When We Got Lost in Dreamland

by Ross Welford

  Wait.

  I touch my head. There are blond kids at my school … but almost everyone has their hair short. Mine is a bit of a haystack, and it makes me stand out.

  Still, I can’t worry about that now.

  My chest is stinging like mad where I scraped it. I realise not everything is quiet: there is a gentle, rapid flapping noise coming from the other side of the bush. Nervously, I peep out and see a big overgrown garden with a flagpole in the middle of it. And now I can see what is causing the flapping sound: countless strings of little flags all tied near the top of the flagpole are rattling in the strong evening breeze. They stretch out from the pole to ground level, forming a large colourful cone like a circus tent. Next to them is what appears to be a bundle of rags.

  As I watch, the bundle sprouts a pair of short, skinny legs, and in seconds it’s on its feet and a head pops out of the top and glares at me. I shrink back, but it’s too late: I’ve been spotted. It’s a tiny old lady with deep lines in her dark-skinned face. Her hair is straight, shiny and black with streaks of white. She releases the fabric over her thin legs and I see she has been gathering up a long sarong in her hands.

  She waddles towards me, saying something fast and quite angry in a language I don’t recognise. Then there’s another voice, also coming from beneath the canopy of little flags. A girl emerges, holding my tattered paper bag by the handles.

  ‘Is this yours?’ she asks.

  Obviously, it isn’t mine, because I’ve just stolen it, but I can’t say that, can I? The girl squints, first at me, with small almost-black eyes, then at the bag. It’s bashed up now, and its bottom is ripped.

  Did this girl hear the commotion: the dog barking, the lady shouting at me? If she did, then she’s not showing it.

  ‘Erm … no. That is, y-yes. I-it’s mine,’ I stammer. She smiles and holds it out to me. The old lady in the sarong exchanges a few words with her in a language that sounds sort of Chinese, but how would I know?

  Then the old lady points at me. I look down at my chest, which is stinging from the bad scraping it received. You know when you graze your knee? It’s like that but about a hundred times bigger and more painful. My hoodie’s flapping open in the breeze, and blood is starting to ooze through my T-shirt.

  ‘Are you all right?’ says the girl. Her voice is concerned and kind of posh: she’s definitely not from around here. She steps forward, then from a pocket in her skirt she takes out a glasses case and carefully puts the specs on to look at my bloody T-shirt. ‘My grandmother says you should come inside. We can put something on that. We were meditating, but we can carry on later.’

  Meditating?

  I just want to get out of there as quickly as I can, so I say, ‘No thanks. I’m fine. Really I am.’ I even manage a brave grin. ‘Just a little scratch.’

  She nods, then looks at me very directly. ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘Erm … nothing, really. You see, I … erm … I was heading home when this dog started chasing me and, you know, I had to get away from it, so I got rid of the bag so I could run faster and then I jumped over your wall, and sorry to intrude, and …’

  Stop babbling, Malky!

  ‘… And, anyway, I’d better be off. Thanks. Ha ha!’ I start walking down the path that runs round the garden.

  All the way through this, the girl has let me talk, a peaceful half-smile on her face as if nothing surprises her and nothing bothers her. Her blacker-than-black hair is similar to the old lady’s but longer, and her skin shines as though she has just stepped out of the bath. In fact, everything about her looks new: her freshly pressed tartan skirt, white knee-socks, plain blue sweater. It’s like she has dressed in her best clothes just to sit in the garden under some flags.

  The old lady’s angry face has gone, and she now has the same expression as the girl. ‘Serene’ I suppose you’d call it. (Also ‘unnerving’ and ‘maybe slightly unhinged’.)

  ‘You are going the wrong way,’ the girl says, and points to an iron gate in the wall, twisted with weeds. ‘Follow me, I will let you out. You need to make sure the dog has gone.’

  I walk after her. She punches a code into a pad at the side of the metal gate and it pops open as much as the weeds will allow. I slip through into the back lane and glance up and down: there is no sign of Dennis, or his owner. In the half-light of the evening, I can see drops of blood leading back along the lane.

  The girl holds out the bag. ‘Don’t forget this.’

  ‘Oh, er … thanks,’ I say.

  ‘What is so valuable?’ she says.

  I look down. ‘Ah … it’s just, you know … stuff. Some stuff. I erm … found it.’

  She knows you’re lying, Malky.

  She nods as if I’m making perfect sense. ‘Stuff? Well, goodbye then. I expect I will see you at school, assuming you are at Marden Middle School?’

  I nod. ‘How did you know?’

  She points at my hoodie. It’s a faded school one, with the school’s crest printed on it. Mam bought it at a second-hand sale last year.

  ‘That’s a clue.’

  She holds out her hand to shake, like she is a grown-up. ‘Susan,’ she says. ‘Susan Tenzin. I am in Mrs Farroukh’s class.’ Clahss. Her hand is still held out, so I shake it.

  ‘Hi. I mean, how do you do? Very pleased to meet you. Malcolm Bell.’

  Perhaps the ‘how do you do’ is going a bit far, but she just says, ‘I hope the bleeding stops soon.’ She is about to shut the gate when from the other direction the old lady reappears, holding something in her hand and scuttling along on her little legs at a speed that would be impressive for someone half her age. Susan’s shoulders drop and she mutters, ‘Oh no,’ almost under her breath.

  The old lady draws level with me and holds out a small package of brown paper.

  I take it warily. She scrunches up her round face in a smile, showing yellow teeth, and then mimes rubbing something into her chest. I look at Susan, puzzled.

  ‘It is … a remedy. You should rub it on your chest, she says, for the wound.’ Susan sounds doubtful.

  ‘Oh, erm … thanks. What is it?’ I lift the packet to my nose and sniff, and immediately wish I hadn’t. I get a whiff of cheese and old trainers.

  ‘It is what we call dri. It is yak’s butter. Erm … rancid yak’s butter.’ Susan sounds a bit embarrassed.

  Well, this is awkward. I look between the two of them. Remember, I’ve just dropped into their meditation session, I’m now hurrying away and I’ve been given a stinking packet of rotten butter, like the world’s worst party bag. The old lady is clearly thrilled and says the first words in English I’ve heard her speak.

  ‘You will be better soon. Dri is best!’

  I nod, more enthusiastically than I feel, but it seems polite. As she goes to shut the gate, Susan leans in and says in a quiet voice, ‘To tell the truth, you may be better off with something else. Savlon, antiseptic spray, anything, really.’ Then she gives a little half-smile. ‘See you tomorrow, smart and shiny!’

  She closes the gate and I’m back in the lane, as though I’ve just woken from a strange dream.

  There’s something still bothering me, though, as I wipe the last of Dennis’s poo from my shoe on a patch of grass. ‘Smart and shiny!’ the girl had said. She means the school uniform, I guess, and it makes me swallow nervously. I’m wearing a maroon hoodie with MMS – the school’s initials – in big white letters on the back.

  Which means the woman with the dog will have seen it.

  What with my hair, and the school hoodie … she’s bound to find me.

  And did I mention that I’m on my last chance at school? Probably not, actually. It’s a bit of a problem. Well. More than a bit.

  Not as much of a problem, though, as what is inside the bag I stole. But I only find that out later.

  Tynemouth is a jumble of houses, big and small, old and new, its streets connected by a warren of back lanes crammed with bins and parked cars.

  I’ve
emerged at the end of the street that leads to our tiny terraced house, clutching the paper bag, and I’m thinking, I’ll just dump the bag in the recycling bin on our street.

  It’s stolen goods, right? Only I’m not a thief. I haven’t even had a proper look at what’s inside, and Kez Becker ran away at the first sign of trouble, so if I just casually drop the bag here, in the bin, without even knowing what it is, then no one will know and everything will be fine, won’t it?

  ‘What you got there, Malky?’

  Dammit: Sebastian. Just my luck. Half a minute either way and I’d have missed him. Less, in fact. Mam has just started to let him walk back on his own from his friend Hassan’s house a few doors down, and he’s swaggering along the pavement, hands in his pockets, like he flippin’ owns it.

  He’s seven.

  Well, what would you do?

  ‘Oh, this?’ I say, looking a bit like I didn’t know I was carrying a bashed-up paper bag. ‘It’s, erm … not mine. I, erm … found it. I was just about to throw it away.’

  Seb just stands there, blinking rapidly at me, trying to work out whether I am lying. Most of his experience will tell him that I probably am. I am his big brother, after all, and telling lies to younger siblings is one of the few privileges we have.

  ‘You found it? Where? What is it? And why were you going to chuck it if you’ve just found it?’ Sebastian has a nose for a dodgy story, despite his age. He tries to look inside the bag, but I hold it closer to my chest, and silently wince as it rubs against my scraped and bleeding skin. At least the bag conceals the bloodstains on my T-shirt.

  Seb reaches into the bag and starts to pick at the box inside, which is sealed with tape. Suddenly I feel very jealous: I want to be the one to discover what I’ve been stealing-not-stealing. I snatch it away from him.

  ‘Leave it alone, you little pest!’

  ‘Did you nick it? You did, didn’t you? What is it? Who’d you nick it from? Tell me or I’m telling Mam.’

  Aaaagh! It’s like he’s got some sixth sense.

  Fit Billy next door is standing on his front path, holding a massive dumbbell in each hand and performing arm curls, shirtless even though the sun has gone down. He grunts as he lifts the weights and says, ‘Hi, lads! How’s yer mam?’ He always wants to chat.

  Mam reckons he’s lonely since his mam died and his girlfriend moved out, so I feel bad hurrying past and saying a quick, ‘Hi, Billy.’

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he says to me. He puts his weights down and takes my phone out of his trackie bottoms pocket. ‘Friend of yours came past a few minutes ago. Said she found it at the top of the beach steps, and knew it was yours because of the case. You wanna be careful with it, son. Canny phone, that is!’

  ‘Oh aye … thanks, Billy,’ I stammer.

  At least that is one less thing I have to worry about.

  Some hope. I look at the screen and there’s a long, fine crack across the glass. My phone! (It was a present from Dad, so we could FaceTime, he said, although we hardly have.)

  I don’t hear the rest of what Billy says. Something about a new World War Two film he’s got off Amazon. He’s obsessed with the war, is Billy.

  I get the package in the house and upstairs without Mam seeing. It isn’t hard – she’s asleep on the settee because she had an early shift this morning. I’ve zipped up my hoodie to hide my bloody T-shirt from Seb and now the carrier bag sits on the floor between our beds.

  ‘Open it then,’ says Seb.

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  I told him that the bag was by some bins – and that was sort of a bit true-ish. Even as I pick up the bag, I work on my conscience.

  If it was by, well, okay near the bins in that yard, then it must be rubbish. Nobody wanted it. It belonged to nobody. Probably.

  Therefore it is definitely not stealing. You cannot steal something that has no owner.

  Seb and I sit opposite each other while I run my thumbnail through the tape on the top of the cardboard box and tip the contents on to my duvet: two slim packages about the size of a small pizza box, each bearing an identical coloured label.

  KENNETH ‘the Mystic o’ the Highlands’

  McKINLEY

  presents

  THE DREAMINATOR

  Live Your Perfect Dreams!

  Dream Your Perfect Life!

  MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE!

  100% Safe — 100% Restful

  — 100% Money Back Guarantee

  There’s a picture of a grinning middle-aged man with a luxuriant swept-up hairstyle, the goldish colour of a pound coin; he has dazzling teeth of a whiteness I’ve never seen for real. His eyes peer out from the picture over the top of round, coloured glasses. The design of the label looks pretty old-fashioned. Definitely from way before I was born.

  I ease up the lid of one of the packages and there is another label resting on top of the contents.

  USE ONLY AS DIRECTED IN THESE INSTRUCTIONS

  Underneath this is a clear plastic bag containing lots of bits and pieces: strings, sticks, a plastic hoop made to look like bamboo, feathers, a circular disc the size of a saucer with threads woven in a pattern, like the head of a tiny, intricate tennis racquet.

  There is yet another sheet labelled:

  ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS

  On the other side is a drawing of the finished object, which at least gives me something to go on. Bit by plastic bit, taking about twenty minutes and watched by an awestruck Seb, I shove ‘Stick A’ into ‘Slot B’, and thread ‘String C’ through ‘Hole D’ and so on until I have something that looks exactly – okay, almost exactly – like the illustration. I hold it up for Seb’s approval, dangling it from my finger, and he sighs in admiration.

  ‘Awethome!’

  Round my finger is a hook leading to a short plastic chain attached to the top of a pyramid about twenty centimetres square, but without a base. The sides of the pyramid glitter a dull gold (‘suffused with crystals of pure pyrite’ according to the sheet). From each base corner comes a wire: from these hangs the plastic-bamboo hoop. The woven disc with the coloured glass sits in the centre of the hoop, and from the hoop hang feathers and beaded wires with tiny, jewel-like stones at the end. Just visible inside the rim of the hoop is another wire that leads to a small, empty battery pack sitting inside the pyramid. Dangling from the centre of the whole thing is a wire with an on-off switch.

  It is a strange cross between one of those mobiles that you hang above a baby’s cot and a wind chime. It’s quite pretty, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing.

  Seb reaches over and plucks the thing from my hands.

  ‘Hey! Careful!’ I say.

  Seb stares at the Dreaminator, allowing it to hang from his finger, and then at me. There’s something in his eyes that I don’t like: an accusing look.

  ‘You nicked it, didn’t you? I know you did.’

  That’s the problem with Seb. He’s far, far too smart. I can beat him in a fight, but he’s clever with stuff like this.

  ‘There’s two of them,’ he says. ‘Put the other one together and let me have it, or I’ll tell Mam you’ve been stealing stuff.’

  I don’t really have a choice, do I?

  I sigh. Then, sullenly, I get to work on the second package. And it’s maybe exactly then that everything starts to go wrong.

  Like I said – sort of Seb’s fault, really.

  When both Dreaminators are assembled, I pick up the instructions again – they’re pretty short. On the first side of the single sheet is a repeat of the photo from the box cover, and ‘a letter to the buyer’ that gives me a pang of guilt, because I didn’t buy it at all. Still, I’m too excited to find out about it to worry that much, and I read the whole thing aloud to Seb.

  THE DREAMINATOR (TM)

  A Letter to the Buyer

  Hello!

  Thank you for buying the Dreaminator! You are now the proud owner of a revolutionary concept in sleep and dream management. I am delighted that you have m
ade this purchase and I am confident that a world of amazing adventures awaits you – and all while you are fast asleep!

  My name is Kenneth McKinley. You may know me from my appearances on stage, radio and television …

  I glance up at Seb. He shakes his head.

  He’s never heard of this fella, either, but then it must have been ages ago, judging by the yellowed paper and the design and everything. He’s probably dead by now.

  Based on teachings and traditions from all around the globe, the Dreaminator (TM) harnesses the deepest powers of your sleeping brain to allow the user to become conscious in his or her dreams – yet remain asleep!

  THESE ARE WAKING DREAMS!

  That’s right! With practice, you will be able to recognise when you are dreaming while you are dreaming, and make choices about what happens.

  Say goodbye to frustrating dreams that you do not understand!

  No more nightmares! When you literally control your demons, you can send them packing!

  Happy dreaming!

  Kenneth ‘the Mystic o’ the Highlands’

  McKinley

  Seb is doing his rapid-blinking thing as he tries to take in what I have just read out.

  ‘So …’ he begins and then trails off. He tries again. ‘So … you can be awake even though you are asleep?’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make sense.’

  I shrug. I have to say it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, either. I turn the sheet over and start reading again.

  What are ‘waking dreams’?

  Waking dreams are sometimes called ‘lucid dreaming’. This is a term devised in 1867 by the Frenchman the Marquis de Saint-Denys who first described the extraordinary ability to be fully conscious and direct your dreams while you are asleep.

  The DreaminatorTM combines the teachings of Saint-Denys with philosophies and traditions from other cultures – such as Native Americans, West African animist religions, Buddhist meditation and Western ‘New Age’ thought – to create a powerful tool.

  The DreaminatorTM uses the unique and mysterious properties of crystals to create a charge of ultra-low-level energy around the sleeping person. Coupled with the ancient power of the pyramids – known since the time of the Egyptian pharaohs – this creates an astonishing combination of forces.