Bad Dreams (3 page)

‘Why have you dumped her on me? She's not much of a reader.'

He burst out laughing. ‘Melly, compared with you, no-one in this class is a reader.'

I shook my head. ‘No,' I said stubbornly. ‘There's more to it than that. She says she's read things when she really hasn't.'

‘Maybe you intimidate her,' he said. And then he added firmly, ‘Just make an effort to be friendly, Mel. A week's not long. It won't hurt you.'

Seeing my face, he reached behind him to the shelf, and tipped a big fat book out of a jiffy bag into my hands.

‘There you are, Mel,' he said. ‘Here's a reward for all your sufferings. And don't expect to be able to talk to Imogen about this one, because practically nobody else in the world has read it.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because it's hot off the press,' he said proudly. ‘A free gift from the publishers for ordering all those other books at the end of last term.'

I turned it over.
Red Rock
, by Alston Byers. The cover was a bit soppy. A little girl in a blue frock was picking up stones. But some of the best books in the world have the worst covers, so I started it anyway, under the desk at the end of Maths Workbook.

It was amazing. I thought at first it was going to be one of those stories too stuffed with descriptions. It seemed to start with an awful lot of heat hazes lying over scrubland, and people leaning against the doors of sun-blistered shacks.

But suddenly it turned into a real nail-biter about a tribe of Indians who got fed up with tourists chipping off bits of their famous sacred red rock, to take home as souvenirs. So they put a curse on all the bits missing. Instantly, all over the world, reports started coming in of horrible deaths, and gruesome accidents, and weird diseases, as if some ghastly jump-in-your-seat horror video was playing everywhere, but, this time, for real.

I couldn't put the book down. Mr Hooper went through all his usual routines.

‘Am I going to have to take that book off you till going home time, Melly?'

‘I hope you're not rushing that written work to get back to your reading.'

‘What's all this Mrs Springer tells me about you hiding that book I gave you under your song sheet?'

But it was impossible to stop reading. By this time in the story, people couldn't post back their bits of red rock fast enough. But one little girl, the one you can see on the cover, had slid a tiny chip into the pocket of her frock without her parents even noticing. It had fallen out into the suitcase. And there it lay, out of sight and out of mind, through all the dreadful things that had begun to happen to her family, one after another, because of the curse.

I had the usual problems that night at home, as well.

‘I'm warning you, Melly. This light's going out in five minutes.'

‘People your age still need their sleep, you know.'

‘Why can't you just put it down, and finish it tomorrow?'

But finally, next morning, I reached the end. Gordon was desperate to have it next, so I made its card out right away, and during library hour I put
Red Rock
on top of the pile of books in front of Imogen.

‘Can you stick a yellow dot on this one, so Gordon can take it home today?'

‘Sure,' she said, reaching out for it. And then the blood drained from her face. It was extraordinary. I must have read the words a hundred times.
‘Her cheeks went pale.' ‘Her face went ashen.' ‘She turned quite white with shock.'
But I would never in a thousand years have guessed it looked like this. It was as if someone had pulled a plug in the bottom of her feet.

I was sure she was fainting, so I stepped in close, to catch her as she fell. And that's the only reason I was near enough to hear her whispering to the little girl on the book cover.

‘No! Not that bit of rock! Don't pick up that one,
please
!'

‘Imogen? Imogen!'

It can't have been more than a moment but it seemed an age before she looked up, startled. Her face was still grey and clammy. ‘What?'

She hadn't realized that I'd heard what she was whispering.

‘Nothing,' I muttered. And it was true that, when it came to saying something, my mind had gone completely blank.

But I was thinking plenty. After all, if it was ‘hot off the press', she couldn't possibly have read the book.

So how could she have known what was going to happen?

CHAPTER FOUR

T
hat's when I went to talk to Mr Hooper a second time. Don't get me wrong. I love ghost tales as much as anyone. I adore stories in which people have weird dreams, and strange things happen. But that's in books. Real life is supposed to be real, and I like my world to be solid around me. After all, nobody wants to find themselves suddenly trapped in the haunted house they've been watching on television, sensing a presence, and feeling the air going ice-cold around them.

But I was too spooked to go about it the right way. Instead of explaining properly, I just rushed up to Mr Hooper and asked him, ‘Can I please dump Imogen now? She knows her way around, and everything.'

He wasn't pleased.

‘Melly,' he said to me sternly. ‘I've told you before, a week is only a week. Now try and be friendly. It'll be good for you.'

I felt like saying, ‘You can talk. You were much nicer to Jason when he was new.' But he'd have thought I was just being cheeky, so I gave up and walked away. And since there was only one more day to go, I tried sticking it out. But it's not easy, sitting next to someone who sees through the covers into books. You can't ask straight out, ‘Are you some sort of witch? Do you have second sight?' So I thought I was going about it in a pretty polite and roundabout way when, strolling back from the lunch hall, I said, all casually, ‘Imogen, do you believe in looking into the future?'

She spun to face me. ‘Looking into the future?'

‘You know,' I said. ‘Crystal balls and stuff. Knowing about things even before they happen.'

Now she was looking positively hunted. ‘Why are you asking?' she demanded. ‘Have people been talking about me?'

All the unease I'd been feeling curdled in the pit of my stomach. Either this new girl was a whole lot cleverer at teasing than I'd imagined, or the world was shifting nastily under my feet.

‘Tell me you're joking, Imogen.'

You could see that she knew she'd made a big mistake.

‘Of course I'm joking,' she tried to backtrack. ‘I was just having you on.'

But I could feel hairs rising on the back of my neck, because I knew she was lying.

I looked around. Practically everyone in the class was in the school grounds with us. Why did it have to be
me
?

‘Listen, Imogen,' I told her. ‘You know that I was only asked to look after you for the first week, not stick like glue for life. And this is our last day, so I'll be taking off now, if that's all right with you.'

I'd have looked hurt, but she looked devastated.

‘But, Melly. I thought we were—'

She stopped, and stared down at her feet while the word ‘friends' echoed, unspoken, between us. She looked as if she'd been slapped. I couldn't try and pretend that everyone's first-week minder simply strides off halfway through the last day. And I hate lying. So it just popped out.

‘I'm sorry, Imogen. I really am. But I can't be friends with you. You're just too
creepy
. I'm too
scared
.'

If someone blurted something like that out in my face, I'd stare in astonishment, and squawk, ‘
What?
' But Imogen simply looked as if she'd been half expecting it.

‘All right,' she said, turning away. ‘It doesn't matter.'

‘You do understand?'

‘Oh, yes,' she said. ‘I understand.'

And somehow that made me feel a whole lot worse. Imagine how you'd feel if you refused to be friends with someone who's only ever been perfectly polite and anxious to please, just because they were different or had something wrong with them. And then imagine they said that to you.

Like me, you'd feel an absolute worm.

I stood and watched her walk away. She didn't look back. She didn't even try to pretend she had something to do in the cloakroom. She just set off towards the emptiest part of the school grounds, where she'd be alone. I dug my book out of my bag and turned the other way, to head for the lunchtime library.

And then I thought suddenly: ‘Poor Imogen! Now she can't even go there.'

And I felt even
worse
. You see, all the way through school, I've used book corners and lunchtime library to hide away, and spend my break times reading. You know as well as I do that being a bookworm in school is like having a protective shield. It sends a message: ‘Please leave me out of things unless I ask. Act as if I'm not here. It's not that I'm lonely. It's just that I'm happy on my own.'