Bad Dreams (5 page)

It was brilliant for me. If I stayed near her, there was so much clear space around us that I could even practise my tumble turns.

‘Keep on like this,' said Miss Rorty, ‘and you'll win that Harries Cup for sure. I'll put my money on you.'

Over and over I pushed myself back from the side, to try again. And it was only after she blew the whistle, and I was getting out, that I had that really chilling thought.

Miss Rorty was horrified. ‘Look at you, child!' she said, snatching up the nearest towel, and wrapping me tight, as if I were one of the infants. ‘You're covered in goose-pimples. You're shivering fit to burst!'

But it wasn't cold. I didn't want to explain it, even if I could have done, through chattering teeth. It was something quite different.

The thought had suddenly struck me, getting out, that it was all very well for me to think that there was something weird about Imogen. But what about me?

After all, what would
you
think? How would
you
explain someone not even minding spending half an hour in a corner of the pool which, if they thought about it for a moment, they would have to admit was practically halfway to being haunted?

CHAPTER SIX

T
hen she came top in something. It was
terrifying
. We'd just finished reading
Tyke Samuel
together as our book in class. ‘Now write an essay,' Mr Hooper said. ‘Pretend you're little orphan Sam, sent up to clear the chimneys of some great house. Write what he's thinking.'

I love it when Mr Hooper doesn't spoil things by making us talk about our stories before we write them. I settled down at once, and scribbled frantically till the bell rang. I didn't look up much, but, when I did, I saw that instead of staring round the room as usual, sucking her pencil, Imogen was busily writing, too.

Mr Hooper made Tasj collect them all for him at the end, finished or not, and then we rushed out, because it was going home time. But when we came back in the morning, he was looking thrilled.

‘I'm pleased with everyone. Most of you did a good job. But one of the stories was astonishing. Truly outstanding.'

I know it sounds as if I'm being Miss Boastie. But I did really think it must be me.

‘Imogen!'

I wasn't the only person to turn and stare. (We all knew how awful her work was.) But no-one could doubt that she'd written every word of it all by herself, because we'd been in the room with her.

Mr Hooper handed her sheets of paper back. ‘Go on. Read it out to everyone.'

She fingered her necklace anxiously. ‘Oh, no! I couldn't.'

‘Of course you can.'

‘No, really!'

But Mr Hooper can't stand what he calls ‘people being silly'. ‘Imogen,' he said in his firm voice. ‘Just stop fussing, and read it out to everyone now.'

Her fingers trembled as she held it up in front of her. The pages shook. She started off in such a nervous, stumbling voice that we couldn't make sense of it. She was tripping over some words. She was puzzling over others. You'd think, to watch and listen, she'd never heard a word of it before, let alone written it.

In the end, Mr Hooper had to take pity on her. Stretching towards her, he prised the sheets of paper out of her hands, and went back to his own desk.

There, sitting on the desk, he read it properly.

It made my blood run cold. It was as if Tyke Sam was in the room with us, telling us everything. We sat like mice as he told of his terror of the dark, and how soot fell in showers, blinding him, blocking his ears, and even filling his mouth if he'd been rash enough to open it to gasp, or take a breath between his sobs.

‘
And once
,' he told us, ‘
I tumbled down the shaft of a chimney into an unswept grate and sent a lady into a fit of screams. I thought I'd startled her out of her wits, because she began to shriek, “Chimney rat! Chimney rat!” over and over.

‘But then I realized it was the flying soot that had put her in a fury. And the woman beside her tugged me out from where I crouched, scraped
and and bleeding, behind the big brass firescreen, and boxed my poor ears till they rang
.'

Everyone shivered. ‘They couldn't do that, could they?' Bridie asked. But Mr Hooper didn't answer her. He just read on.

‘
I have this fear that grips me. I think I'm going to stick fast so high up that they can't hear my cries. I think they'll wait a day or so. And then decide, for their convenience, it's easier to think that I'm already dead, because it's chilly and they want a fire
.'

That was when Imogen jumped to her feet, and ran from the classroom, holding her hands over her ears.

We all stared at the door she'd left wide open. ‘That is so
weird
,' said Bridie. ‘If she can
write
something as scary and horrible as that, how come she can't sit and listen when it's read aloud?'

‘Perhaps it embarrassed her,' said Mr Hooper. But I knew better. And when he sent me after her, to fetch her back, I told her so.

‘That wasn't your story at all, was it? It was still Tyke Sam's.'

She looked up from the cloakroom bench, and snapped defiantly, ‘Don't be ridiculous!'

But she'd understood what I meant at once, I noticed. So I persisted. ‘It's true, isn't it? You left your hand on the book as you were writing, and he poured his story out through you.'

‘That is the silliest—'

‘Listen,' I interrupted, pushing Stephen's football gear to the side, and sitting beside her. ‘I'm not trying to be rude, but someone like you could no more write a story like that than fly to the moon.'

‘I could!'

‘No, you couldn't. I know. I sit next to you, remember?
And
I've been watching you.'

The colour crept up, past the gold necklace and up to her cheeks. ‘There's nothing to watch!'

‘Oh, yes, there is. You're very strange, you know. Everyone senses it. But I think I'm the only one who's begun to fit it together. I think you can see into books. For you, books aren't just imaginary worlds. They're real. Real people, in real places.'

She was still trying to fight back. ‘I don't know what you're—'

‘Imogen!' I was getting impatient. ‘I've guessed your secret. Can't you see? You might as well give up, and tell me all about it. Because you can't just keep on rushing out of classrooms, and changing schools, and finding it so hard to concentrate that all the work you do is rubbish unless some character in a book is writing it for you.'

Her eyes filled up with tears. ‘That's
horrible
.'

‘It might be horrible, but it's
true
.'

I knew I was winning. ‘Listen,' I said to her gently. ‘You know you can't carry on like this. You have to talk to somebody. And you can trust me.'

The tears spilled over. She rooted in her pocket to find a tissue, and I sat waiting.

In the end, she turned towards me and looked hard, as if she were working something important out. As if she were
inspecting
me.

And then, suddenly, her face cleared. It was as if the sun had come out inside her. She looked a different person.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I think you're right. I think that I can trust you. After all, I'm not the only one who's different. You're different, too, in your own way. What's odd about you is that you're not so tied up with all the others that you have to share secrets. I really do think you could treat it all like just another story in one of your precious books, that you can close when you want. So I can tell you.'

‘Right,' I said. ‘Story-time. After lunch in the book corner. Deal?'

And Imogen smiled.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Deal. After lunch, I'll tell you the story.'