The Girl Who Could Not Dream

by Sarah Beth Durst

  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.

  As she watched, she thought she saw the curtain twitch.

  When the cleanup was done, the cart was wheeled away and the bell rang. Everyone swarmed toward the dish return area, sidestepping the bits of shepherd’s pie that still dotted the floor. She saw Ethan holding his tray and hers. He was trying to catch her eye, but she scooted through the crowd, hiding behind the taller kids, until she squeezed out the door. She hurried through the corridors. Rounding a corner, she saw the janitor’s cart.

  As the janitor hefted up a trash can, Sophie ducked beside the cart. She flipped open the curtain.

  Monster was sitting inside. He had a circle of empty chocolate milk cartons around him. His full belly was sticking up. Mashed potatoes clung to the fur around his mouth.

  She looked at him.

  He looked at her.

  He reached out one tentacle and flipped the curtain closed.

  SOPHIE DIDN’T SEE MONSTER THE REST OF THE DAY. When the final bell rang, she sprinted to her locker, shoveled in her notebooks, grabbed her backpack, and ran to the bathroom. Hearing a flush, she ducked into a stall and locked the door. She waited while the other girl washed her hands for a ridiculously long time. Sophie wished she could yell at her to hurry up.

  Eventually, the other girl left.

  “Monster?” Sophie called softly. “Are you ready to go home?” She listened for the sound of his paws above and watched the ceiling tiles, expecting to see one shift. She planned to catch him so he wouldn’t land on the slightly sticky floor. But he didn’t appear.

  Someone else came into the bathroom. She waited while the new person used the toilet, flushed, and washed her hands. After she left, Sophie called again, “Monster? I’m here. It’s time to go home. Come on, the bus will be leaving soon!”

  Still no answer.

  What if he’d been seen? What if he’d been caught? What if the school thought he was a rodent of unusual size and called an exterminator? What if they didn’t think he was a rodent and called some mad scientists who wanted to dissect him? Or the news, who’d want to put him on TV? He’d probably like being on TV, having stylists primp his fur, greeting his adoring fans . . . until the terrified mob showed up.

  “Sophie! Stay—”

  Monster’s voice! It came from the hall, and it was cut off by the sound of
claws scraping on tile, Monster’s growls, and the slam of a door.

  She burst out of the stall, out of the bathroom, and into the hallway in time to see Monster bound into a music room. Empty backpack slapping her back, she chased him across the hall.

  Inside, a boy was huddled next to a piano. He was covering his head with his arms. Monster was in front of him, tentacles waving in the air, fur standing on end. He was baring his teeth and growling at a lanky, translucent-gray creature that looked like a cross between a giraffe and a man—if a giraffe had razor-like claws instead of hooves.

  The creature dodged to the right. As Monster scampered to block him, the creature lunged left. His legs stretched like rubber bands, and his entire body swayed as if he were a balloon. His neck wobbled back and forth.

  “Leave him alone!” Sophie picked up one of the chairs and raised it over her head. Ready to swing, she ran toward the gray giraffe-man.

  Silently, the gray creature turned toward Sophie. He had no face, just an oval where his face should be. Staring, Sophie slowed.

  From behind, Monster leaped at him and sank his teeth into the creature’s ankle. Sophie bashed the chair into its chest. The creature didn’t let out a sound, but its entire body shuddered.

  Shaking off Monster, it loped toward the window, using its knuckles like extra feet. As it jumped onto the windowsill, its body shrank and thinned so it looked like a gray shadow. It slid out a gap in the partially open window.

  Sophie and Monster ran to the window and watched the creature slither away, flat on the sidewalk. Gray, it blended in with the concrete.

  “What was that?” Sophie asked.

  “Vicious,” Monster said. “Bad. Slimy. Faceless. I have lots of adjectives but no nouns. Told you to not come out of the bathroom.”

  “But what—” Behind her, she heard a whimper. The boy! She’d forgotten about him. She rushed to his side, and he raised his head. Sophie realized she knew him. “Ethan? Are you okay?”

  “Uh, hi, Sophie. Is it gone?” Shaking and pale, he used the piano to pull himself onto his feet. “Did you just save my life? You and your—”

  “Cat,” Monster supplied. “I’m a friendly housecat.”

  “Right.” Ethan’s voice was shrill, as if he wanted to scream but his vocal cords wouldn’t let him. “You and your friendly talking housecat with six arms.”

  She guessed it was too late to tell Monster to hide. “Can I convince you you’re dreaming?”

  “Sure, it would be nice to be dreaming.” He was clutching the side of the piano with white knuckles, and his eyes flickered around the room as if he was expecting another attack.

  Wiggling her fingers, Sophie waved her hands in front of his face. “This is all a very bad dream. None of this happened.”

  “But I’m awake.”

  “You only think you’re awake. If you were asleep in your dream, it would be a boring dream.” Sophie had seen boring dreams before. She’d also seen dreams in which the dreamer seemed to wake several times, each time believing he was awake for real, until something impossible happened, like a chicken dancing the hokey pokey.

  In a low voice, Monster sang, “Do-do, do-do, do-do. Ripple, ripple, ripple . . .”

  Both Sophie and Ethan looked at him.

  “What are you doing?” Sophie asked.

  “Making that dream-sequence sound they do on TV.” He swayed back and forth, repeating the same two notes. “Do-do, do-do, do-do . . .”

  “Please, stop,” Sophie said.

  “Sorry.” He stopped. “I thought it would help.”

  “It doesn’t,” she said, then looked at Ethan hopefully. “Does it?”

  “Not so much.”

  The bell rang. Last bell before the buses left. Sophie made a quick decision. “You’d better come home with us.” Her parents could decide what to do.

  Maybe they’d know what that gray creature was. Was it from a nightmare? Where else could something like that have come from? Did someone dream it to life? Sophie felt a strange flip-flop inside her, as if her heart had done a somersault. Could there be someone else like her out there? She’d thought she was the only one and that Monster was the only monster.

  Ethan didn’t move. “Shouldn’t we tell a teacher? Or call the police?”

  “You can’t!” She squashed down the instant panic—if he told anyone, they’d find out about Monster. They’d ask questions, and who knew where that would lead? Kneeling, she opened her backpack. Monster crammed himself inside, and she zippered it shut. “Besides, what will you tell them? You were attacked by a gray giraffe that shrank to squeeze out the window and then disappeared down the sidewalk? No one will believe you.” She hoped. Last thing she needed was for more people to find out about Monster. Standing, Sophie picked up the backpack. “Come on.”

  “With you? And . . . your cat?”

  “Unless you’d rather be on your own when the creature comes back?”

  “Let’s go,” Ethan said.

  Checking the hallway first, she exited with Ethan behind her. It was impressive—and spooky—how quickly the school emptied out as soon as the bell rang. Crumpled papers, candy wrappers, and other trash lay against the walls like tumbleweeds. Classroom windows were dark. Inside, desks and chairs created ominous shadows. She and Ethan hurried toward the front doors.

  Outside, some of the buses were already pulling out of the parking lot. Oh no, Sophie thought. They were late! “Which one is yours?” Ethan asked.

  “Fourteen.” She pointed. Its doors were shut, and it was third in line to leave the parking lot. Ethan waved his arms over his head, and they both shouted, “Wait for us!” Ethan put on a burst of speed, sprinting toward it.

  As he reached it, the doors opened. He waited for her to catch up. Panting, she reached him, and they clambered on. “Thank you,” Ethan said to the bus driver.

  The driver grunted.

  Most of the seats were already full. Kids watched them as they came on. Sophie expected Madison to comment on how out of breath she was or how red her face was, but the queen bee wasn’t on the bus. She must have had an after-school activity, like tormenting someone with less-than-perfect hair.

  Several boys waved at Ethan. One high-fived him and said, “Nice shot last night.”

  “Thanks, man,” Ethan said, as if he hadn’t just been whimpering in a corner after being chased by a horrifying creature that shouldn’t exist.

  Sophie slid into an empty seat and put the backpack with Monster on her lap.

  Ethan sat down next to her. Across the aisle, two girls whispered and then giggled, looking directly at them. It was as subtle as if they’d waved a sign that read We’re talking about you. Sophie reminded herself she didn’t care, so long as they weren’t talking about Monster.

  “So . . . what was that thing?” Ethan asked conversationally. He was, she thought, very good at bottling up his fear. Maybe this was why no one but her had suspected all his visits to the counselor’s office.

  She shushed him. “We’ll talk at my house.”

  “No one’s paying attention.”

  “Are you kidding? Everyone watched us run for the bus, together.”

  “Yeah, but no one cares.”

  “Everyone cares. It’s middle school. Gossip is practically a gradable subject.”

  He fell silent. Both of them looked out the window. Monster huddled motionless and silent within the backpack. This trip, he didn’t ask for a view. The bus passed the post office, as well as a park with a baseball diamond and a convenience store that advertised 50 percent off windshield-wiper fluid and freshly fried corn dogs. Sophie suddenly realized that in the chaos of fighting the gray creature and running for the bus, she’d forgotten entirely about Mr. Nightmare meeting with her parents. It should be all over by now, right? Maybe she shouldn’t have insisted that Ethan come with her. She wanted to ask them what happened.

  “What did it want with me?” Ethan asked, breaking the silence.

  Sophie glanced aroun
d them, but no one was paying attention to her and Ethan anymore. The chatter was loud enough to drown out his voice. “I don’t know. Lunch?” She wished she’d let him go home. Her parents didn’t need a second crisis. But he’d seen Monster. And there was that gray creature, who might or might not have been from a nightmare . . . She couldn’t just let him waltz off and tell his parents all about the crazy day he had. Her parents would convince him to keep their secret. Softly, she asked Monster through the zipper, “Why was that thing attacking Ethan?”

  “No idea,” Monster said, muffled. “It’s not like there’s a monster bulletin board where we send messages to each other. I was on my way to meet you, and the boy was waiting for you outside the bathroom when the freaky giraffe attacked. By the way, did you notice he had no face? I’m voting that he breathes through his skin. Like bullfrogs and earthworms.”

  Ethan looked pale. Sophie wondered if he was about to faint. She hoped not. She didn’t know what she’d do if he fainted. “There are more monsters?” he squeaked. He cleared his throat and said in a more normal voice, “I mean, that’s cool, if there are more. You know, if they’re friendly or whatever. No offense meant.”

  Monster was silent for a moment. “Actually, I thought I was the only one.”

  “Guess you aren’t,” Ethan said.

  “Indeed,” Monster agreed. “Fascinating.”

  “Not the word I’d use,” Ethan said, and Sophie had to agree with that. “Do you really think it wanted to eat me for lunch?” His voice cracked on the last word.

  “It didn’t look friendly,” Sophie said.

  “Lots of things don’t look friendly but don’t want to eat me. Take your bus driver, for example.” Ethan gestured at him. Stopping at the next bus stop, the driver scowled at the kids as if he was offended they wanted to leave.