Get Out of My Dreams

by Fernando Trujillo Sanz

  “Are you awake?” my mother called from the hallway. “You’re going to be late for school!”

  There went my hopes of going back to sleep.

  “Yes, Mom. I’m getting dressed.”

  I reluctantly—and angrily—got out of bed, unsure of why or with whom I was angry. A pain in my leg made me forget all about my anger, and I looked down at it. There was blood on my shin, and it was really hurting. I hobbled to the shower.

  I was barely even aware of soaping up and washing myself. The hot water washed down my back, but I was only thinking about my leg, about whatever I’d run into in the dream when I was walking over to the dark-haired twin. I remembered clearly not having seen anything solid I could have tripped over, yet now it was apparent that some part of the dream had been real. Too real.

  The pain subsided, but didn’t completely disappear. I did my best to keep my slight limp hidden when I went in the kitchen so my father wouldn’t notice I was favoring my leg—though he probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway. He barely looked up from his newspaper.

  “You have soap on your head,” my mother observed.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t rinse off very well in the shower.”

  I touched my head. I didn’t feel anything on the top of my head, but when I touched the back of my neck, my hand came away with soap suds on it.

  “I was in a hurry.” I grabbed a piece of toast and spread it with jam. “I’ll go rinse my hair again. How’s the nausea, Mom?”

  “Much better, thanks.”

  She smiled sweetly at me. I knew that smile was masking her discomfort. My mother always used that tactic when she was keeping something from us so we wouldn’t worry. I quickly came to the conclusion that her nausea was no better.

  “Were you nauseous with me, too?”

  “Only in the first trimester,” she answered. “This time it looks like it’s going to last a little longer.”

  “No two pregnancies are the same,” said my father. “We’ll go to the doctor just to be sure everything is normal.”

  “But I’m not feeling that bad.”

  “You’re throwing up a lot,” my father insisted, “so you’re not getting enough nutrients, and neither is the baby. I’ll feel better if a professional confirms that the pregnancy is proceeding normally.”

  “All right,” my mother conceded.

  It wasn’t odd that my mother ended up doing what my father said. It always went down like that—my mother doing whatever it took to please him—but she looked more weak, more subdued than usual. I didn’t like seeing her like this.

  But my father—I’d never seen him sick. I could almost swear I’d never even heard him so much as sneeze.

  “I think you should go see a doctor too, Mom. Maybe he can prescribe some vitamins or something that will make you feel a little better. You have to take care of my little brother—or sister.”

  It felt strange to say that. I’d never given my future sibling much thought. I remembered having been really surprised when they told me the news, especially when I thought about the huge age difference there’d be between us, but then I just sort of forgot about it. Well, for the most part.

  I had been tempted to ask why they’d decided to have another child at their age. After all, my mother was not so young anymore, and it seemed like they should have tried before now, but I knew down deep it was none of my business. Besides, there was always a chance it had been an accident, in which case the conversation could end up with me stumbling over details of my parents’ sex life—and that was something I definitely wanted no part of. I was quite glad my dad had never tried to give me “the talk” on that topic.

  “You have nothing to worry about, Son,” my mother said. “I’ve just been a little tired lately.”

  “Maybe you could help your mother out by watering the plants and taking care of the birds until she’s feeling a bit better.”

  My father’s request annoyed me. My mother had a miniature jungle in the living room. There were all kinds of rare plants in there—certainly no roses, geraniums, or run-of-the-mill potted plants. It was like she had a thing for plants that no one else could identify. And it was the same thing with those birds she fussed over. We had at our disposal every kind of service imaginable—housekeepers, cooks, and a chauffeur since my father didn’t like to drive—but my mother had to take care of those damn plants and birds herself. She trusted no one else with them but when she couldn’t take care of them, I had to. It took forever to feed those birds and water that mess of plants, and it practically took an instruction manual to know how much water each one got.

  “You took the words right out of my mouth, Dad.” I couldn’t refuse to help my mother. “I’ll take care of the plants and birds.”

  She looked at me and smiled with an expression that told me she thought I was her greatest treasure of all, a look that that caused me serious pain whenever I was behaving badly. This time, though, it made me feel really good.

  “You’re a dear.”

  I ate another piece of toast.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, Son,” said my father with a tone that told me I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say. “I’ve been thinking it wouldn’t hurt you to have some private tutoring in the afternoons.”

  “No, Dad. I don’t need it.”

  “It would just be two hours a week—Tuesdays and Thursdays. It won’t take much of your free time.”

  I couldn’t think of a single thing less appealing that taking classes after school.

  “What do I need with tutoring? Just yesterday I got a perfect score on a history test. If you make me do tutoring without waiting to see my grades it must mean you don’t believe in me.”

  I was pretty proud of that line of defense.

  “The tutoring isn’t remediation for what you’re already taking in school,” my father explained quite calmly. “It’s a new subject.”

  “Soccer?”

  “Accounting.”

  “Pass.”

  “Son!” my mother reprimanded.

  “It’s for your future. Just two hours a week.”

  “Accounting???” I said without trying to hide my disappointment. “No way I’m doing that, and I have no interest in the future you’re planning out for me. Why don’t you just come right out with it, Dad? Why don’t you have me study Business Management so I can follow in your footsteps? That’s what you want, right?”

  “What I’d like is for you to be as well prepared as possible for the future.”

  “And what if I don’t want to be an accountant? Then I’ll be wasting my time. Why don’t you get me a tutor for something I like?”

  “Fine. You’re not a child anymore. Tell me what you want to do with your life in the future and I’ll gladly help you with it. But be honest and answer me truthfully.”

  I didn’t answer right away. I was angry with myself for not having an adequate answer—and for being incapable of making up something believable. So I ended up having to tell the truth.

  “I still don’t know what I want to do with my future.” And before my father could respond, I added, “But I bet most sixteen-year-olds aren’t clear about what they want to do with their life.”

  “They probably have a general idea.”

  I didn’t. There honestly wasn’t a single profession that I interested me. Work was something for older people; that was still a long way off for me. I could worry about that when I didn’t have any choice.

  “My plan is to not work in your business, Dad.” And I was completely sincere about that. “You can’t make me.”

  “Nor do I want to. But I can give you advice. Do you think it’s wrong for a father to worry about his son’s future?”

  “No, as long as you respect my wishes.”

  “It’s because of your friend Ivan, right? You still blame me.”

  “Well, yeah! You took over his father’s business. That’s why Ivan had to quit t
he private school and why his parents got divorced. I know what you do for a living; I’ll pass on becoming a part of that world.”

  “That’s unfair, Son. His father’s business wasn’t going well; it was about to fail. If I hadn’t bought it, someone else would have. The truth is that Ivan’s father is a poor manager, and that’s not my fault. I didn’t fire anyone. If I hadn’t intervened, a lot of families would have been left with no jobs.”

  “You fired him.”

  “No. His father resigned. His pride kept him from staying on, not me.”

  “Yeah, it kept him from working for someone appointed by you—the person who snatched his business away from him. Maybe someone like me when I’m older. Is that what you want me for? Is that why you want me to study accounting?”

  “You don’t understand how the business world works, Son. You have no training. You’re judging me without knowing anything about economics or—”

  Something came together in my mind, an idea that had something to do with the conversation we were having. I had a strong feeling that, in some obscure corner of my mind, there was a piece of information that could help me with this argument. I searched the recesses of my brain and found it just as my father finished speaking.

  “Maybe I don’t know as much as you, Dad, but I do know something. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Ivan’s father’s business was to make and sell clothing—cotton clothing.” I knew that for a fact because Ivan had told me. My father nodded. “And ever since you bought it, profits have gone up and you didn’t have to fire anyone.”

  “Correct.”

  “But you didn’t hire anyone new, either. You didn’t create any new jobs.”

  “It didn’t grow that m—”

  “Oh, it grew—but in another country. You set up a factory in Taiwan where thousands of little girls are exploited, working horrendous hours for miserable pay. That way you could reduce costs and drive up profits. Am I wrong?”

  I had heard about this kind of thing; I’d also seen something about it on TV, though I’d never paid any attention. But I would never have arrived at that conclusion if it hadn’t been for the dream I’d just had.

  “It was the only way to save the business,” my father defended. “What would you have done?”

  I stood up from the table, burning with rage. “I’m not the one who’s the financial genius who never makes a mistake. You figure it out.”

  “That doesn’t keep you from judging me as if you were.”

  “I never plan to be, either. If you want me to study accounting, you’ll have to force me to do it.”

  “You must really love being in trouble,” muttered Ivan impatiently. “Hurry up!”

  I dragged the house key along the side of the car, right over both doors. The paint scraped away, leaving a wavy line. I whistled quietly.

  “That should do it. Are you sure nobody saw me?”

  We walked through the school’s parking lot, trying to act casually so as not to draw attention to ourselves.

  “Why do you hate her so much?”

  “She’s the one who hates me. She dished out quite the punishment on me yesterday. That nasty Math Witch is making me write a stupid paper about some famous mathematician, and if I don’t turn it in she said she’s gonna fail me.”

  Ivan couldn’t help himself; a faint smile broke out on his face. “You always end up pissing off your teachers. I think deep down you like it.”

  “Don’t start with your crappy psychoanalysis—I’ve already got my dad taking me to a shrink. The witch hates me. I’m telling you, it’s personal. If she wants to get in my face, I’ll get in hers.”

  Classes would be starting shortly, and students were crowded at the entrance to the school. The best students were heading straight into the building and to their classrooms, while others were still chatting with their friends or kicking around a soccer ball, waiting until the last possible moment to go in. The worst students were whispering as they passed their homework back and forth, copying one another’s notes as they shared strategies for cheating on tests and decided which classes they were going to skip that day.

  Ivan and I joined up with a small group made up of students from the third category.

  “Look who’s here—the team moron,” greeted a chubby, short guy. “Quite the goal you missed yesterday.”

  “At least I ran to the other side of the field, chubs,” I replied.

  “Hey, dude, watch your mouth. I’m losing weight.” The boy put his hands on his gut. “My old lady put me on a diet, man. I swear if I ever seen anything green on a plate again, I’ll throw up. I’m practically all skin and bones!”

  “Maybe it’ll help you score with the chicks if you’re not stuffing your face with donuts all the time.”

  “Look who’s talking!”

  “Stop screwing around,” said another guy. “We have to win today no matter what.”

  “Fat chance,” said the chubby one.

  “We have a chance today. Eloy’s not playing.”

  Now I was interested. “How come?”

  “I heard he hurt his knee—like he broke it or something and won’t be able to play for quite a while.”

  I froze stiff, immediately remembering my encounter with Eloy and his friends when they tried to steal my soccer ball . . . and the kick I’d delivered to his knee. I could still hear the crunching sound it had made, the same one I’d heard in the dream about the museum.

  “Do you know how he broke it?”

  It couldn’t have been from me kicking him. I hadn’t kicked him hard enough for that. Or had I? It certainly hadn’t been my intention to break any bones—even though he deserved it. I’d just wanted to get away.

  “I have no idea,” the boy answered. “But what difference does it make? The important thing is he’s not playing.”

  On that we all agreed. Time to move on to more urgent matters.

  “Can somebody loan me their Spanish homework?”

  “I was gonna ask you for it. I let you copy off me on the last test.”

  “And I failed.”

  I lost interest in the conversation and my mind wandered back to everything that had happened in my dreams. Then Ivan brought me back to reality.

  “Wake up, fool. We have to go to class.”

  The math teacher was using an example to explain how to solve a system of equations—again. She recited the numbers as she wrote them on the board. Her monotonously dull, sleep-inducing tone of voice was not a great fit for the first class of the day when students were still yawning and fighting off sleep.

  “Have you ever had strange dreams?” I whispered.

  “You mean about chicks?” asked Ivan, still writing. He was diligently copying down the example problem. “Less than I’d like to, dude. I’m not that lucky.”

  “No, not like that. Stranger than that, like you’re dreaming about things that are going to happen in the future.”

  Ivan kept writing. His eyes jumped from the board to his paper. “Unless a radioactive spider bites me and transfers superpowers to me, I don’t think my dreams will become reality.”

  I let out a long sigh and pushed my glasses up on my nose. “Maybe a scorpion will sting you.”

  “As long as it gives me superpowers, I don’t care if a hundred of them sting me.”

  The conversation wasn’t going in the direction I wanted so I didn’t dare share my dreams with him or he’d think I was some kind of wacko and stop being friends with me. I couldn’t think of any way to talk to him about it without telling him the truth, so I gave up.

  I spent the rest of the class wondering why I never dreamed I was a superhero. That sounded pretty cool.

  When class ended, the teacher called me up to her desk.

  “Have you started your paper?”

  “Of course,” I assured her. “I’m so glad I have the opportunity to show you how important math is to me.”

  The teacher looked even more serious, if that was possible.

&nb
sp; “Which mathematician did you choose?”

  “I’m still deciding,” I lied. “I’m debating between two that I was reading up on yesterday.”

  “Well, get a move on. I want the paper by next Wednesday.”

  “Next week? That doesn’t give me enough time to—”

  “Well then I guess you’ll have to work hard on it over the weekend.” And she walked out.

  I was still swearing by the time I caught up with Ivan.

  “I think she has a crush on you,” he teased, thoroughly amused with himself. “Don’t you think? All that crap about punishing you is because she wants you and wants to keep you close to her. A sweet young thing like you . . . I think I smell a wedding . . .”

  I shoved him. Ivan reached out for the wall to keep from losing his balance.

  “Real funny, smart ass. Let’s go.”

  “Where? We have class.”

  “I don’t. I don’t have the signed excuse Tedd’s making me turn in.”

  “But he’s gonna give us our grades from yesterday’s surprise test,” Ivan protested.

  “I don’t give a rip about the test.”

  “Why are you going so slow?” asked Ivan. “You’re walking like an old lady.”

  “Are you in a hurry?”

  My leg still hurt, and the pain was a constant reminder of the dream about the cotton factory where I’d run into something invisible. And the dream reminded me of the twin girls who kept fighting over that stick. And the whole chain of memories led me to a never-ending string of questions.

  “I wanna get as far from the school as we can as fast as we can so some teacher doesn’t catch us.”

  “Would it take us long get to a museum?” I asked.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Uh, yeah, of course. Have you ever been to one?”

  Ivan looked me up and down. “You are one weird dude today. What the heck do you want with a museum?”

  “Have you ever been to one or not?”

  “Once. My old man took me.”