Dream a Little Dream (The Silver Trilogy) (F) (28 page)

I turned over on my other side and closed my eyes, exhausted. I’d simply have to ignore the green door as well as I could over the next few days, or I’d go right out of my mind. I’d sooner dream of Hamlet every night than of invisible pursuers, or falling into a void. Or of boys with gray eyes who simply vanished when things began to get romantic. It was about time to let my sound human reason take charge of this story again.

In fact, Henry did seem to have vanished, and not just from the dream. He didn’t come to school on Monday, never mind how much I looked out for him. First I was just uneasy, but when he still didn’t turn up on Tuesday, my uneasiness turned to mild hysteria. What did I know about these dreams and the laws governing them? Maybe that rustling thing had caught Henry, and … Or he was simply sick and I was in the process of going off my rocker. Because I was seriously considering the possibility of catching a cold in dream corridors. So much for sound human reason.

And when there was still no sign of Henry on Wednesday morning, although I lingered at my locker for an extra-long time, I suddenly realized how much I missed him. I also realized that I couldn’t stand the uncertainty any longer. I’d have to swallow my pride and ask Grayson.

At that moment I heard Henry’s voice.

“Has your locker hypnotized you, cheese girl? You’ve been staring at the same spot for a full minute.”

I was so relieved to see him that my legs almost gave way beneath me. Of course, I couldn’t come up with a smart answer right away.

“Henry!” In fact, I could only just suppress a deep sigh of relief.

He smiled. “I’ve missed you, too,” he said. His eyes were bright, but you couldn’t help seeing the dark shadows under them.

“Where’ve you been?” I managed to ask.

He opened his locker and took out a few books. “I had to see about something at home.” Rather hesitantly, he added, “My mother had one of her bad turns. But it’s all right again now.”

Had it been his mother’s voice breaking into Amy’s colorful little-girl dream?
Which of you damn kids…?
Not exactly what you’d want to hear your mother saying.

“You suddenly just disappeared, and then everything turned black,” I murmured, suppressing the impulse to touch him just to make sure he was really there. I crossed my arms, to be on the safe side.

The bell rang for class.

“I’m sorry—I was woken, and then so was Amy.” He closed his locker a little more forcefully than necessary. “I’d have liked to explain, but you haven’t been in the dream corridor these last few nights.”

“You could simply have phoned,” I said. “In the daytime, I mean.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. “Yes, I expect I could,” he said. “I must go—I have a biology test. Active and passive transport mechanisms in the biomembrane. Cross your fingers for me.”

Then he had disappeared into the crowd, and I began missing him all over again. If Persephone hadn’t turned up to hold her cell phone under my nose, showing a picture of herself in a reed-green ball dress, I might even have run after him. For the first time, I was grateful to Persephone for her presence.

Over the following nights, however, there was no one to save me from thinking about Henry and myself. It took me forever to get to sleep, and when I did finally manage it, at least I didn’t have nightmares (and I only once had to put up with Florence playing both leading parts in
Hamlet
), but the green door turned up all over the place. Again and again I was on the point of opening it, only to decide against the idea.

No, I wasn’t about to make it so easy for him! If Henry wanted to talk to me, he could do it by day. He knew where to find me. Apart from which, you never knew whom or what else you might meet in that corridor.

But Henry seemed to be avoiding me. I met Arthur and Jasper now and then, but because I was always with Persephone, they just smiled and cast me meaningful glances. Maybe that did bring Persephone to the verge of a heart attack every time, but it cheered me up a bit. The dreams were one thing, but when I thought of the ritual in Jasper’s living room, I couldn’t help laughing.

My nights seemed to go on forever, while my days passed at surprising speed, not least because living with the Spencers was so strange and new for us all. But it worked out better than I’d expected. Maybe that was because Mom and Ernest were so obviously happy together. To be honest, I’d never seen Mom happier. In the circumstances, it was harder and harder for Mia and me to act as if we were always going to detest Ernest. We still avoided speaking to him directly, but if we weren’t careful, an “Ernest” sometimes slipped out, instead of “Mr. Spencer.” And a smile.

It was easy to get used to Grayson as well. He might have a few bad habits, like forgetting to put the milk back in the fridge, or leaving large blobs of toothpaste in the washbasin, but otherwise it was nice sharing a house with him. Buttercup in particular loved him to bits, because he played in the garden with her every day and praised her ability to fetch even when she bit his basketball in half. He didn’t seem to spend much time with Emily during the week, but you knew at once when she was on the phone, because then his voice changed and he disappeared into his room as soon as he could. (We were all thankful for that; having Mom and Ernest going lovey-dovey the whole time was quite enough.)

Every morning on his way to work, Ernest first dropped Florence, Mia, and me off at school, then he took Mom to the rail station. Grayson cycled to school. He liked it, and anyway there wasn’t any room left for him in the car.

Lottie enjoyed mothering three more people than before, plus a cat. She did all the food shopping, made supper, and saw to keeping the whole house neat and tidy and full of delicious cooking smells, and as usual her good temper spread to everyone.

By the end of the first week, even Spot and Buttercup were lying peacefully side by side on the sofa.

In fact, if Florence and I hadn’t been getting on each other’s nerves so badly, there’d have been an almost suspiciously harmonious atmosphere in the house and the enlarged family. But she could be relied on to spoil that. On the pretext of “just wanting to help,” she meddled with everything: homework, dog training, a bathroom schedule—and plans for my sixteenth birthday.

Not that there had to be any real plans. We’d never made a big fuss about birthdays. A few presents, a cake, the essential phone call from Papa, and we usually went to the cinema in the evening—the perfect day! Florence, Grayson, and Ernest were welcome to a piece of my birthday cake, but apart from that I saw no reason for my birthday to be any different from usual this year.

However, I’d been reckoning without Florence.

On Friday afternoon I came home from school in a towering fury, ready to strangle Florence with my own hands. I found her sitting with Mom, Mia, and Lottie in the kitchen, teaching them all to play bridge. That idyllic sight was the last straw! I swept the cards off the table, leaned both hands on it, and faced Florence.

“How come Persephone Porter-Peregrin is going about claiming to have been invited to my birthday party?” I felt like shouting, but what came out of my mouth wasn’t much more than a concentrated hiss.

For the first time since I’d known her, Florence looked taken aback. For about a second.

“But, mousie,” said Mom, “I asked Florence to invite a few of your new friends.”

“And it’s obvious that you spend more time with Persephone than anyone else at school,” said Florence, “so I thought—”

“Are you crazy?” I was getting closer to a shout now. “Persephone is driving me out of my mind! She follows me everywhere, talking to me the whole darn time! I mean, if at least she talked about something interesting! But oh no, she describes all the ball dresses she
didn’t
buy, in detail! It’s more than anyone could stand. I’d like a rest from it on my birthday, at least!”

“Mousie,” said Mom again, “you’re only sixteen once, as Florence said, and she’s right. So we thought it would be nice to celebrate the day with a little more than just a birthday cake.”

“Of course there’ll be a birthday cake as well,” said Lottie. “And balloons!”

“We’re going to have a picnic,” said Mom proudly. “A genuine English picnic in the park, with the family and all your new friends! We’ve thought of all kinds of nice games and things to do. Emily is going to bring a croquet set—”

“
Emily?
” I gasped for air.

“Well, as Grayson’s girlfriend, of course she’s invited. She’s practically one of the family.”

“And I have to bring Daisy Dawn along, too,” said Mia, winking at me. “I mean, of course, I’m
allowed
to bring Daisy Dawn along.”

“It will be great!” Mom was beaming at me. “Henry has said he’ll come as well, and if we have a barbecue, maybe Charles will—”

“
Henry?
”

“Yes, mousie, the boy you’re going to the ball with. I’m looking forward so much to meeting him.” Mom frowned. “Oh, please don’t say that he’s another one driving you out of your mind.”

“No!” Yes. No. Only a little. I was breathing with difficulty. Who else had Florence invited? Her dancing partner, the one she’d fished up from the anonymous depths of the Math Club? Emily’s disturbed brother Sam? Itsy and Bitsy? Jasper and Arthur? The London Symphony Orchestra? And maybe Secrecy to take birthday photographs as a memento?

“We only wanted to do something nice for you,” said Mom. She could sense that my anger was beginning to die down and laid her hand on mine. “Now, please tell me why you’re so upset. It will be a splendid day, and you deserve one!”

“But … but … you can’t simply … I mean to say…,” I stammered.

“I know. I’d be overwhelmed myself in your place.” Florence gave me a modest smile. “But there’s no need to thank me. I was really happy to fix it all.”

“You’re only sixteen once,” Mom repeated.

And Lottie said, “We’re all looking forward to it so much!”

I gave up. They’d won. With a little luck, it would rain on my birthday and the picnic would be a washout. After all, we were in England, and this was fall.

“I’ll just go and get my things for kung fu,” I said, resigned.

27

IN SPITE OF ALL MY HOPES,
September 30, my birthday, dawned as a clear day with a bright blue sky. A fine day straight out of a picture book. After midday, the sun steadily raised the air temperature to over seventy-five degrees, and we weren’t the only ones to have thought of having a picnic in the park. But because Lottie, Florence, Ernest, and Mom, with extra help from Charles, had been busy since early morning moving half the contents of the house to the park, we’d been able to reserve one of the best places, with an impressive view downhill to the city. I wasn’t allowed to arrive until everything was ready, and after I’d wriggled out of Persephone’s warm embrace (her birthday present was a bracelet with the words
BEST FRIENDS FOREVER
on it; she had the exact counterpart), I had to admit that all that trouble had been worthwhile. The scenario would have done credit to any glossy lifestyle magazine, with a lavish supply of rugs and cushions, helium balloons, and delicious things to eat, skillfully arranged by Lottie on a garden table covered with a white cloth. There was even a matching string of white pennants with letters on them, spelling out
SWEET SIXTEEN
and waving in the wind between two trees.

Well, maybe they’d overdone a few things.

“Good heavens,” I heard Emily ask Grayson, “are those by any chance your family’s silver candlesticks?”

Yup, they were, and the huge flower arrangement was in a genuine crystal vase. We ate off the Spencers’ good Wedgwood china, and there was champagne standing ready in a silver cooler, to be drunk out of proper champagne flutes, of course.

Grayson rubbed his hand over his forehead. Then he explained, “You’re only sixteen once.” He’d obviously taken Florence’s mantra to heart. Emily sniffed dismissively.

“I don’t like her,” Mia whispered to me, extracting a cucumber and creamed salmon sandwich. “But I’m going to feed her a few bits of false information—and if any of them come up in the Tittle-Tattle blog over the next few days, then we’ll know that she’s Secrecy.”

I was going to say something agreeing with her, but at that moment I saw Charles coming up the slope with a sun umbrella under his arm. Behind him came the tall figure of Henry, and my stomach turned a somersault.

I swallowed. “Would you think it very bad of me not to be immune to boys anymore, Mia?” It was pointless to go on denying it.

Mia gave me a surreptitious glance and sighed. “Is it a good feeling, at least?”

Hard to say. For the moment, yes. Just because Henry was coming straight toward me, over the grass and in the sunshine, and no one else in the whole world had a smile like his. And because …

“Liv, stop it!” hissed Mia. “You look like a lovelorn sheep!”

I gave a start. “As bad as that? Oh, that’s terrible.” I added—and I was to regret it in the course of the day—“If you see me looking like that again, give me a nudge or throw something at me. Promise?”

“With pleasure,” said Mia, and three hours later, because she always kept her promises, I was black and blue around the ribs and had been hit by assorted flying objects: several chestnuts, a spoon, and a blueberry muffin. Or a mooberry bluffin, as Lottie put it when Charles was listening.

And whenever I looked at Lottie, I knew exactly what Mia had meant about the lovelorn sheep.

Apart from that, I caught myself beginning to enjoy the picnic party. The food was fantastic, particularly the scones and the Indian curried chicken morsels that Lottie had conjured up. Thanks to some skillful rearrangement of the seating plan (after all, I was the birthday girl) I had even managed to put Persephone between Mom and Henry as a buffer. That way Mom couldn’t ask Henry any embarrassing questions—or even worse, tell him the gory details of my birth. But anyway, Henry was totally fascinated by Lottie, probably because she was the image of the dream Lottie guarding my green door. When we played a celebrity guessing game, we laughed a lot at Ernest, who thought he was Winston Churchill, although he was really meant to be Britney Spears, and Grayson mimed Frodo surprisingly well. We were all splitting our sides with laughter, except for Emily. But as it turned out, she didn’t know
The Lord of the Rings
, because she thought fantasy was a sheer waste of time. By now Mia Silver, Private Investigator, had come to the conclusion that Emily didn’t have the charm and lightness of heart that would have made her right for the role of Secrecy. However, maybe that was just a rather stiff and humorless but clever bit of camouflage.