“So do you have any more of that candy?” Leven asked sheepishly, admitting that the stuff wasn’t half bad.
“I told you it’s popular,” Clover smiled, taking another piece of mupe from his pocket.
Leven put the candy in his mouth and smiled from his palm.
Chapter Eight
Everybody Please Remain Seated
Winter’s life was by no means going any more smoothly. She came home from school one day to discover that her mother had been fired from her job at the post office for throwing away a bag of mail she was too tired to sort. Since then Janet had decided she didn’t want to do anything but watch TV for the rest of her life. So she lay on their worn orange couch, eating and eating and eating while watching shows about thin people doing things she was never going to do anymore: things like walking, reading books, or getting up for the remote themselves.
She was also done with being a parent. From that moment on, the most extensive parenting Janet provided was to yell loudly at Winter whenever she blocked her view of the TV set. Janet moved the refrigerator closer to the couch and fed the yard hose in through the window so she could get a drink of water whenever she felt like it.
It cannot be stressed enough: Winter was not in a happy place.
Things at school were no better. It seemed that no one wanted to be friends with an unusual-looking girl who had wild blonde hair, wore tattered clothes, and was so introverted. Most kids saw Winter as nothing more than the perfect test case for their clever put-downs.
“Garbage-heap head.”
“Frostbite.”
Even the teachers were cruel.
“Now class,” Mr. Bentwonder, her homeroom teacher, would say, “leave that skinny white thing alone. Only heaven knows the last time soap and water touched her.”
Mr. Bentwonder was a big fat meanie. Sorry, but there’s really no better way of saying it. His puffy face was as round as a melon, and his fleshy lips were always wet. He couldn’t say a single thing without having to wipe them afterwards. He had eyes the color of dung and a nose that was pushed up so drastically at the end that students from across the room could tell that he needed to use a tissue even before he knew himself. He taught math by trade, and hate and ignorance by example. Unable to find a woman who was actually attracted to a homely man who couldn’t say a kind thing and never did a kind deed, he had never married. True, there are people who are married to individuals who can’t say or do anything kind. But in most cases, those individuals are not married to someone unkind who also has a giant mushy melon head, breath that always smells of liver, and perpetually has to have his mouth wiped by an elected student.
Mr. Bentwonder had been good for something, however—that one good thing being a comment he made that finally set Winter to thinking about getting away from the life she had been dealt.
It was during the middle of math class at Samuel Tolerance Junior High when Wendell Prattlemelt, the school kiss-up, raised his hand and told Mr. Bentwonder that he was sure there had never been another teacher as inspired and brilliant as he. Mr. Bentwonder had responded by expressing his conviction that there were few people who could match Wendell’s intellect and stating how if every child were as perceptive as Wendell, he, Mr. Perry Bentwonder, might very well be the president of the United States, and the country would be much better off for it.
Then he boasted, “I am who I am, class, because I have made myself so.” Mr. Bentwonder failed to mention that he had been born into a wealthy and privileged family and had been pampered his entire life. Nor did he explain to the class that he had gotten the job he now held only because his uncle was the principal of Samuel Tolerance Junior High. No, he left all of that out and smugly repeated, “I am who I am because I have made myself so.”
His words triggered something in Winter’s mind. It was suddenly clear. She would never be anything if she kept waiting for someone else to change things for her. The thought made her feel as though someone had flipped a switch and finally activated her soul. She sat still, listening to Mr. Bentwonder go on and on about poetry, and how it took a rare and sensitive mind such as his to actually understand it.
“What’s in a name?” he drooled. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” He turned his mushy head so that young Patty Foote could dab his mouth. She did so and smiled. “You don’t just read poetry, you breeeeeathe it,” he instructed.
“No one breathes it as well as you,” Wendell Prattlemelt gushed. Mr. Bentwonder nodded and bowed slightly.
“Again, Wendell, what a joy you must be to your parents,” he cooed.
Winter snickered. She just couldn’t help it. Wendell a joy? Mr. Bentwonder breathing poetry? It struck her as funny, and she couldn’t keep from laughing.
Mr. Bentwonder looked up and over his spectacles toward her.
“Excuse me?” he said indignantly. “Does something strike you as funny, Miss Frore?” Flecks of spittle flew from his fleshy lips, and the ever-accommodating Patty Foote reached to blot his mouth.
“No, sir,” Winter replied, her green eyes unable to hide her mirth. “I just . . .”
Winter laughed again.
The class went silent. No one had ever laughed at Mr. Bentwonder, unless he had made it clear they were supposed to. Now here was Winter, laughing at him, twice. His forehead reddened and Patty went in for another dab. He brushed her away and heaved himself to his feet.
“I have never,” he huffed. “Never, never,” he puffed. “Never have I been burdened with such an insolent and disrespectful pupil.”
Wendell smiled as he watched Mr. Bentwonder work his ponderous way through the desks and toward Winter. Winter just sat there, her gaze locked on the floor.
“Poverty is one thing,” he went on, gesturing to Winter’s old clothes and disheveled appearance, “but even in poverty one ought to show respect to those who are attempting to help her.” The desks were positioned too close together for Mr. Bentwonder to fit through. He began pushing and shoving students out of the way. Some students frantically moved to get away from him as he waded closer to his prey.
His voice was menacing. “I have given you my time and my attention, and you have returned to me spite and ingratitude . . .”
Winter tried to control her feelings, but as she sat there in her desk, with her classmates scurrying out of the path of the threatening Mr. Bentwonder, a powerful feeling came over her. Her body burned, and she was afraid to look up for fear of losing the sensation. She would have kept her eyes averted from her oncoming teacher if it had not been for the screams and cries of her classmates.
She looked up and marveled at what was happening. An expanding circle of silvery ice was flowing out from where she sat and filling the room. As from the epicenter of a frozen earthquake, waves of ice rippled out and away from her, arresting and suspending everything in their way.
Winter smiled and the avalanche of cold increased.
She watched as Wendell turned to run. The silvery frost caught his left foot, keeping him right where he stood. Wendell screamed and cried as ice crept up his leg and over his body, eventually immobilizing him completely. Suddenly fearful, Mr. Bentwonder turned to lumber for the door, but cold tapped him on his big, cowardly back. He turned to look, and in an instant he was one of the fattest and least aesthetically pleasing sculptures Winter had ever seen.
Those who had not yet been frozen tried to wriggle out of their desks and escape from the room, but Winter wouldn’t have it. She simply shook her head, and at once, the entire rest of the room was frozen solid. Students had their arms out and in mid-stride, motionless in place. Desks and walls glistened and shined. The fish tank at the front of the room was a solid block of ice. No clock was ticking, no computers were humming, nor was Mr. Bentwonder prattling. The frost-filled room was completely quiet.
Winter was amazed. The only things unfrozen were herself and her desk. She stood, gathered her books and put them into her backpack, then walked to the fron
t of the room, stopping only twice: once to snap Mr. Bentwonder’s tie in two, and once to touch the fish tank. When she did, the water in the aquarium melted instantly, and the fish resumed swimming. Winter felt better. The fish had never done anything cruel to her.
She walked to the frozen door and touched it, and it warmed. She pulled it open and walked out. Now suddenly seemed like as good a time as any for her to escape her unhappy life. She had been contemplating running away, and she was smart enough to know it would be wise for her to be gone by the time Mr. Bentwonder and her class thawed. She knew they would defrost soon, and when they did they would be cold but none the worse for wear.
It was time for Winter to go.
“Excuse me?” a strong male voice said, interrupting Winter’s flight down the hall. Winter jumped and put her hand to her heart. She had been so deep in thought that she had not noticed Principal Helt walking toward her.
“Why aren’t you in class?” he demanded.
“I’m running an errand for my teacher, Mr. Bentwonder,” Winter lied.
“Mr. Bentwonder?” the principal questioned. “My nephew? I would think a man of his intellect and breeding would be sufficiently prepared not to need children scurrying about for him.”
Principal Helt took Winter by the arm and pulled her back toward her classroom. It was not a smart move on his part. Winter closed her eyes and let the feelings she had experienced only moments before return.
“We can’t allow—”
Mr. Helt was stopped cold. Winter opened her eyes to see him open-mouthed and frozen solid. She looked up and down the empty hall and then opened a janitor’s closet door right behind him. She slid him inside, taking care not to break off an arm or finger, closed the door, and continued down the hall and out into the open. She had walked out these doors hundreds of times, but today it felt different.
She was free.
“I am who I am because I made myself so,” she said aloud, looking toward the east and feeling as if she had been this strong once before but just couldn’t remember where or when.
It was a good feeling.
When Winter reached her house she climbed into her room through the window so as to not bother her mother, who was watching TV. She collected some money she had been saving and packed a couple of outfits. She wanted to stop and tell the Tuttles she was leaving, but she knew they would try to talk her out of it. She also knew that it would be too heartbreaking for her to have to say good-bye. She felt better after telling herself she would be back to see them again someday. It wasn’t all that believable. Winter pushed those thoughts aside. She had something to do, and whatever it was, she couldn’t let anything stop her. She climbed out her window one last time.
Winter walked straight to the bus station and up to the ticket counter. She looked at the schedule and tried to determine which destination would be the best. After some time her eyes fell upon a place that felt perfect! It was the next step and she knew it. She gave the big lady behind the glass forty-two dollars and bought a bus ticket to someplace away from where she now was.
“Are you traveling with your parents?” the ticket lady asked suspiciously.
“Alone,” Winter answered. “I’m going to see my grandmother,” she lied. “Those are my parents over there.” Winter pointed to a couple sitting on a bench, two ordinary people with their noses buried in magazines. “They’ve come to see me off.”
The large lady realized she had invested enough of her time in this funny-looking girl’s business as it was. “Here’s your ticket. The bus leaves in forty minutes.” She pointed. “It will pull up right there at that rear door.”
Winter thanked the woman and walked off in the direction of the couple she had pointed at. Just to be safe she stopped in front of the man and woman and asked them the time. The woman smiled at Winter and gave it to her.
“Thank you,” Winter said, her evergreen eyes shining for the first time in a while. “Is this seat taken?” she asked, pointing to an empty place on the bench beside them. The woman shook her head and Winter sat.
“Traveling alone?” the woman asked.
“For the moment,” Winter replied. “I’m going to visit my grandmother,” she lied.
“How nice,” the thin lovely woman said. “And how brave of you.”
Winter shrugged.
“When I was your age I would have never traveled on a bus alone,” the woman tisked. “I clung to my mother until I was out of high school. Your parents must think you’re really responsible.”
Again Winter shrugged.
“And modest,” the woman added, referring to Winter’s quiet nature.
Winter stifled a laugh. Her mother didn’t even know she was missing, much less care about her. Her entire life she had been confused and lost. It was as if she didn’t know who she was, and she had constantly felt as though she didn’t belong where she was. Sometimes she would have memories or see things that seemed so unusual they scared her. Now this morning she had turned her whole class into ice cubes and it had felt normal. It had felt like something she was expected to do—like something she had done before.
She thought about how rude it had been of her to just walk away from her house without telling her mother where she was going. Winter wondered if she could freeze things she couldn’t directly see. Now felt like a good time to find that out. In her mind she pictured Janet’s water hose frozen solid. Although she couldn’t see it, Winter could feel it work. She smiled. It would be a small reminder to Janet of her child.
“Well, you just stay by us,” the lovely woman said to her, pulling Winter out of her thoughts. “Our bus doesn’t leave for an hour. How about yours?”
“Thirty-five minutes,” Winter reported.
“There, then,” the woman smiled. “You won’t be alone.”
Winter smiled back, knowing that “alone” was exactly where she was headed. For some reason, however, that didn’t frighten her. It just seemed as if she had been there before. Winter glanced at her ticket and whispered the destination.
“Oklahoma.”
She had never wanted to go there before. She was both determined and incredibly uneasy. Something bigger and scarier than she could clearly understand had begun.
Chapter Nine
Sabine’s Rant
Foo was changing. As the history of mankind had advanced, the dreams and desires of those on earth had become darker and more selfish. This darkness had changed Foo. In the beginning Foo was a secret location the heavens had created to give imagination and dreams their own place to flourish without restraint. It was a world that existed within the minds of all men and women, made possible by the boundless potential that lies within each of us. But over time the beauty and magic of Foo had begun to erode, as some of its inhabitants became poisoned by the increasingly selfish and perverted dreams of humans and the destructive idea that the dreams of those in reality were not their concern.
Sabine had grown powerful by the rank wishes and sordid desires of men gone wrong, and he wanted out of Foo. He knew the time was finally coming. The skies in Foo dimmed dramatically as the dreams of man grew ever darker. He had selfishness on his side. He had done very well to stir up the inhabitants of Foo. Now it was crucial for him to find the gateway out. Foo and reality could never be one if there was no way to move between them and bring the two together.
Sabine thought of little else besides this gateway. The Council of Whisps still fought against him, but as soon as they were properly dealt with his only resistance would be in not knowing the direction to lead his followers out of Foo.
Sabine was not a happy being, but he knew of two things that would bring him great joy. One was discovering the gateway, and the other was locating the only one who could stop him: the missing link and the only person alive who could destroy the gateway before Sabine could find it and bring his dark legions through it into reality.
Sabine’s to-do list was short, but difficult.
He stood by the window, s
hifting and creating shadow after shadow, each instantly trying to flee his dark presence, only to realize it couldn’t completely operate on its own. As each new shadow materialized, Sabine would blow, sending it through incoming dreams into reality. He would feel the shadows as they floated above the earth, undetected by all those living. He would call them in from time to time and berate them for not being able to accomplish such a simple task as finding the single human on earth who could destroy everything.
Through the window Sabine could see Jamoon thundering closer. Jamoon was a rant and one of Sabine’s most loyal confederates. Sabine withdrew from his position to welcome his visitor.
Jamoon entered Sabine’s lair like a swirling storm—blowing through the doors and down the long corridor into the grand hall. His thick black robe billowed as he strode across the room. Sabine was seated at the far end of the room in a chair made from the hide of a large roven.
Jamoon bowed and Sabine nodded.
Rants were a strange breed; often only a half of each one was ever recognizable. They were beings in constant change, one half human and stable, the other half whatever someone in reality was currently dreaming. As a breed, rants were typically easy to control. The main cause of their condition was that they were easily influenced and manipulated. They were offspring of nits who didn’t have the character and fortitude to just enhance the dreams and imaginations of those on earth and then move on. Instead the dreams overcame the rants and stole half of their personality and individualism.
Rants were not happy or stable beings.
At times being half a dream can come in handy. For example, if your right arm is injured and your left arm is currently that of a surgeon. Or if you just don’t have the strength to open a new jar of potch, and one half of you becomes a weight lifter with an iron grip. But say you are down at the Dripping Trough, trying to enjoy a guys’ night out, and suddenly your entire south side becomes a beautiful ballerina that some child on earth is dreaming of becoming. That would make things a bit awkward. Because of just such a scenario, most rants wore long black cloaks that covered their entire unstable bodies and hid the truth of whatever half of them might be at the moment.