental filing system that contained salient details about all one thousand, two hundred and thirty-nine students in the school.

  “Joe Knightley. What you want?”

  “I’ve got a message for a new teacher. Mr. Thomas told me to pass on a message to him, but I don’t know who he means. He just said the new temporary teacher who did detention cover last night.”

  “What’s the message then?”

  “Just to go and see Mr. Thomas at lunchtime for a meeting in the English department. Is he going to teach English then?”

  “None of your business.” Joe could have sworn she muttered the word scrote at the end of her sentence, but he knew it wasn’t worth pursuing.

  “What is his name, Miss Wickens?”

  Her desire to snub Joe grappled with the knowledge that if she didn’t tell Joe who the new teacher was, she’d be responsible for getting the message to him. That would mean stirring beyond the confines of her office. She didn’t like leaving her desk, her territory. It meant she had to brush shoulders with students.

  “Mr. Dolon. If he’s not in the staffroom, he might have gone to the drama studio. He’s covering for Mr. Phelps. Get that message to him right away.”

  “Yes, Miss Wickens.”

  Joe headed toward the drama studio. But once he’d disappeared from the Wickens’ sightline, he doubled back to the science labs for his biology lesson. He wished he’d spoken to more people at school. As it was, he wasn’t friendly with anyone who took drama apart from Ben, and he certainly wasn’t going to talk to him about all this, so finding out more about Dolon the teacher was going to be a little tricky. But fortune smiled on him, because the biology teacher arranged everyone in groups of three to do a practical demonstrating osmosis using bananas.

  Joe had to go with Raquel Waters and Sammi Jones. Normally, he’d have wilted faster than a bunch of tulips at the idea, but they were both drama types, rejoicing in any opportunity to exhibit themselves on the school stage, from the annual Pop Mime competition to the musical that Phelps used to do in the spring term. He was pretty sure they’d signed up for GCSE drama.

  They completed the banana business quickly enough. They wrote up their notes and the girls started chatting about their plans for the weekend and who was the fittest boy in school. They ran through the year thirteens then moved onto the year twelves. Inevitably, Ben’s name came up, but instead of bristling when Raquel said what a shame it was that he was gay, Joe laughed, making both girls gawp at him. They asked him to name the best-looking girl in the school. Joe shook his head. In his view, Nell was the best-looking girl he’d ever seen in the flesh, but that would be the wrong answer, so he named a girl in year twelve who was a local dance champion and swanned around the school as if it were her personal palace.

  “Elissa? She’s such a bitch. She’s doing theater studies with Ben, isn’t she?”

  Joe nodded. Sammi continued. “They say they’re all going to have real problems unless this guy who’s taking over from Mr. Phelps is any good.”

  “I had him this morning. He’s well fit—and really nice. I know it’s sad about Mr. Phelps and the heart thing, but this Dolon guy is great.” Raquel was clearly one of the type that Nell would describe as ‘other girls’.

  “How long’s he going to stick around?” Sammi did all the work for Joe.

  “Well, Mr. Phelps is off for the rest of term, so that’s six weeks, isn’t it? Then who knows? I reckon that he’ll be signed off until Easter. It was a major heart attack. He’s not even out of hospital yet.”

  This was bad news—six weeks of Eidolon hanging around school. On the other hand, it might buy enough time to think up a way to get rid of him permanently. But how much time was Eidolon going to spend in a school when he could be lounging in a Mediterranean villa or chopping people into little pieces or hunting wild animals? Whatever was coming would come soon. Besides which, Eidolon had the expertise of messing around with this dream stuff for centuries. He wouldn’t chuck that advantage.

  At the end of biology, Sammi and Raquel waited for Joe to walk with them to the canteen for lunch. Perhaps it was reflected glory, but it felt quite agreeable. Now that Smokey was no longer in the picture, Joe felt less defensive about talking to other people—and about doing some work. His quality of life might substantially improve…if he surviv
ed Eidolon.

  Nell joined the lunch queue some minutes after Joe and his two new girlfriends. Although she was wearing a school uniform like everyone else, she looked different, as though the school uniform came from some swanky London shop. Raquel and Sammi took the opportunity to slag her off, but when she stood looking for somewhere to sit, they waved at her to come over. She was about to go to another table when her gaze flicked back over Joe. Her raised eyebrows conveyed her astonishment at seeing Joe mix with females, but she came over anyway and sat by Joe, opposite the two other girls.

  “Sammi and Raquel have been telling me all about Mr. Phelps. They’ve found a replacement for him already. A guy called Dolon.”

  “Dolon? Really.” She gave him a sharp look but did not react further. The girls were ready to move onto some other subject, asking Nell if she wanted to see a horror spoof on Saturday night. Much to Joe’s frustration, neither Sammi nor Raquel showed any signs of leaving him and Nell in peace. Then, blessedly, the bell rang, and like whippets after a hare, they sprang up and away.

  “Dolon?” asked Nell, direct as always. “That’s creepy. A supernatural sociopathic stalker. What are you going to do?” She had gathered up her books and started for the hallway to the classroom block.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’d better think up something pretty soon, because he’s definitely out to get you. Why else would he be here?”

  “He’s reformed and discovered a vocation for education?”

  Nell grinned. “Sure, Joe, and De Beers is about to send me a free diamond necklace. Look. I’ll meet you after school, and we can work something out.”

  “I’m collecting Liesel. We won’t be able to talk once I’ve got her in tow.”

  “I’ll come home with you, and we can talk about it then. It shouldn’t take that long. I’ve got to be home before seven-thirty. Mum’s got a date.”