Wake the Dream - Book One
Page 8
strange air screen with strange floating glowing symbols on it.
Seeing Lane, he quickly clicks it off; pretending that he wasn’t looking at it in the first place. Instead, he motions towards the glow with his hand. Night nods and passes him, carting Lane along at his side; holding her close as they pass by a sleeping polar bear and under a tree limp high above them as wide as a bridge.
No one says a word when Lane trips on an outcropping of ice and sends all three of them tumbling down the side of a tall mountain. Night stops the fall by grabbing a strong tree jutting out of the ground like a fork sticks out of a brownie. It takes a few minutes, but they manage to climb back up. Lane’s PJ’s have torn in three places; her mom isn’t going to be too happy about that.
The tiny little glow continues to be tiny but the twins swear that they’re getting closer; it’s just over the next ridge. And it is. Oddly, the tiny little glowing thing is actually SMALLER then small, tinier then tiny. It’s almost the size of a marble; ALMOST. The marble is still bigger. And it’s a…
“It’s a wing?” Lane whispers.
Night nods. “I lost a pixie; its parts blew all over the memory and dream worlds. Don’t worry; it’s still alive just in pieces. This is one of its wings.”
“Fine, I’ll just go get it!” Lane starts to creep forwards but Corbin tackles her backwards.
He hisses. “It’s NOT that easy! You’re going to wake the dream!”
“I don’t understand what that means!” She snarls in his face; spitting.
“And,” Night counters. “I don’t want you to know. Let’s just not do it please?”
Lane finally nods, annoyed, frustrated and bent on finding out the answer to her question.
She watches as Corbin wiggles his hand around in his back pocket, resurfacing with the penny. Bending down, he carefully positions the circular piece of metal before rolling it through the snow towards the bright blue pixie wing.
Nothing happens at first but then… Suddenly, a crazed hair fur ball with fifteen eyes and twenty long bent legs with human hands pounces on the penny, gnawing at it with razor sharp vampire teeth. Lane recoils in horror as the beast swallows the metal whole before spitting it back out in a gooey glob of metal.
Roaring like a lion, foaming at the mouth like a rabid beast, the monster stalks around, sticking its nose in between a slit in the snow bank; turning its back on the trio. Tentatively, Night sticks his foot out, testing the ground to see how solid the ice is here. A rainbow fish swims up to nibble at the ice right under his foot. The ice starts to crack; the line moving towards them, not away.
Lane muffles a scream as the hair line fracture runs straight between her legs; the ice threatening to break and drop them into the ice water at any second. More rainbow fish swim up, pecking at the ice, eating it; their tummies growing large from consuming it.
Night continues to inch forward, eying up the monster as it busily tries to dig a hole in the snow, looking for more pennies to chew on. Making it to the tiny blue wing, Night snatches it quickly, shoving it deep into his back pocket and bolts back towards them just in time for the first fish to bite its way through; making a rather large circular hole in the ice.
Steam rises from the water under the ice. It starts to melt the thick layers; the ice starts to slime over, going green, morphing into something new. Little green shoots dig up through the dripping gooey green mush, sprouting pink blossoms. Flower petals spread out as the green shoots elongate into stems with small leaves.
The crack in the ice widens and wide vines spread out, reaching towards the sky, whirling around; the vines combining to make gnarled trees. The branches spit out red and orange leaves. The rest of the ice melts and becomes the same slimy green, turning quickly into blades of grass that blows softly in the warm breeze.
Night backs away from the monster. The beast now has its poor head stuck in a tree trunk; a squirrel is pounding on its head with a huge acorn. Corbin smiles wide, taking Lane’s hand, dragging her away from the beautiful forest; away from the fur ball monster.
“Close your eyes.” He whispers to her. “It’s time to go home.”
No School
Lane does NOT sleep at all; just like the twins said. Instead she spends the rest of the night dream hopping with them; enjoying the different adventures they go on. Like visiting a dream about a farm with pink and purple cows and chickens that lay water balloons and a goat that is skating on bacon wearing super-sized skates. And they entered a dream filled with gigantic cupcakes with marshmallow toppings and bright green lava pouring down the sides; burning everything in sight. Lane even got to see what a taco mermaid looks like and what a pig-donkey sounds like. Her favorite has to be the porcupine turnip that a woman with three heads, one eye and five dragon tails was eating. It squirted lemon yellow jelly out when she took a bite.
Lane nearly missed getting caught sneaking back into her bedroom when she heard her mom’s door creak open. Lane had to hide on the first floor landing to avoid detection; her mom would have been SO mad. Today, after all, marks the first day of Lane’s suspension. She’s NEVER been suspended before; let alone being sent to the principal’s office.
Today is day one and her mom will NEVER forgive her if she caught her OUT of bed! Lane had to wait five whole minutes before she could crawl back up the stairs and sprint into her room, jump into bed and plow under the covers. Twenty seconds later, her mom pokes her head in and tells her it is time to get up, brush her teeth, change and eat breakfast. Today her mom is preparing cereal from a box. It might not be stale and the milk might still be good.
Lane gets out of bed, brushes her teeth, trades her PJ’s for a simple pink t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Her mom is in the kitchen, busy trying to find a box of cereal that has NOT gone bad. There’s only one and it’s the kind that Lane hates. She eats it anyway; refusing to dump the spoiled milk into her food. Her mom sighs, dumps out the carton and apologizes.
Her mom is amazing but cooking and doing dishes, not her thing. Nobody is perfect – that’s what her teacher always says. So Lane forgives her for the spoiled milk and horrible cereal; munching slowly, watching her mom drinking her coffee and read the daily news on her iPad.
Lane taps her foot excitedly, counting to a hundred in her head fifteen times before her mom shuts it off and shoves it in her work bag. Her mom checks the wall clock, freaks when she sees the time and bolts out of the house. The car engine follows as the wheels squeal. Her mom has left for the day.
Dumping the gross cereal in the garbage, Lane cleans and dries her dish, placing it back in the cabinet before skipping downstairs.
Night is in the middle of constructing a box fort with the holiday decoration box, the Halloween masks and the tent. Corbin is stringing more lights up right next to the Halloween ones; the new ones blink on and off. The room looks like its glowing.
“Took you long enough..!” Corbin giggles.
“Did you get swallowed up by the pillow and blanket monster or did the tooth fairy try and pull out all of your teeth?” Night smiles wide; holding out a stuffed bear for her to take.
Lane does not accept it. “I got in trouble because of you.”
“And,” Night counters. “Now you don’t have to go to school for a few days. Sounds like you won.”
She shrugs, still not taking the bear. Night reluctantly places it on the top of the tent and goes back to fiddling with the holiday decoration box.
“How about we PLAY school..?” Corbin’s idea sounds horrible. “You have homework, even though you’re not at school. You even have homework from yesterday to do. I know what it is. If we do it together right now then you don’t have to worry about it.”
“I don’t have…” Lane whispers as Night hands her, her math practice book and a list of her vocabulary words.
“You need to complete pages 23A through 26A by Monday. Might as well do it now...” Night opens up the
math book to page 23A and hands her a pencil from his back pocket. Fourth grade math isn’t TOO bad.”
“And,” Corbin smiles, “We can write sentences together. Just be glad you don’t have Spanish homework. Oh, and you have art homework. What do you want to do first? I think you should do the sentences, then math, then art.”
“Art,” Lane doesn’t really want to write sentences or do math.
Shrugging, Night reaches into his back pocket and pulls out her art homework. At the top, in big fat black words it says ‘Draw a Cityscape and Color It’. Corbin hands her a pencil, giving Night one as well. The three of them sit on the ground and draw their own cityscapes on their own papers.
Night draws a city made out of an iceberg with fuzz monsters with tentacles hanging out of windows with marshmallow benches and dragons instead of cars. Corbin’s city is on an alien planet with hover crafts chained together for buildings and aliens with huge heads and tiny bodies walking rectangles on leashes for pets. Lane just draws rectangles with windows and a sun in the sky.
“It’s art.” Night taps her picture. “I think Ms. Almond, your art teacher, wants you to use your imagination. Why not draw one of the dreams or memories we were exploring earlier as your inspiration? I’m sure she’ll love it!”
But Lane’s not so sure. She’s pretty sure that EVERYONE else in class will be