Dream Guy (33 page)

“Maybe I’m more like me than I’ve ever been before. See you around, Smokey.”

Turning his back on Smokey, he headed off for his form room. He liked this time loop business, even if it did mean that Charlie Meek was going to be unbearable. Except that now, he had plans for Charlie Meek, whether he could manipulate his dreams or not.

For the first time, Joe was more than an observer at school. At lunch, he went over to where Sammi and Raquel were sitting. They were deep in conversation when he stood by their table.

“Can I sit with you?”

The girls exchanged startled glances, then nodded. Joe sat. He unwrapped his sandwich and listened as they chatted idly. He’d wanted to know about their drama teacher but they were evaluating rock bands. When Raquel proclaimed a newfound passion for Johnny Borrell from Razorlight, Sammi appealed to Joe.

“They’re pants, aren’t they?’

“I don’t know. I quite like them. I wouldn’t pay to see them but their videos are okay. A bit same old, same old.”

“That drama guy who replaced Phelps, he liked them,” said Raquel, pouting.

“He was a tosser, Raquel. He came here for one lesson and now he’s disappeared, so we’re lumped with that prick Thomas.”

Sammi waved at someone in the queue, and Raquel turned to see who it was. Joe swallowed. Nell came over and sat next to Sammi. She somehow made a school uniform look like haute couture and was practicing her withering look.

“You all right, Nell?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason. You didn’t say much in maths. That’s not like you.”

“Perhaps I was just astounded by the pearls of wisdom you were uttering. Most unlike you, Joe.”

Joe grinned. He could hardly confess that this was the second time he’d sat through that particular lesson. His face lit up and all three girls reappraised him as if perhaps this Knightley was going to be just as gorgeous as his sadly unavailable older brother.

* * * *

As he was leaving school that afternoon, he heard his name. It was Mrs. Elphick, watching the students streaming away from the premises.

“Joe Knightley, I want a word with you.”

He went to her.

“Did your American houseguest get home safely, Joe?”

“Yes, he did. Thank you, Mrs. Elphick.”

“I hope we won’t have any further disruptions of that nature on school premises.”

“Absolutely not, Mrs. Elphick.”

Her tone was shrewd. “I’m sure it’s not the last time you’ll be at the bottom of some bizarre incident or other.”

“I’ll try to make sure it won’t happen again, Mrs. Elphick.”

She arched one sculpted eyebrow then dismissed him.

Joe ran to catch the bus and just made it. The key thing was to find out if he still had powers, if he still had Karabashi’s carpet, if he still had the
Dream Master
book.

When he got in the house, he gathered up the post and swept upstairs. His room was a pit—the duvet tumbling off the bed, papers everywhere, clothes dumped on the floor, a pile of CDs tumbled all over the rug. In his cupboard he found Karabashi’s carpet. It felt lighter, silkier than before. He sorted his papers. All the pictures of Nell were there still. Underneath them was the book.

The final picture was of Nell on her bed, wearing her burgundy dress with him laying alongside, their eyes closed. The likelihood of getting that close to Nell ever again was remote, but at least he had this picture.

One question remained. Was he still a Dream Master?

The only thing to do was to have a dream and see what happened. He cleared a space on the floor and laid out Karabashi’s carpet. But when he tried to travel back to the scholar, nothing happened. Maybe having some form of proof that Eidolon had been destroyed would help. He folded up the carpet and imagined himself back on Burton Hill, in the car park.

He managed to hover above it, watching as police tape flapped around the burned out remains of a car. Only one car.

Not the Lamborghini, but the Japanese runabout that Eidolon had been driving. There was also a striped tent of the sort that repair men from utility companies use to cover their holes in the road. A policeman was standing sentinel. Hovering around was irritating because he couldn’t get close enough to hear what was happening. However, he could hardly have strolled past the policeman into the tent. He did want to know what was left of Dolon, which was when it occurred to him. Dropping to the ground, he closed his eyes and concentrated. First, his eyes changed. Then he looked down and saw that his hands had become paws and that fur was covering them in great ginger clumps. He turned, trying to examine the tail that had grown from his spine and the legs that had shifted position and alignment. Having no arms and four legs felt different. The policeman looked at the cat and laughed.

“Here, puss. Here.” And he made those funny kissing sounds that are supposed to attract cats, although Joe couldn’t see why. “Come on, kitty.” Joe looked at this man dubiously. Why would anyone want to stroke a mangy ginger stray? But this guy was so bored that he probably welcomed any distraction from standing around outside the tent. Joe circled the policeman’s legs, smearing against them like butter on toast, and he purred. It was fun purring, a sound that simply wasn’t accessible to humans, which was a shame. It was also great being stroked, feeling a solid, warm hand rubbing his fur. It was also pretty intimate, more so than Joe had ever been since he was a toddler prone to hugging anything static or moving.

Then the transmitter on the policeman’s shoulder crackled into life and Joe had his opportunity. He sidled into the tent and looked. There was a mound of charred cinders. There were some lumps. And beneath the ashes, there were four bones protruding from the earth. Two pairs of fibula and tibia. He remembered them from the human body software Mum and Dad had given Ben for Christmas the year of his GCSEs. It was stupid, the memories that flashed into the mind when one was confronted with something that didn’t really bear thinking about. He batted at one of the bones with his paw in the hope that it would come out, and he could take it home.

The policeman poked his head into the tent and shooed the cat out. Joe was glad to go. He trotted off, remembering the purpose that most cats seemed to carry with them. Once he was out of sight, he sat down and transformed back into a human.

Just as well no one had walked into the room while he was feline, else he might have ended up with cat’s paws or a tail as a hangover from the dream. He checked the book, but this time, there were no additional pages. Not knowing if this had been simply a dream or one of the dreams that had come true, Joe gave up and went to bed.

* * * *

Things were quiet over the next few days. Everything was drearily normal until the following week when finally, Joe chanced on Charlie Meek. It happened in the boys’ toilets at school, a place he tried to avoid because it reeked, because there was always stupid graffiti, plus it was the kind of location that thugs like Charlie Meek used for their daily business of intimidating other kids, safe from adult intervention, for what teacher would ever go near the boys’ loo?

He was washing his hands when the door burst open and a year eight kid rocketed in and fell over. Joe went over to help him up. By the time the kid was standing, Charlie Meek was trying to loom over them but failing because Joe was considerably taller than Charlie.

Two other boys followed. Charlie’s latest acolytes, Sean Stanton and Ryan Vernon. Two of the boys who had helped him at the bus stop. Joe dusted down the year eight lad.

“Get out of here right now,” he said and pushed the boy past Charlie and his two friends. There were probably a couple more idiots waiting outside, but the boy might yet escape. And if he did, he might have the sense to find a teacher. There had to be some around. They usually patrolled the corridors during lunch.

“What you doin’ interferin’ in my business, Knightley?”

“I can’t stand around while you mash up some little kid. What were you after? His lunch money? Or were you just trying to nick some crisps off him? You are so petty, Charlie.” Perhaps it would get him into trouble, but he’d had enough of staying out of Charlie’s way.

“Watch your step, Knightley.”

“You and your mates gonna take me?” Joe knew they wouldn’t. But he wanted to provoke Charlie, get him out in the open and get him caught so that once and for all, he was kicked out of school instead of having detentions which he skipped, temporary exclusions which he thought were just holidays and internal exclusions which meant that he just sat in a room in school watched by teachers and did bugger all for three days.

“We can take you, no problem, but we ain’t gonna. You ain’t worth it.”

Joe looked hard into his eyes. He didn’t think Charlie had taken any drugs yet today, but he wanted to be sure. If Charlie was on amphetamines, he’d be unstoppable. He carried on staring at Charlie, who looked away. All three thugs stepped back. Joe looked solid, so substantial that beating him to a pulp must have seemed a tricky prospect.

Joe closed his eyes and forced himself to dream.

The kilo of coke Smokey had stolen was now in Charlie’s backpack. So was the knife he’d used on Nell. The corridor was no longer empty, because Tucker and Crosbie were walking down it. They were mates because they’d both started teaching at Cosham High the same year, somewhere around the time that the triceratops had become extinct. Tucker was swearing blind that he hadn’t imagined young Joe Knightley being sucked into a wall. A year eight was running toward them, scarcely looking ahead because he kept glancing behind him, totally unnerved. He collided with Crosbie’s substantial stomach.

“Steve Upshaw! What are you doing here?”

The child gabbled something about Charlie Meek and the boys’ toilet. Crosbie and Tucker slumped a little. They knew they had to investigate. They had to go in there.

Eeeeuuuughhh!

Charlie pulled out his knife. The door opened abruptly. Instead of backup, Charlie found himself looking at Crosbie and Tucker. Joe opened his eyes. The teachers saw the knife. Tucker reached for his mobile then dialed reception. The receptionist said that Mr. Dunwoody, the principal, would be there immediately.

“Immediately isn’t soon enough,” said Tucker. Then he called the police. When the police saw the stash of cocaine, they nodded, muttering about secure training centers. Charlie wouldn’t be coming back to Lyndhurst once he was released.

Once again, Joe couldn’t decide whether he’d been responsible for the dream or if the events that it had unleashed would have happened anyway. Either way, he wasn’t bothered. It was good not to fall asleep any more during classes. It was good not to be swept away into unfamiliar worlds, and it was good having a life. Because perhaps for the first time since he was six, Joe felt like he did have a life. Smokey left him alone. Liesel was preoccupied with her Christmas dance extravaganza, Ben saw a lot of Zahid and Mum was still in thrall to the Lamborghini, counting down the days until Dad got home for Christmas and they could go roaring around in their new toy.

Not everything was going Joe’s way. Nell was colder than a katabatic wind. That sweet, brief time where they had been friends again had ended, and her blasts of disapproval chilled Joe to the soul. He was always on his best behavior. He played none of the goonish tricks that had so irritated her, but it was too late for any rapprochement. Other girls talked to him now, and not just because he was Ben’s little brother.

Nonetheless, Nell remained aloof.

* * * *

At the end of term, once Liesel’s performance was over and in the few days before David Knightley returned home, the family went up to London. Liesel had asked if they could see a West End musical for their Christmas treat. She really,
really
wanted to see
Billy Elliott
, and somehow, they had found tickets. Mrs. Knightley was relieved when Joe opted out of the theater trip, saying he’d prefer to go to the movies and the Forbidden Planet store. They arranged to meet up at a café just off Leicester Square after the
Billy Elliott
matinée for a quick bite before catching the train home.

The play began about forty minutes before Joe’s movie. He reassured his mother that he would not talk to strangers or get lost, and as soon as Ben, Liesel and his mother had passed the theater ushers, Joe made for Piccadilly Circus. The streets were thick with bodies bouncing off one another, armed with carrier bags and ready for further sorties into the shops selling scarves, beads, bags, music, books, DVDs, scented potions for bath and body, shoddy T-shirts and mugs with Union Jack flags, plastic policeman’s helmets and postcards—still—of Princess Diana and—more recently—Prince William. Though it was just after two, the lights were already on and the huge neon billboards rolled through familiar brand names—Coke, Nike, Sony, Nokia.

Sitting on the Eros steps was a statuesque punk with spiked black hair, red lipstick and heavy kohl around the eyes. She wore a black leather jacket and red tartan trousers. Joe wasn’t quite sure how to approach her, but she made it easy, coming forward to embrace him and kiss him on both cheeks.

“Joe, so good to see you.”

“Tyche.”

She stepped back and inspected him. “You look well. Different. Less feeble, somehow. Got the girls chatting you up then?”

He looked down and smiled, muttering, “A bit. You know.”

“I think I do, Joe.”

“I was hoping we’d meet again.”

“We’re going to be meeting pretty regularly, Joe. It’s part of the territory.”

“What territory?”

“Dream Master stuff. Most of you humans don’t make it, but when you do, we have to work together. Work things out. I like how you handled the Meek business, very neat. Got your friend Smokey out of a bit of bother too. As for finishing off Eidolon, very slick. He certainly underestimated you.” She looped an arm around his and led him toward Leicester Square through the tumult of last-minute shoppers.