The Girl Who Could Not Dream (9 page)

“I don't talk to crazy people,” Madison announced.

“Then you talking to me proves I'm not crazy.”

“I'm telling you
not
to talk to me because you
are
crazy.”

From the backpack, Monster murmured, “She's not very bright, is she?”

Madison's eyes narrowed. “What was that, Crazy Sophie?”

“What was what?” Sophie tried to mimic Monster's innocent look. “I didn't say anything. Are you hearing voices? Bad sign if you're hearing voices.”

Other kids snickered—this time at Madison, not at Sophie. Before Madison could pick a new insult, the bus wheels squealed, and they turned into the school parking lot. Sophie bolted off the bus.

All the kids poured into the school, squeezing together in the doorway and then breaking apart on the other side. Monster chirped as kids pushed and jostled. As soon as she could, Sophie ducked into the girls' bathroom.

In a stall, she unzipped the backpack. Monster flopped his tentacles out and then immediately recoiled. “Ew, bathroom floor.”

“We'll meet here after school, okay?”

Monster nodded. Before Sophie could warn him again to be careful, he hooked one tentacle up on top of the stall and used another to pop open one of the ceiling tiles. He climbed into the ceiling and replaced the tile.

“Clever,” Sophie said.

“Yes, I am.” Monster's voice drifted down. “Have fun at school.”

Her backpack much lighter, Sophie left the bathroom. She crashed into three people on her way to her locker because she couldn't stop looking at the ceiling.

Sophie stared at her locker door and imagined all the things that could be inside: another card with a picture of a cat; an actual cat; a dead cat; spiders; snakes. Her hand was shaking as she twisted the dial on her combination lock. It snapped open. She took a deep breath before she opened the door.

Nothing jumped out.

She peered in and didn't see anything unusual. She exhaled, took out her notebooks, and shut it again. Maybe Mr. Nightmare was done with her. He'd gotten her parents' attention. They would give him what he wanted, and he'd go away.

Hurrying to class, Sophie slunk into her seat and tried not to make eye contact with anyone.
Don't look up,
she told herself.
Just act normal.

As the teacher started class, Sophie listened for the sound of paws
on the ceiling tile. She'd never been so distracted in her life. She was glad she hadn't known Monster was here the other times. Every time someone's chair squeaked, she jumped. Every time the wind blew the branches on the tree outside, she snapped her head to look. When a shadow passed overhead, she looked up—and saw the shape of Monster as he crossed above one of the fluorescent lights.

She spent the rest of the class worrying that he was going to fall through the ceiling, and then she spent the next few classes watching the ceiling while trying to simultaneously not watch the ceiling. But he didn't fall. And before she knew it, it was lunchtime.

She joined the stream of students pouring into the cafeteria.

Sophie hated the cafeteria. For one thing, it was orange—and not a nice shade of orange but the kind of orange that looked as if a pumpkin had gotten sick on all the walls. For another, it smelled like old eggs mixed with peanut butter. She did like that the cooks tried to make the food look interesting by doing things like carving chicken patties into cute shapes or spelling out words with limp carrots, but that wasn't enough to compensate for the stench or the noise. Today, the display read
Have a smiley day!
in slightly slimy asparagus.

She selected a tray and got in line. The line in front of her grew longer as everyone cut, but she didn't care. She wasn't trying to sit at a particular table with a particular group. In fact, she preferred to sit with no one.

Everyone else seemed to have a group, though there wasn't a popular kids group, or a nerd group, or jock group, like in a sitcom or cheesy teen movie. There were kids who sat together who knew each other through sports, band, ballet, or some kind of other after-school thing that Sophie didn't do. There were other kids who were in all the same classes together—all the honors students clumped together, and so did the kids in the remedial classes—but that was because they spent all day together and could complain about the same teachers. Of course, there was tension between a few groups. Some kids were mean to other kids, but it wasn't always easy to spot the bullies versus the bullied. Sometimes the bullies were bullied. When Sophie looked out over the cafeteria, she was sure of only one thing: she wasn't like any of them. It was better if she sat alone.

“Hey, can I cut?” a boy's voice asked.

Ethan stood beside her, holding an empty tray. She glanced behind her to see who he was talking to and then realized he was talking to her. “Uh, sure?”

He hopped into line.

“Hey, no cutting!” someone called, despite the dozen people who had already cut in front of other people. Ethan waved at the complainer, and the boy said, “Oh. Ethan! Cool, man. Nice three-pointer.” He gave Ethan a thumbs-up.

“I didn't know basketball points came with line-cutting privileges,” Sophie said.

He shrugged. “It's a perk.” He said it with such casual ease that Sophie could only stare at him for several seconds. She could never talk to people like that, words just rolling out of the mouth without any effort.

Reaching the front, Ethan took an apple from a pyramid of fruit. Sophie eyed a container of yogurt in a sea of half-melted ice. The cafeteria never had any normal flavors like strawberry or blueberry. It was always peach-pineapple or whipped lemon or rhubarb soufflé. She picked out one with mango—and saw a shadow swipe across the stack of chocolate milk by the cashier.

As she stared at the chocolate milk, Ethan nudged her. In a soft voice, he said, “Hey, I wanted to thank you. That dream thing helped. I still had a nightmare, but it was . . . I don't know, more distant. Can't remember it as well. For the first time in weeks, I woke up to an alarm.”

“Glad to hear it.” There! Another shadow. And a carton was gone.

“So how does it work?”

Another chocolate milk carton disappeared, and this time, Sophie saw a furry tentacle snag it.
Oh no,
she thought. Glancing up and down the line, she hoped no one else saw.

Ethan was still talking, though she'd missed part of what he said. “Does it distract you, like meditation? 'Cause I tried that, and it didn't work. But this did.”

She scooted over to the chocolate milk. As Monster reached up again, Sophie smacked the tentacle. She heard a muffled “Ow!” from underneath the counter.

Ethan looked at her, then the chocolate milk, then at her again. “Just out of curiosity, why are you hitting the milk?”

“Uh, no reason.” Sophie scooted past the milk and told the cashier her lunch number. The cashier rang her up. Continuing to glance back at the chocolate milk, Sophie went to the utensils bar to get a spoon for her yogurt and a fork for . . . shepherd's pie? She hadn't meant to take that. She grimaced at the congealed peas that poked out of the hardened mashed potatoes, like puke-green stones floating in a frothy sea. She wished she could have brought lunch today.

Leaving the utensils bar, she surveyed the cafeteria. You had to view it all like a chessboard, making your move carefully if you didn't want the entire lunch to be awkward, accidentally positioning yourself in the middle of a group that had to talk around you—or, worse, tried to include you. There were a few choices at the ends of tables . . .

“Come on,” Ethan said, passing her. “I see some open seats.”

She froze in her shoes.

He wasn't actually suggesting they sit together?

He was.

He looked back at her, as if expecting her to follow. Now several kids were looking at them, most likely wondering why she'd frozen in place and why the school's new star basketball player was talking to her. Ethan plopped his tray down at a table with only two seats open.

Feeling as if her face was bright red, Sophie navigated between the tables to Ethan. For a very brief second, she contemplated dumping her tray on his head and fleeing during the distraction.

He pointed to the chair. “Tell me about the dreamcatchers. They're from your parents' store, right? The Dreamcatcher Bookshop? My neighbor says it's the best bookstore in town.”

“It's the only bookstore in town,” Sophie said, sinking into the seat.

“You like to read?”

Sophie wasn't sure where this conversation was going, or why it was even happening. No one ever wanted to chat with her, and vice versa. She didn't have anything in common with any of them. The only person in school she talked to regularly—Madison—even went so far as to treat her like an enemy so that no one suspected Madison had any flaw, other than a dismal personality. “Yeah. Kind of a family requirement.”

“I'm dyslexic. Took me forever to learn how to read.”

Sophie blinked. He said it so casually, as if they were already friends who shared things about their lives. “What's that like?” She wondered if that was an okay question to ask.

“I don't see the letters right. They squirm around. Flip all over the place. You have to force them to behave.” He mimed cracking a whip on the table. “I do fine if I'm not distracted. Like now. You changed the subject.”

“No, I didn't. You asked me if I like to read.” Sophie felt as if she were two cues behind in the script for this conversation. She glanced around and hoped life wasn't like those sitcoms where a popular kid talks with an outcast and then suddenly everyone wants to befriend the outcast. She'd about hit her conversation quota for the week.

Ethan leaned forward and whispered, “Do you have them too? Nightmares? Is that how you know about the dreamcatchers?” When he moved, his blond hair flopped across his forehead. He had pop-star hair.

Sophie swallowed. She hated lying. It made her feel like she was a four-year-old who had eaten all the Halloween candy before Halloween. “I haven't had a single nightmare since I started using the dreamcatchers.” There, that wasn't really a lie.

“Sweet.” His face broke into a smile. He had a nice smile, like a puppy dog who just discovered how fun it is to stick his face out the car window. Between the smile and the hair and the basketball, it was no wonder half the girls in their grade had a crush on him. It
was
a wonder that he was sitting with her. A very irritating wonder that Sophie could have done without.

Sophie shot a glance at the other tables, checking to see if anyone was looking at them oddly. His friends must have noticed he was sitting with a girl. She imagined them whispering about her. She wondered if any of them knew her name. Ethan clearly did. This was
not
good. “Are you going to tell them I'm helping you with homework?”

“Tell who?”

“Your friends.”

“Uh, no.”

“But they'll ask why you're sitting with me.”

“Then I'll tell them I'm sitting with you because I want to talk to you.”

“No one wants to talk to me.” She didn't say it to make him feel sorry for her. It was just a fact. And she was fine with it! This, she wasn't fine with. He asked too many questions, and she was already nervous enough with Monster—

Crash.

Trays full of dirty dishes clattered to the floor. Other trays backed up on the conveyer belt and spilled backward. Plates of half-eaten shepherd's pie splattered with a wet smack, and peas rolled underneath tables. A few glasses shattered.

Behind the wall, a man was yelling at someone to hit the emergency stop. The belt ground to a halt. The cafeteria was silent, and everyone stared. And Sophie knew, without any proof, that Monster was responsible.

Silence spread.

And then everyone started talking all at once, laughing and reenacting the crash with swinging arms and loud sound effects. Milk and juice spread over the floor, seeping into each other and forming white-orange pools. A half-eaten apple rolled and lodged itself under the utensils bar.

Sophie left her tray (and Ethan) and hurried across the cafeteria to where the lunch monitors were trying to clean up the carnage. Reaching them, she halted. If Monster had been found, she shouldn't claim him as hers. If he hadn't, she shouldn't draw them to him. But she also couldn't leave and pretend nothing had happened. He could be in trouble!

One of the lunch monitors noticed her. “Do you need something?”

“Just . . . wanted to help.” She wished she could turn invisible.

The lunch monitor beamed at her. “Oh, that's a sweetie. Thanks, love, but we've got it. You can go back to your lunch.”

Sophie backed away. A janitor's cart was wheeled out from the kitchen, and the trash from the spill was dumped into the garbage can. The cart had a curtain around the bottom to hide all the cleaning supplies from view.