The Dreamer Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set Vol I - III: A Sci-Fi Parallel Universe Adventure (The Dreamer Chronicles - Science Fiction For Kids And Adults)

by Robert Scanlon

  He doodled on some paper while watching the teacher explaining something mind-numbingly simple at least three times.

  The classroom door opened and the Principal poked his head in. Nathan groaned. Surely the Principal couldn’t read minds could he? If that was the case, he’d be in trouble for sure. But no, the Principal only beckoned to the teacher to come out.

  Miss Andrews nodded and turned to the class. “Class, please work with your next door neighbour on the last problem on the right-hand side of the board. I’ll be—” she looked at the Principal.

  “Just a couple of minutes if you wouldn’t mind, Miss Andrews,” the Principal finished for her.

  “Two minutes then class. Get to work please.” She followed the Principal out with a puzzled look on her face.

  “Right, you!” Georgia said to Nathan from behind as soon as the door shut and the class noise level rose, “Not only are you my only neighbour, so it looks like we’ll have to work together,” she snorted, “but what have you done to Sarina?” She glared at him.

  Nathan was taken aback. He didn’t especially dislike Sarina, but then again neither did he have anything much in common with her. He found her lack of ability to … er … count, somewhat entertaining, and a great target for his humour.

  “What do you mean?” he said, annoyed at being blamed. “What exactly was ‘done unto’ Sarina?” and he returned her stare, using his most forceful ‘don’t mess with me’ look.

  But Georgia wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was staring at the doodle on Nathan’s desk. “What is that then?” she said, pointing to the drawing.

  Nathan looked at the paper and the drawings he had absent-mindedly sketched. They were all of a bird-like creature with big black wings, and a boy, running, pointing at the sky. He’d had no idea he had drawn such intricate pictures, normally he’d be lucky to draw a decent stick-figure. He glared at Georgia. “Ummm, they’re just doodles you know.”

  “Those,” Georgia hissed, “are Sarina’s pictures!” and she sat back with her arms crossed, as if she had solved a murder-mystery.

  “Where is Picasso anyway?” Nathan asked.

  “Surely you of all people must know, since you’ve stressed her out so much, stolen her drawings AND caused her to fail her maths assessment.” Georgia’s face fell and she pouted. “She’s been taken away to the remedial school and won’t be coming back anytime soon, thanks to you.”

  A puzzled look came over her face. “Though I don’t know why she was taken in an ambulance when Frenchstone is only a couple of blocks away. Maybe YOU know?” She glared at Nathan and pointed her finger at him. “If you’re so smart, you tell me. What was a funny-looking ambulance with nothing but a red ‘S’ painted on the side doing taking my friend away?”

  Nathan could see the girl, despite her bravado, was on the verge of tears and opened his mouth to try to explain. “I … I … don’t know. I … had nothing—” but he was interrupted by Miss Andrews returning to the class.

  He shrugged and turned back to his desk. And with a nervous look around him, quickly shoved a blank sheet of paper over the drawings.

  The rest of the day dragged and Nathan walked out of the school tired and frazzled.

  All day long he’d had pictures in his head of a large black, man-like bird and the boy in the cage, and then there was Sarina. Why did both she and Georgia think that the pictures he had drawn were copies of hers?

  He ignored a group of his friends waving at him from across the road at the bus stop and, throwing down one of his spare skateboards he’d grabbed from his locker, he raced off towards home, his head spinning.

  Admittedly his drawings were about two hundred times superior to anything he had ever drawn in his life before, which in itself was a bit weird, but still, that didn’t explain why they were so insistent.

  He shrugged off the thought and concentrated on a swooping bend approaching and powered himself along the pavement with his foot as fast as he could. Towards the end of the bend was a low brick wall, that if he was fast enough, he could spin up on his board and do an awesomely long boardslide.

  —and he was up, making a delicious scratching and scraping noise. He was almost at the end of the wall, when he looked up to gauge his landing, his arms out wide for balance, and collided headlong with a policeman. Unfortunately one he happened to know.

  When they had both picked themselves up, Nathan tucked his board under his arm and tried to look contrite. “Ah, Sergeant Crawford … well, I seem to be OK, I’d er, better be getting home, you know, homework to do and all that.” He looked up at the Sergeant and started to move off.

  Sergeant Crawford grabbed his arm. “Not so fast, Master Goldberg. We’ve discussed your work before haven’t we? Take a look at this”—he pointed to the wall Nathan had left long scrape marks along.

  Nathan looked down at the wall. It was quite a mess, he thought, admiring his work. Probably the best boardslide he’d done.

  “Amusing is it?”

  The Sergeant was looking at Nathan, who realised he had been grinning at the wall and lowered his gaze. He tried to look even more contrite.

  “No sir. Sorry sir.”

  “Well you will be, after you’ve apologised to Mr Harrison.”

  “Mr Harrison?” Nathan looked puzzled. He didn’t know any Mr Harrison.

  “That Mr Harrison,” Sergeant Crawford said, pointing to a well-muscled man who had appeared in front of an open door at the other end of the garden. The very same garden whose wall Nathan had skated along. The man’s arms were crossed in front of his chest—and he didn’t look impressed with Nathan’s work at all.

  Nathan wondered how he was going to get out of this when a brilliant idea flashed into his weary brain.

  “I can explain—” he started, but the Sergeant cut him off.

  “That’s exactly what you will be doing my son. Come with me and I’ll introduce you to Mr Harrison shall I? Since you don’t know him an’ all, but you seem to be quite familiar with his garden.”

  Nathan gulped and hoped his idea, which was fast becoming less brilliant, would work.

  “Hello sir,” he stammered and thrust his hand out towards Mr Harrison as they approached.

  The man shook Nathan’s hand with gusto. Nathan tried to shake life back into his hand behind his back and wondered if he’d ever be able to write again.

  “Well?”

  The man wasn’t a talker then, Nathan thought as he flexed his fingers. Good, they do still work.

  “Mister … ah—”

  “Harrison,” the man said.

  “Yes. Er, Mr Harrison, you see I’m a keen student of physics—in fact at school I’m the top boy in my year at maths and physics—and I kind of got lost in my head coming down the hill planning the trajectory of the combined force of myself and my skateboard.” He offered up his board for the man to look at, but he remained with his arms crossed looking down at Nathan.

  Nathan continued with his brilliant idea. “I realised that if I was able to increase my acceleration by approximately 12.5 percent, then I’d be able to reach the wall and have enough speed to get to the …” his voice trailed off as he realised the idea didn’t seem so brilliant when you said it out loud.

  “Maths and physics eh?” said the man, who Nathan thought judging by his physique must be a wrestler or boxer and probably wouldn’t know a single thing about maths, physics, science, or trajectories for that matter. The man looked up at the sky, then back at Nathan.

  “Let’s see if you are pulling a fast one shall we?” He smiled. “See that bird up there?” He pointed up and all three of them looked up and squinted into the sky.

  “Yes,” Nathan said, puzzled. Why would a wrestling champion be concerned about birds? The bird in question was circling high over the rooftops, probably scanning the gardens for fresh food to pluck.

  “Let’s say the bird is struck by lightning and falls unconscious to the ground.”

  The man turned to Nathan with a gli
nt in his eye. “What is its rate of acceleration and how long will it take to reach the ground?”

  Nathan looked back up at the bird. He estimated it was probably 400 metres above them. The bird would accelerate at the gravitational constant and experience some friction due to the air. He quickly did some mental maths and looked back at Mr Harrison with a wide smile.

  “I’d say it would take the bird about nine seconds to reach the ground. The rate of acceleration is of course the gravitational constant of 9.8 metres per-second, per-second,” he looked up again, squinting, then looked back at the man, “which would mean that its speed on impact, assuming almost no air resistance, would be about”—he broke off and pretended to count on his fingers—“about 318 kilometres per second.” He looked at the man, who to his surprise, was grinning at him.

  “Good work lad.” He looked back over at the Sergeant, who was looking nonplussed by the whole affair and avoiding eye contact by staring at the ground. “What do you think, Sergeant Crawford? Is that a satisfactory answer?”

  “Well, Professor—”

  “Professor?” Nathan blurted, not being able to help himself.

  “I’d say myself, well, er of course, umm,” the Sergeant looked up at the bird, fidgeting with his radio, “I suspect that such a height would mean—”

  “Indeed, Sergeant,” the burly Professor said, relieving the Sergeant of his discomfort. “Indeed. The boy is exactly right, and for that reason we shall have to believe his explanation for damaging my wall is likely the correct one, won’t we?”

  “Yes of course,” said the Sergeant, aware he was beaten and by now, anxious to leave. “So, young Nathan,” he turned to Nathan with a stern face, “you must apologise to Professor Harrison and make arrangements to come here at the weekend and file away these scratches.” He looked at the Professor inviting agreement.

  “Yes of course,” the Professor said nodding and waiting for Nathan to speak.

  Nathan could only marvel at his luck. “I really am sorry sir, er … Professor I mean.”

  He really was sorry. After the day he’d had at school, he’d had quite enough of weird dreams, nightmare scrawls and boys in cages and here was a chance to redeem himself; and well, be in the REAL world again. Strangely enough, he was warming to the muscular scholar.

  “Nathan is it?” the man asked.

  “Yes sir. Er, Professor.”

  “You’ve certainly got a brain in your head. Make sure you use it next time. Be here on Saturday,” he frowned and looked at his watch, “at 10:30 am.” He looked over at the Sergeant. “Thank you, Sergeant Crawford for catching this dangerous criminal red-handed. It was obviously a ‘calculated’ crime.” Chuckling at his appalling pun, he returned inside, flashing a grin at Nathan on the way.

  Sergeant Crawford glared at Nathan. “Off with you then, sonny!” He jerked his thumb back to the road, and without waiting, he walked off, turning once to call back to Nathan. “If I see you with that skateboard again going too fast, or on walls, or …” he was struggling to remember something, then looked back at Nathan, “or using your palpitational constants, or whatever they are, as an excuse for tricks, I will be forced to have words with your parents.”

  With that, he turned on his heels and marched off, no doubt in search of more criminals on skateboards, Nathan thought. He put down his board and skated off, much more sedately this time. His mind returned to thinking about the bird-like creature and the boy. And Sarina. Why did he feel so guilty about her being taken away?

  He shook the thought free and skated off.

  ~~~

  Tired from the bizarre day, Nathan flopped onto his bed. His brain wasn’t tired though, it was still busy processing everything.

  He looked over at his desk, drawn to the pencil and blank paper beckoning him.

  Good grief! He lay back and yawned widely. Last week, everything was normal. School was easy, he wasn’t tired from disturbing dreams, and he wasn’t being bugged by some strange girl.

  When he thought of Sarina, he still felt guilty, as if he was personally responsible for the girl’s poor ability at maths and had failed her by not giving her more help.

  Give her more help? Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. He got up to fetch his pencil and paper.

  Returning to the bed, he picked up a book to lean on and lost himself in his thoughts. And without thinking about it, he started to draw. Within minutes, he was fast asleep, still in his clothes, pencil in hand.

  On the paper were several sketched outlines of an ugly bird.

  ~~~

  The sky was pitch black, not a star in sight. Nathan swooped low over the dark forest and along the valley, following his instincts, hugging the curves of the hills up and down. In the distance he heard shouts and odd noises, like someone choking. Or was it many people choking and gasping?

  Anxious, he sped up, and rose above the tree line and the hills. He tried to see through the pitch black night to the source of the noise, but was only able to be guided by the sounds.

  He flew closer and saw some shapes in the fields. Men were running and falling to the ground, clutching their throats. He moved nearer again, wanting to see more, but afraid of the truth. He hesitated to get too close, just in case.

  There was no doubt about it. The men looked to be dying from some kind of asphyxiation—but why?

  He stopped and hovered, frowning at the strange scene. Where was this? It was familiar.

  A flash in his mind triggered a memory, though he wasn’t sure if it was a memory at all. The boy in the cage? Fragments of images came to him—yes! He remembered fleeting images of the boy running down a path, but where? He spun around looking for something familiar—there it was! A trail entrance in the forest.

  Nathan dived down to ground level and swooped into the path, slowing down as it narrowed. The forest was impenetrable to his vision, so he extended his arms out to either side, trying to reach the edges of the trail. He recoiled as something wet and slimy brushed one of his hands.

  “Uggh! What was that?” He brought his arms back in and slowed, worried that he would fly into some large slimy thing.

  Now what? He knew he had to go along this trail, but the fact was he couldn’t see. Nathan stopped and focused, closing his eyes. Here was a weird idea. Perhaps if he concentrated all his thoughts, he could simply have an awareness of the path?

  Trying to feel his way forward like this felt strange. His normal senses screamed stop, but he found if he focused hard on the trail with his eyes closed, he could fly forward with confidence, albeit slowly.

  “There are some things,” he muttered, “that defy the laws of physics,” and continued to hover through the trail. A tingling sensation in his forehead told him he was out of the trail and in the clear, and he opened his eyes. The sky was still dark, but there was a faint bluish light on the grassy clearing.

  He peered into the gloom and toward the faint glow and made out the dim outline of footprints.

  He started following them, but slowly. He could see they led directly from the trail and across the clearing and they were widely spaced. By the emphasis on the front of the footprint, Nathan deduced that whoever left them had been running. And fast.

  He sped up and drew in a deep breath, and continued to follow the tracks, since it felt like the obvious thing to do.

  Over the rise, the clearing levelled out and in the distance was a large, inky-black area. Nathan guessed it was water. A lake perhaps? He saw a figure in front of him, sprinting towards the lake.

  He stopped and gasped. The boy from the cage.

  The figure also stopped and spun around wildly, looking for the source of the gasp.

  “Up here!” Nathan called down, then, realising how silly that was, descended to the boy.

  “Um, I’m Nathan.” He offered a greeting to the boy, who was looking at him with panic-stricken eyes.

  “I can’t stop to talk,” the boy said, “the men are dying. Makthryg has released the gas and I couldn’t
stop it.” He looked around, then stared at Nathan.

  “Where is Sarina?”

  Nathan’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  “Sarina!” The boy insisted. “I’ve been calling for her. She promised me she would help. We need her; she’s our only chance now of fighting Makthryg.” His eyes were full of fear. “I must run and hide. Get Sarina,” his eyes pleading, “please!”

  “But how do you know her name? …” Nathan faltered. “Sarina. Let’s just double-check. Do you mean a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl; obsessed with painting? You showed me a drawing of her before.”

  The boy nodded. “Yes. Please hurry, there’s no time to waste.” He looked over his shoulder at the lake and back at Nathan. “Tell her Paolo needs her. Tell her that the women and children are our last hope. Now. Or we’ll all perish. Tell her it’s no dream.” He paused a moment. “And tell her to hug her mother before she comes. She’ll understand.” With one last look at Nathan, he turned and ran off, leaving Nathan stunned.

  This was too weird.

  He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he wasn’t completely convinced this was a dream at all. Wait. What did the boy mean by; ‘And tell her it’s no dream‘? But how would a boy in his dream know a girl in his class if it wasn’t a dream? How would he himself know this wasn’t a dream if he was dreaming it. Ugh. His brain hurt from trying to figure it all out.

  He took a few deep breaths and gathered his thoughts. One thing he was sure of; this was no normal experience and he was going to get to the bottom of it. But even if it was more than a dream, he would first need to find Sarina.

  And when he did, what would he say to her?

  He realised he had a bigger problem. How on earth would he bring her here, into this world?

  He sighed. He wouldn’t achieve anything by floating around in the dark. He looked up, paused a moment, then shot up into the inky black sky.