Bad Dreams (6 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
f it were a book, I couldn't put it down, I'll tell you that. I'd find it a real keep-you-upper. Once she had started, out it poured in torrents. How it began when she was tiny, before she could even read. She had been helping her cousin take down the decorations after Christmas, and he was teasing her.

‘The youngest person in the house has to wear everything off the tree for a whole week.'

She was so innocent that she believed him. So she stood still while Eddie hooked all of the glittering ornaments off the tree onto her woolly. He draped the tinsel round her, and then, as if she weren't already looking sparkly enough, added a few chocolate Santas and some glitter stars, and then all the rings and bracelets and necklaces he could find in their granny's old jewellery box.

By the time Imogen's mother turned round from the computer, there wasn't an inch of herself, said Imogen, that wasn't twinkling or flashing or jangling.

‘Aren't you the Sparkling Lady!' her mother had said admiringly. ‘Now come over here, both of you, and take a look at all these Christmas photos.'

Shedding ornaments over the carpet, Imogen rushed to look. Eddie pointed at one of the photographs. ‘Look at Aunt Beth, asleep with her mouth open!'

Imogen ran her fingers across the photos on the screen and giggled at Uncle Ted in his paper hat.

Then she said sadly, ‘No Aunty Dora.'

Her mother pointed. ‘Yes, she's there, sweetheart. Under your finger. And here. And sitting next to the tree in this one.'

But Imogen still looked forlorn, and said again, ‘No. No Aunty Dora.'

Now her cousin was getting impatient. ‘Don't be silly, Immy.' He stabbed at the screen with his finger. ‘She's in this one. And this one.'

Imogen's woolly jangled as she tossed her head. ‘Aunty Dora's gone.'

‘Gone where, sweetheart?'

But there was no way Imogen could explain. And her mother had stopped trying to listen even before the phone rang with the terrible news.

‘That's awful,' I said. ‘So did your mother guess?'

‘Not then,' said Imogen. ‘It was only when it happened a second time, ages later, that she thought back and remembered that morning with the Christmas photos.'

‘Why? Was the second time the same sort of thing?'

‘No. It was different. But it was just as
strange
. I'd had a horrible day. I'd lost the toss in my ballet class, and couldn't be the princess in the show.' She grinned, embarrassed. ‘I came home in
floods
. Mum did her best. “You be a princess for
me
,” she said. So I dressed up and started dancing. But it was stupid, so I ended up in tears again. Mum pulled me onto her lap, and read me a story about a little pit pony called Patch. And suddenly I was going mad, struggling and screaming about water closing over Patch's head. And when we got further into the story—'

‘I know,' I told her. ‘I had that book, too. That's a horrible bit, when he falls in the water.'

Imogen shivered. ‘Well, next day, when I was calm again, and we reached that part in the story, Mum stopped and gave me a funny look. “You knew this, didn't you?” And that's when she guessed.'

‘My mum would just have thought I'd had the book read to me in school.'

‘I think mine would have thought that, except that she says she's always had a bit of a gift that way herself.'

‘I'm not sure why she'd call it a “gift”,' I said.

Imogen looked blank.

I tried to explain. ‘I don't mean to be rude, but most of the time your work is
terrible
, and half of the books in the school give you the frights. On top of that, it seems that if you don't watch out where you're putting your fingers, you know in advance when terrible things are going to happen – in books
and
in real life.' I spread my hands. ‘Hardly a gift,' I continued. ‘More like some sort of
blight
.'

From the look on her face you'd have thought that I'd said she had some mangy disease, or something. She looked so upset I had to change the subject quickly.

‘So how does it work, then, this strange gift of yours?'

‘Work?' The question puzzled her a little. ‘Well, it's a sort of imagining. Like in a dream.'

‘What sort of dream?'

‘Depends. If the book that I'm touching is happy, then it's lovely. Like being there, but on a cloud. In things, but not quite.'

‘Like reading,' I said. ‘Like being lost in a book.'

‘
More
,' she insisted. And I remembered all the times I'd seen her sitting lost in a rapturous world of her own.

‘How?' I asked. ‘I mean, suppose you were holding
Tansy at St Clare's
?'

‘You might dream the midnight feast bit. You'd smell the cakes, and feel a part of the chatter around you.

‘Or if it was
Philippa and the Midnight Pony
, you'd feel the cold air on your face, the hooves thudding beneath you, and all the excitement.'

Then I remembered all the times she'd acted as if she'd practically been bitten.

‘So what if it's a chiller thriller, or a horror book?'

‘Oh, then it's
awful
, like being trapped in a nightmare. You have all these horrible and panicky feelings as you see every ghastly thing about to happen, like a train coming round the bend while the car's still stuck on the crossing, or the toddler leaning too far out of the top-floor window. But, just like in a bad dream, there's nothing you can do to help. You just have to stand there, holding your breath, and watching and waiting.'

‘You can't
ever
stop it?'

‘No. Because it's already there, in the words on the page.'

I thought for a bit. Then I said, ‘You take that book,
Clown Colin
—'

She waved her hands frantically in front of her face. ‘No! Don't! I hate even thinking about when his wooden eyes start spinning round and round. Don't even talk about it!'

I tried another one. ‘How about
Little Mattie
?'

‘Noo-oo!' she wailed. ‘That bit where he's dragged away from his mum – I can't
bear
it!'

That is so
weird
, I thought. And I couldn't have felt more sorry for her. After all, I read more than my fair share of books that make me keep the light on all night long. And lots of books that make me sad, or anxious, till things work out right. But I don't end up in a state like her, halfway to fainting because of three or four grisly pages, and not even able to look at the cover of that book ever again without wanting to shudder.

‘A gift', her mother called it. But, the more Imogen told me about it, the more I thought that that was totally the wrong word.

‘Curse' was more like it.

Yes. Not ‘gift', but ‘curse'.