Awake and Dreaming (2 page)

“How
is
the dear child?” asks Mrs. Currie. “I haven't seen her since our Wendy's birthday party.” She suppresses a giggle. “I'm sorry, Philippa, I didn't mean to laugh.”

“It's quite all right,” says Mother. “It
was
rather funny, wasn't it?” But her voice is not amused. “Walking right into a pond in her best clothes! Daydreaming, as usual. Now she refuses to go to
any
parties.”

The child blushes as hotly as she did when they fished her out of the garden pond, strings of green slime hanging from her hair and her white dress.

She
had
been daydreaming. She'd been pretending she was a queen, to keep from crying when the girls called her “Horseface,” as they did every day in school. When she'd followed the other children into the house for birthday cake, she had been leading an imaginary royal procession—and fallen into the pond without seeing it. She could still hear the girls' jeering laughter as she'd splashed and spluttered.

Mother's voice sounds desperate. “I'm at my wit's end about her. All she wants to do is read—or she wanders in the cemetery for hours and comes back looking more like a rough little boy than a girl. Sometimes she just stares into space, as if she's in a trance. I've tried to ask other children over, but she seems to
want
to be alone. And it doesn't help that she's as plain as a boot on top of it. I really don't know what to do with her. And Giles is no
help. Apart from encouraging her to read, he seems to barely notice her.”

“She'll get over it,” says Mrs. Currie.

“It's just a phase,” adds Mrs. Roberts. “My niece was a loner too—until she turned fifteen. Then she noticed young men and now she's happily married with two babies. Don't worry about her, Philippa.”

“I try not to,” says Mother.

“We really
must
be going,” says Mrs. Roberts. The voices fade into the hall.

The child stays in her frozen position until the goodbyes are finally over and Mother's footsteps go back to the dining-room. Then she releases a huge breath, as if she's expelling all the words she's heard. She looks down and lets the book take her away.

T
HE BRIGHTENING DAWN
roused the ghost from her memories. She stood up, her book sliding to the floor. It was time to go.

After she left the house, she paused at the entrance to the cemetery, watching the early sun glint on the wet grass.

Reading had been a welcome escape from her restlessness, but now she paced in despair. When was she going to find what she'd spent the last forty years searching for?

The ghost turned away from the cemetery. What she yearned for—the reason she was compelled to linger in this world—wasn't in there. It was time to do some more travelling.

PART 1

Theo

1

A
cross the strait, in a larger city on the same sea, another child sat as still as the long-ago child in the study.

The grade-four classroom thrummed with activity. Chairs screeched against the floor and high voices bossed and giggled. Pens and scissors clattered on desktops as the students drew and cut out and scribbled for their coastal forest projects.

Theo was as fixed in the middle as a rock. Waves of chatter rose and fell around her. The other three in her group—Robert and Yogita and Jason—made no attempt to involve her. When Mr. Barker had told her to push over her desk and join them, Yogita had held her nose and smirked. Now she and the others reached in front of Theo and argued over who would write about spotted owls as if she were invisible.

Theo held a book about trees open on her lap. But her eyes stared blankly as she retreated into her daydream.

She was thinking about magic. Last night she'd finished a wonderful book called
Five Children and It
. The story was about some kids who found a strange creature called a Psammead that granted wishes. There were four older children—Cyril, Anthea, Robert and Jane—
and a baby brother. Theo liked Anthea the best. She seemed about eleven; Jane was probably nine, like Theo. Most of the wishes had backfired. They had wished to be beautiful—but then no one had recognized them.

I wouldn't wish for
that,
thought Theo, I'd wish for—

“Hey, Licehead!” Robert jabbed her side with his ruler. “Didn't you hear the bell?”

Theo blinked. The other kids were thundering out of the classroom for recess. She stood up slowly, forcing herself to come back.

Robert was hunting for something in his desk. He looked up. “Why do you always stare into space like that? What are you thinking about?”

Now he sounded more curious than mean. But Theo rubbed the place his ruler had poked. The Robert in the book wouldn't have hurt her.

She noticed how Robert's red hair stood up on his forehead. You look like a
rooster,
she decided. A stupid, show-offy rooster.

Robert backed away as Theo kept staring at him. “So don't answer,” he said from the doorway. “Who cares? Nobody cares about
you,
Licehead.”

“H
OW ARE YOU
getting along, Theo?” Mr. Barker asked her after recess. Theo had already learned to linger by the outside door and come up to the classroom first, before she got trapped in a jeering group.

The teacher's voice was kind, but Theo shrank from the hand he put on her shoulder. “Fine,” she whispered.

“It's hard to start at a new school, especially in January,” said Mr. Barker. Loud voices and footsteps advanced down the hall. “Are you making friends?”

Theo couldn't answer such a dumb question. Hadn't he noticed that she was always alone?

“I know it takes time. But you'll soon feel at home.” Chubby Mr. Barker was as relentlessly positive as a bouncing ball. The other kids called him a pushover. They often persuaded him to have a video instead of arithmetic.

Theo sat down with relief. Across the aisle Nita smiled. Theo lowered her head.

Nita had been assigned to take care of her on her first day at this school last week. She was kind. Crystal and Meiko were kind too. But they wore different clothes every day and the right kind of shoes. Theo was sure their kindness was just an act for the teacher.

In her previous school she hadn't known this. Kyla, too, had worn clean clothes and included Theo in her conversations. She was pretty and funny and for a few weeks Theo had been flattered that Kyla had chosen her as a friend. But then she'd been the only girl in the class not invited to Kyla's birthday party.

This was the second of the five schools Theo had attended where there was a mixture of well-off kids and poor kids. Now she knew you couldn't trust the well-off kids.

And the poor kids were too much like herself. The first day it was hard to pick them out; wearing sloppy clothes was the style and everyone looked the same. But
now she knew the kids who, like her, had dirty hair and wore the same clothes for a week. They were either tough or as quiet and wary as she was.

At least Theo wasn't the only person in the room who was called “Licehead.” If she made friends with Angela or Jennifer or Kandice, perhaps the name wouldn't sting as much. But that would be admitting she was like them—poor and inferior, the type of person who was called names.

None of the kids in her schools were as interesting as kids in books.

The long day dragged on. Theo dully guessed at the answers in her arithmetic book and pretended to listen to an earnest woman talk to them about constructive ways to express anger. At lunch she sat alone, chewing slowly on her dry jam sandwich to make it last longer.

That was a major problem with this school. Like the last one, there was no hot-breakfast program. Two schools ago there'd even been a free lunch. Theo tried not to think of hamburgers or hot dogs or to gaze too obviously at the boy beside her, who was devouring a large piece of chocolate cake.

After lunch Mr. Barker tried to get them to write poetry. Theo was thinking so intently about the Psammead that she didn't hear a thing he said.

Then he was standing over her. “Theo? Do you understand what I want you to do?” He smiled. “Just choose one of the lines on the board and make up a poem about it. It doesn't even have to rhyme! You can write it
any way you like!” He seemed to burst with goodwill, as if he were giving her a present.

Theo blinked at him, and nodded. A poem … She looked at the board.

What is pink? (or choose some other colour)

What is peace?

What is love?

What is friendship?

What is happiness?

She looked around—everyone else was already scribbling. She began to write slowly.

After twenty minutes Mr. Barker clapped his hands. “All right, people! Let's have some volunteers to read their poems.”

No one raised a hand. “How about you, Nita?” asked the teacher, smiling.

“It's not very good.”

“I'm sure it's
wonderful
! Don't forget, we're all
writers
here! Let's hear what you've created. Stand up and use a good loud voice.”

Nita stood up and mumbled, “‘What is happiness? Happiness is a warm puppy. Happiness is opening Christmas presents. Happiness is your mum and dad kissing you good night.' That's as far as I got.”

“
Excellent,
Nita!” beamed Mr. Barker. “You really tried to express your feelings!”

“I don't think it's very good,” said Robert. “She didn't
make it all up herself. I've heard that part about a warm puppy before.”

“Well, sometimes poets echo other poets—but not on purpose, eh, Nita?”

Nita glared at Robert.

“How about you, Robert?” asked Mr. Barker.

“Sure!” Robert jumped to his feet. “‘What is peace? Peace is when there's no more war. What is war? War is shooting and guns and bombs. What are bombs? Bombs are—'”

“That's enough, Robert,” said Mr. Barker. “I think we get the idea.” For a second he almost frowned, but then his expression became even jollier. “Good for you! It was very creative of you to extend the original premise like that!”

“It's an
awful
poem!” said Nita. “It's way too violent.”

“It's how Robert feels … what he
wanted
to write. That's the most important thing,” said Mr. Barker. “Now, who wants to be next?”

After Lindsay read her long poem about love and Adam his rhymed couplets about peace, Mr. Barker became more and more excited as he searched for extravagant words of praise for each of them.

“Now let's see … How about … Theo!”

Theo jerked to attention. She'd been looking out the window and imagining what it would be like to be able to leap from tree to tree like a squirrel. “What?”

“How would you like to read us your poem?”

“No, thank you.”

“Well, then … how about if
I
read it?”

Theo shrugged; she knew she didn't have a choice. Mr. Barker took the paper off her desk.

“‘What is grey? Grey is cold rain. Grey is a scratchy blanket. Grey is a hard sidewalk. Grey is a rat in the bin. Grey is no colour at all.'”

There was silence. In front of Theo, Angela turned around and gave her an understanding look.

“A
rat
!” said Yogita finally. “Yeck!”

“That's too depressing for a poem,” said Shannon. “Poems are supposed to be happy, like Nita's.”

Mr. Barker seemed to be swelling like a balloon. Then his words spewed out all at once. “I think it's
brilliant
!
Superb!
It's original and evocative and full of emotion! Poems
don't
have to be happy, Shannon. I'm delighted Theo reminded us of that.” He put the paper back on Theo's desk, practically jumping up and down with enthusiasm. “
Very
well done, Theo! Excellent!”

For a second Theo felt a tinge of pride. Mr. Barker really seemed to like her poem.

But he'd acted excited about the others, too. He was obviously just trying to be nice to her.

At last the closing bell went and school was over for the day. Theo rushed out of the room.

T
HE SCHOOL LIBRARY
was crammed into a space that was much too small for it. Books and magazines and computers lined every surface. There was barely enough room to walk between the shelves and tables and bean-bag
chairs. The librarian, Ms. Cohen, wasn't there, but students were allowed to check books in and out on their own. Theo took
Five Children and It
from her bag and signed it in. Then she went over to the fiction section.

Choosing a new book was like looking for treasure. Theo always took a good long time. First she examined some paperbacks on a revolving stand. But they were mostly novels about one girl or one boy with a problem, or horror stories with scary covers. That wasn't what she wanted.

She knew she'd have better luck on the shelves where the older hardcover books were kept. She walked along looking at them slowly, tilting her head to read the titles.
Half Magic, The Moffats, The Family from One End Street
… Theo tingled with pleasure as she recognized favourites from other libraries.

At her last school there had been only paperbacks. But this new library was the best kind—it didn't throw out its old books. They looked ugly, with their thick, plain covers. But the dull outsides concealed the best stories.

Usually a title would leap out at her, as if it were shouting, “Read
me
!” And here it was—
All-of-a-Kind Family
. Theo pulled it off the shelf. The cover was sturdy and green, with a faded picture on it. It showed five girls in matching old-fashioned dresses and pinafores tumbling down some stairs. They were all smiling and, best of all, they were holding books!

Theo opened it up, read the enticing first sentence, then sighed with relief. She'd found the right book.