Authors: Dean Murray
Jackson
was the first to speak. "Is everything okay?"
I
nodded. "Just a call from my mom checking up on me. Given all
the…drama at home right now I figured I'd better get far
enough away that nobody would hear me."
"Understandable.
Miss Winters is ready to load the bus up. Tristan and the rest of the
football team left twenty minutes ago."
Right
after they'd left me alone.
"Okay,
then I guess we'd better get back to the bus."
I
got an even bigger shock when I made it to the bus. Someone had
dropped off a bouquet of brilliant yellow sunflowers for every single
female on the team, including Miss Winters. The old man from my dream
had indeed recognized my uniform.
Every
single one of us was in danger now.
It
was a good thing that I had Sheree with me for the ride home. It took
everything I had to get in the bus without freaking out, but I knew
that my life depended on maintaining an appearance of calm. There was
no reason for the old man to send the entire team sunflowers unless
he was going to watch us and see who became the most unsettled as a
result.
I
tried to covertly look for him as I sat down in a seat next to
Sheree, but just because I couldn't see him didn't mean that he
wasn't there. It was possible he was just using binoculars or
something similar to watch from a long ways away, but I knew that
wasn't the only option. The mere fact that I'd ended up inside of his
dream was pretty conclusive evidence that he wasn't normal, that he
had some kind of supernatural power. For all I knew he could make
himself invisible and he'd watched me from a distance of inches at
some point during the night.
It
was the kind of thought that made me want to start screaming and
crying, but I held myself together because I didn't have any other
choice, not if I wanted to survive what was coming.
Sheree
was a godsend. We didn't talk about anything earthshattering, but
Sheree wasn't just nice, she was also a surprisingly good
storyteller. I got her started telling me about some animated show
that she loved and got sucked into the story almost in spite of
myself.
Originally
she hadn't wanted to tell me about what happened in it because she
said it would ruin the story when I watched it myself. I told her not
to worry about that, that I didn't expect to ever watch it myself,
but by the time we'd made it halfway back home I'd started to
reconsider my stance there. The series sounded silly on the face of
things, but she painted the characters as such lively, sometimes
silly, individuals that I started to think that maybe I should watch
a few episodes just to see if it was as good as she made it sound.
Sheree
started yawning when we were still forty minutes from home. She
apologized profusely, but I could tell that she was exhausted. It
took some convincing, but she finally agreed to close her eyes and
take a nap.
I
was starting to think that Sheree's lack of energy lately might have
something to do with our stunting practice session. I didn't remember
her being this tired all of the time before I'd stopped in for help
that one night. I knew I was tired a lot after I spent an extended
amount of time in someone else's dream or manipulating my own dream,
but it didn't linger for me like it was doing for her. It was
possible though that my ability to dream walk somehow cushioned me
from the worst of the fallout.
Hopefully
Sheree would be okay in another few days, but it was one more thing
to worry about.
I resolved to leave Sheree's dreams alone for the next few weeks at
least. Maybe once I'd confirmed that she bounced back without any
long-term problems then I might practice with her again one night,
but not for now.
Once
Sheree fell asleep I was alone with my thoughts. I was doing the best
I could to keep from breaking down, but it was a losing battle. Just
when I felt like I couldn't take it any more, I looked up and saw
Jackson watching me. His smile was a little hesitant, but it was
enough to remind me that for all that my new powers had brought a lot
of bad into my life, they had brought good with them too.
I
got a text from my dad about fifteen minutes before we got back to
the school.
Sorry,
Adri, I'm stuck at work still. Will you guys be okay walking home or
do you need me to try to get away?
A
text from my dad, even one telling me that he wasn't going to pick us
up, brought a smile to my face.
We'll
be fine. Don't work too late.
Once
we arrived at the school, I woke Sheree back up and then the two of
us made our way to the front of the bus. Miss Winters stopped me just
outside of the bus and handed me a wad of cash.
"One
of the benefits to what I do is that I always have a lot of cash from
tips. Here's some money to pay for the clothes that were just ruined.
Don't worry, it's not coming from me, the girls on the team are all
chipping in to cover this."
I
wondered if she was going to say anything about the fact that the
'chipping in' hadn't been voluntary, at least not if they wanted to
stay on the team, but after several seconds of silence I just nodded.
"Thank
you, Miss Winters. I really appreciate it."
Sheree
gave me a tired smile and then frowned. I followed her gaze and felt
my stomach sink a little. Cindi was already a block away. Sheree and
I had been pretty close to the front of the bus, while Cindi had sat
in the very back with Missy and the others. I knew that she hadn't
made it off of the bus before me, but she'd apparently come straight
off of the bus and started towards our house without waiting for me.
I said a hasty goodbye to Sheree and then started after Cindi. I was
walking fast, but I didn't manage to catch up with her.
Something
was obviously still bothering her because she was in her pajamas and
pretending to be asleep by the time I made it into our bedroom.
Luckily
I had a dreamless night, which meant I woke up on Saturday morning
full of energy and ready to go accomplish anything. Dad and I had a
quiet breakfast together. I wondered if we'd see Mom or Cindi before
we got done, but neither of them ventured out of their respective
bedrooms. I thought about telling Dad what had happened the night
before, but I didn't want to tell him about the money yet, and if I
told him about the rest of the events without telling him that I had
a way of replacing my clothes then I'd just stress him out.
Instead,
he read through the news on his tablet while I planned which stores I
would be hitting. We cleaned up our dishes and then I told him I
wanted to go to the mall. He nodded and an hour later I was walking
into the mall.
Shopping
wasn't usually something that I enjoyed, but then again, I didn't
usually have any money to spend. This time I not only had money, but
I needed to spend it or I'd run out of clothes before the end of the
week. It made for a more enjoyable time except for the fact that I
constantly had to stop myself from spending too much. There was a
dizzying array of gorgeous clothes to pick from, but I knew just how
much I normally paid for my clothes and after walking through the
fifth store where jeans were more than one hundred dollars each I
realized that shopping still wasn't any fun when you had money but
were trying to stick to a budget.
After
nearly an hour and a half of wandering through the mall I finally
remembered the store that my mom had told me about back when she'd
first decided that I needed new clothes. I double-checked the address
on my phone and then decided to walk there.
It
was like heaven. The prices were only a little higher than I was used
to paying, but the clothes were incredibly cute. I replaced my jeans
and tank top, picked up some new shorts, and another top that would
work for the winter, and still had enough to go back over to the mall
to pick up a bra and stay inside of my budget.
I
started back for home a little after two as my stomach reminded me
that going without food wasn't really an option these days. Mom and
Cindi were gone when I got home, which was convenient considering
that I wanted to talk to Dad alone, but it kind of bugged me that
they'd slept in late and then left Dad all by himself.
The
door to Dad's office was open, so I went in and sat down next to him.
"Do you have a minute, Dad?"
"For
you? Always."
"So…some girls squirted me with hair dye at the game last night."
His
eyes went wide and I saw him looking at my hair, trying to decide
whether or not it was different than he remembered. I continued
before he could get a word out.
"Everything
ended up okay…sort of. My clothes were pretty much ruined and
they got the bottom inch or so of my hair, but I just had Miss
Winters cut the black part off."
"I'm
so sorry, Adri. Are you sure you're okay? Is that why you went to the
mall today?"
I
nodded. "Yeah. Miss Winters was actually a lot cooler about
everything than I expected her to be. I didn't see who did it, but
they were definitely cheerleaders from our team and most of the team
was waiting outside of the locker room to see how bad they got me.
When I told Miss Winters what had happened she yelled at the rest of
the team for something like half an hour. When nobody would tell her
who did it she told the rest of the team that they were buying me new
clothes, and if they didn't chip in that they were off the team."
"Ah,
that was rather shrewd of her. If any of the girls' parents complain
she can just point out that their daughters can get out of
contributing just by telling her who actually did the prank. It also
has the benefit of possibly creating some friction between the real
culprits and the rest of the team."
"Yeah,
she's actually a lot smarter than I gave her credit for."
"Good,
I'm glad that she's taking such a stern position with this. Did you
manage to find clothes that you liked at the mall?"
"No,
but I went to this used clothes store that Mom told me about and
shopped there. I got some cute clothes that I'm pretty happy with."
There
was a twinkle in his eye as he looked down at the bags in my left
hand. "Did you want to show me what you found?"
"No,
it's okay. I can show Cindi later. Mostly I just came to tell you
that I bought everything I needed to and I have about two hundred
dollars left. I want you and Mom to have it. Mom racked up extra
credit card debt to get those other clothes for me and this should
cover at least some of what she spent."
As
I spoke, I pulled out what was left of the cash that Miss Winters
gave me and tried to place it in his hand but he pulled back out of
my reach.
"That's
a really amazing gesture, Adri, but I don't expect you to do that."
"But
I want to help out. Things are tight and I can help so I should."
He
shook his head at me as he closed my fingers back around the money,
making a fist.
"I
don't mind taking care of you girls and your mother. I think that's
my responsibility as a man. I know it's not fashionable these days
for guys to say that kind of thing, it means we're the kind of
chest-beating Neanderthals that used to club our women over the head
before dragging them back to our cave, but that's how I feel. I have
a good education and there's no reason that I can't take care of the
family from a financial standpoint."
"But
the economy is so bad right now, Dad."
"You're
right, it is bad, but I still have a job and while this isn't always
the case, usually I've found that when a man has to depend on his
wife or kids to help support the family it's because he's either
chosen not to earn as much as he could, or because he's refusing to
sit someone in the family down—possibly himself—and tell
them that they are trying to maintain too extravagant of a
lifestyle."
I
dropped the money on his desk. "You just finished saying that
isn't true in all cases, Dad. Let me help."
"It's
true in our case though, sweetie. I'm guilty of both of those things.
I've had some time to think about things since we talked about all of
this last. This bit about your mother and the money she's spent on
her photography equipment is just a smokescreen in some ways. If I
hadn't changed jobs a few years back, we'd be making forty or fifty
percent more than we are right now."
"But
you did that for us. You did that so that you'd be working fewer
hours so that you could spend more time with us."
"Yes,
and I think that is a valid life choice, but having made that choice
I should have sat Cindi and your mother down and told them
unequivocally that certain expenditures were going to go by the
wayside. I didn't do that, and now we…I…am reaping the
consequences. Money is constantly tight despite the fact that I'm
back to working long hours."
"Are
you guys going to get a divorce?"
I
couldn't stop my voice from quavering a little bit, but I did manage
to keep my eyes from filling up with tears.
"I
still don't know, honey. Hopefully our little vacation this week goes
even better than I'm hoping and we'll come back with a good
foundation to start working through some of these issues."
Dad
looked out the window for a second as though searching for the right
words to say.
"I
really do love your mother and I care about her deeply, just like I
care about you and Cindi. I see a lot of things in her that I still
admire. I love that she throws herself into projects with such
reckless abandon. I love that she doesn't let the details get in the
way of trying to go after what she wants. I think those are really
good things in the right amounts, I just feel like she's lost the
rudder that would allow her to use them as strengths rather than
weaknesses. Maybe we've both lost our rudders."