Bad Dreams (8 page)

‘Well,' she said thoughtfully. ‘If it was going to be worse than that, I couldn't be doing with it.'

‘What about the photos? Suppose I could tell how everyone in a photo was going to end up?'

‘You mean, look at a school photograph, and be able to tell who'd end up in jail, and who'd end up prime minister?'

‘That sort of thing.'

She shuddered. ‘I can't imagine anything worse than being able to see into the future.'

‘You wouldn't call it a gift, then?'

‘No, I certainly wouldn't. It sounds terrible.'

‘And you wouldn't encourage it?'

‘
Encourage
it? I think I'd forbid it!'

‘You can't forbid magic,' I reminded her.

‘Oh,
can't
you?' said my mum, in such a determined ‘
I
could' tone of voice that I was practically assured on the spot that, if I'd been unlucky enough to be born with a gift like Imogen's, my mother would have splatted it flat in my cradle.

And wasn't I glad about that!

CHAPTER NINE

I
was called up to the desk about my homework. Mr Hooper swung round in his chair till we both had our backs to everyone.

‘Is this your idea of being a
friend
?' he asked me crossly, flapping my ‘Compare and Contrast' work under my nose.

‘I told you it was private,' I said stubbornly. ‘And I put on a giant
P
.'

‘Melly, this piece is
horrible
.'

‘It's
true
,' I argued.

‘But you can't write things just because they're
true
.'

‘That's the whole
point
of writing,' I explained. ‘Books say they're made up, but they're actually a lot more truthful than real life.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, look,' I said. ‘People feel
safer
if it's in a book. You can read about the most terrible people, and hardly think twice about it. But if you hear something even a quarter as bad about someone you know in real life, everyone goes bananas.' I pointed at my homework. ‘See?'

That shut him up.

‘
And
,' I went on, ‘you know what's going on better in books.' I pointed over at Imogen. ‘I'd have a whole lot better idea of what was going on in her house, and inside her head, if she were in a book. At least the person who wrote it wouldn't be too polite to tell me. As it is, I just have to
guess
.'

‘Melly,' he told me sternly, ‘I didn't try and help you make a friend just so you could start being nosy about her private life.'

‘I thought people were supposed to be interested in their friends.'

‘Interested, yes. Nosy, certainly not.'

‘I don't see any difference.'

He couldn't explain it, that was obvious. He flicked the pages I'd written between his fingers once or twice, staring at me anxiously, while I thought how
useful
it would be to have an author around all the time to explain people properly, without all that stuff that everyone knows is not true really but feels they ought to say to be polite, like, ‘Oh, I'm sure she didn't
mean
it', or, ‘I expect she just forgot, dear', or, ‘No, she likes you
really
'. Authors are braver, and more honest. They would explain why Imogen's mother was too wrapped up in planting silly joke gardens and thinking everything was fun and jolly, even to notice her daughter was being driven crazy because she'd had such a horrible gift passed on to her.

A gift passed on . . .

‘Mel?' Mr Hooper was still staring at me.

‘Sorry,' I said hastily. But still the words snagged in my brain. ‘A gift passed on . . .' They were reminding me of something, but I couldn't think what.

Now Mr Hooper was sighing. ‘You just don't get it, do you, Mel?'

‘No.' I was getting irritable myself now. ‘And I don't think it's fair, you ticking me off like this. You said, “Compare and Contrast”. You said we could do anything. And you agreed it could be private. I haven't shown my work to Imogen. I haven't hurt her feelings. I just chose something interesting, thought about it hard, and wrote it properly.'

‘But, really, Mel! To write a piece about how your two mums are so different!' He peered at the top page in his hand. ‘“
My mum might be horribly ratty, but at least she has a grip. You can depend on her
.” And fancy writing—' Again, he searched the page for the bit that had upset him. ‘“
It must be awful having Mrs Tate as a mother. She might be the sort of person who can make a rainy picnic fun, or giggle about anything. But you couldn't come to her with a problem. She'd just pretend it wasn't there, or didn't matter.
”'

‘She would, too,' I insisted. ‘Maybe you haven't met her, but I have.'

He slid the paper-clip off my pages, and folded them over and over till they were small enough to fit in his trouser pocket.

‘This isn't going in your folder,' he said. ‘I'm burning it. I'm not going to run the risk of Imogen ever seeing it.'

‘Fine by me.'

‘And you're to promise me you'll never mention it.'

‘I promise.'

‘Cross your heart?'

‘Cross my heart.'

He gave me a good long look, and you could tell that what he really wanted to say was, ‘Mel, you're so
weird
.' But he controlled himself.

‘Right,' he said, swivelling back to face the rest of the class. ‘This discussion is over.'

‘Except—' I reminded him.

‘Except?'

‘My mark,' I said. ‘You haven't told me what I got for it.'

Back came the stern look. ‘Melly,' he said, ‘I wouldn't mark this if you paid me my weight in gold.'

‘But, if you
did
 . . .?' I persisted.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Mel, you're
incorrigible
.'

‘Just tell me,' I begged. ‘After all, I spent a good long time on it, and did it as well as I could.'

‘Oh, very well!' he snapped. ‘Since you have promised you'll never mention it again, I'll tell you what you would have got for it.'

I waited, knowing. And I was dead right.

Ten out of ten. Perfect
A
. Excellent!

Goody.

CHAPTER TEN

T
hat afternoon, Imogen ended up in tears again. Our class was picking teams for indoor games. Arinda and Luke were calling.

‘Tom.'

‘Matty.'

‘Pats. No! Sorry, I've changed my mind. Louay!'

‘Then I'll have Pats.'

As I expected, Imogen was left even till after me. But, at the end, when he was still one person down, Luke turned away and started making plans. ‘Who wants to be shooter?'

Me? I'd have been delighted if it happened. By the time Mrs Tallentire came back with the team sashes and ball, I'd have been tucked in the gap under the gym stairs, quietly reading. And if she was cross with me, I'd have been ready to argue. ‘Well, what was I
supposed
to do? Nobody picked me.'

But Imogen stood there, drooping. (‘Like a lily in a flood', as Mr Hooper calls it.) Her eyes were bright with tears. No-one in our class is positively spiteful. It was the old ‘drift-away' business working again. Nobody else even noticed, not even Mrs Tallentire, who hardly gave Imogen a glance, let alone one of the sashes. So she did end up on our team, but on the very edge, along the wall, and I don't think the ball was thrown in her direction once, for the whole game.

‘That's it!' I told her, after. ‘Tomorrow, after school, we're off to the library.'

‘The town library? Why?'

‘You'll see.'

She kept up the pestering, but I wouldn't tell, in case she wouldn't come. Next day, we walked straight up the stairs to
Reference
, and still she hadn't guessed why we were there. I left her staring at the huge Map of World Animals while I got started.

Magic
.
Superstitions
.
Legends
. If you don't believe them, then they're fascinating. I've sat for hours hunched over tales of banshees wailing to warn of deaths on the way, and soldiers who had died at midnight in a field hospital along the line scaring the wits out of their fellow officers by turning up again on the dawn watch.

But if, like me, you have begun to think you're practically living in one of these stories, you're looking for something different. And it wasn't there. I ran my eyes down list after list on the computer screen, and scoured shelf after shelf. There were whole books on tarot cards and palm-reading, half a bookcase on haunted houses, tomes on black magic and spell-making, lots about poltergeists, even a pamphlet on spirit-writing.

But nothing at all about giving it up.

Imogen wasn't helping. ‘Look, Melly,' she kept saying. ‘This isn't your problem. Stop worrying about me. I'm perfectly happy with things the way they are.'

‘Oh, yes?'

‘Yes.' She made a face. ‘I know it's all sometimes a little bit upsetting—'

‘A little bit
upsetting
?' I stared down from where I was balancing on one of the stumpy little library ladders. ‘You practically
fall
into the most upsetting books. You even know when members of your family are coasting towards accidents. Everyone avoids you, and you can't even get on with your work. And you call that “a little bit upsetting”? Well, you must have nerves of steel.'

‘All right!' she flared. ‘Sometimes it's horrible, and I can't sleep at nights. But I still can't see what you're hoping to find in all these books.'

I reached up higher, to pull a couple of books without titles on their spines off the top shelf. ‘Listen, Imogen. There has to be some way you can get out of this.'