Wake the Dream
Book One
Jennifer Kimberly Carberry
Copyright Jennifer Kimberly Carberry 2013
Night
Don’t EVER wake the dream!
Lane was never a big fan of small towns with rolling hills and many cows; she likes the City where she grew up instead. She never got over her parents stealing her away from the mall and the museum with the funny looking square people. Lane is a city rat; not a cow.
Every day is the same in the town of Elm. Get up, brush teeth, go to school, do homework, hang out with Tommy and go to bed. Repeat… But, ‘repeat’ stopped when Tommy, Lane’s best friend (the only one in the entire world) moved to the City a thousand miles away. No more Tommy. Delete. Get up, brush teeth, go to school, do homework, stare at the wall and go to sleep.
Life is pretty boring for Lane.
But…
Thirteen days after Tommy left, on a Tuesday, Lane ditches brushing her teeth, and ditches school and ditches homework and ditches staring at the wall and ditches sleep. No more repeat.
Lane pulls on her favorite pair of jeans and shirt, brushes her mousy long brown hair and gives her sky blue eyes a once over in the mirror before sneaking out of her house without brushing her teeth and skips down the sidewalk. When Miss Time says, ‘good morning’, she pretends not to hear her. Waving to Miss Time was part of her old schedule. She ignores everyone who waves ‘hi’ and greets her.
Half way down the block of the quiet boring street of Peanuckle, Lane stops, looks both ways, than turns around. She’s not going to school today – school is BORING! No more teachers talking at her, not today; not anymore.
Lane dances down the sidewalk backwards, passing her house, then her neighbors then their neighbors until there are no more neighbors left.
And right where there should be a gravel road, Lane steps down into brown mushy water sludge.
“Lane?” His voice is a mixture of surprise and excitement all smashed up into one.
Turning on her heals too fast; she knocks foreheads with the boy. He licks her cheek; she shoves him in the muck.
The boy – a kid with strange orange-red hair and two different colored eyes – smiles as wide as a clown up at her; giggles. His plain jeans and boring black shirt are now covered in brown globs and water spray.
Lane backs away and trips on a rock, landing on her butt. Laughing hysterically, the boy grabs a handful of sand and drops it on the top of her head and starts building a sandcastle. Annoyed, she pushes him, sending him flying backwards.
“Why did you put in two different colored contacts this morning?” Lane splashes him again; giggling.
Appalled, he throws sand; hitting Lane square in the face. “My eyes ARE this color. I’m NOT wearing contacts! You’re mean.”
Rubbing the sand from her face, Lane stares at him cross-eyed. “You really have one blue eye and one green eye?”
“Yes.” The boy doesn’t seem to care.
Lane pokes him in the chest. “Who are you? Are you visiting family? I’ve never seen you before.”
The boy smiles like the scariest clown Lane has ever seen. “I have a strange name. My name is Night and I’m not visiting family. I ran away.”
“Do you need me to take you back?” Lane isn’t sure if she wants to, that would mean SHE has to go too.
“I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK! You can’t make me! I’m nine years old; I can take care of myself just fine, Lane.” Pouting, he hugs his chest; mad.
Lane is shocked. She does NOT know this strange mean boy so there is no way he would know her name. “What are you talking about, my name is Patty and I’m in fourth grade.”
“It’s not, it’s Lane. We were both born on Halloween and we are both nine. Want to be friends?” Excited, he bounces up and down, spraying gross brown water all over Lane’s face and clothes.
“NO! You’re weird!” She sticks her tongue out at him and laughs.
“Whatever,” He snarls. “Give me your hand.”
Lane doesn’t, he might have boy germs. He takes a step towards her; she steps back and shakes her head no. Sighing, Night bends over and picks up a sharp rock from the bottom of the puddle and pushes it really hard into his thumb, it bleeds a strange blue color like the sky on a bright sunny day.
Holding his bleeding thumb up, he hands Lane the rock and says. “I dare you.”
NO boy is going to get the best of Lane. “You’re on!” She grabs the rock. She has to rub it ten times across her thumb before a little dot of red shows up. “What now?”
With lightning speed, Night grabs Lane’s hand and shoves their thumbs together, laughing. “Now,” He smiles wide. “We are ONE!”
“Did you just poison me?” Lane screams. Her hand is tingling and her arm stinging.
Night shakes his head no, dropping the rock into the sludge with a loud plop.
“Are you an alien?”
This time Night laughs; still shaking his head no. “And no, no spaceship, promise…”
“No,” Lane is unconvinced. “You’re an alien.”
“Want to be friends with an alien?” Night blinks at her with his two different colored eyes.
Lane always wanted a dog or a fish or a hamster for a pet but now she’s starting to think that an alien for a pet might be a lot more exciting. “Ok, FRIENDS!”
Lane grabs Night’s hand and leads him away from her street but Night steers them back. But he doesn’t take her towards school. They pass by the old stone mansion and the dirt hill before they climb the tall rock wall.
Lane and Night hop off of the rock wall into the parking lot of the town’s only grocery store. Ms. Milly opens the front door and waves. The disgusting stench of over ripe fruit and pungent odor of fresh fish smells like what Lane’s neighbor Johnny’s dog threw up yesterday. Snickering, Lane drags Night inside.
Tiptoeing past Miss Martha and Old Ted, stocking cans of peas on the shelf, Lane shoves Night into the cans and books it to the seafood aisle. Finding the lobster tank, she dives underneath, holding the door shut.
Something warm and solid brushes her arm; she bites her lip, tasting copper. The next time she’s poked in the cheek. She curls up in a ball, trying to hide; afraid she might be touched again.
This next time Lane is tickled by warm tentacles. Giggling, she smacks the thing away, grabbing it quickly before it escapes. It’s a hand with hot sticky gross fingers. And then it’s gone...vanished. Opening one eye at a time, she keeps half of her face covered, looking around for the creature attached to it. But just like the hand, it’s gone.
“Ouch! That’s strange, why is there a cut on my arm? And why, why am I bleeding blue?” Lane whispers quietly.
“Found you!” The cabinet door flings open; Lane tumbles out onto Night, landing on his boots. “You’re really bad at this game.” He bends down and licks her cheek; she kicks him hard in the shin and pouts.
Ignoring him, Lane crawls behind the tomatoes and lettuce but he grabs onto her mushy wet shirt, hanging on like a leach. Annoyed, she stomps on his foot. Night leans over and licks her cheek again. Lane shrieks and shoves him off. He’s stays suction cupped on.
“I’m not contagious Lane.”
She glares laser beams at him. This ‘licking thing’ must be a new form of torture she doesn’t know about. Frustrated, she grabs his arm and slimes it with her tongue, his skin tastes like honey and chocolate and peppermint. Exactly what she would expect a slushy to taste like after it’s been through three blenders and dipped in a vat of ice cream.
Grossed out, Lane fast walks over to the hand sanitizer machine and scrubs the foam up an
d down her arms and around her mouth and face. She even tries licking it but she spits it out; it’s disgusting! Night laughs, not caring that he’s covered in Lane’s mouth goo.
Grabbing her hand, he pulls Lane down the bread aisle, fast walks past Mr. Hoot, the store manager. And they weave around the shopping carts filled with chewing gum packages and bags and bags of chocolate candy bars and sugar, stopping at the frozen foods aisle.
“Ice cream or frozen pizza?” Night snickers.
“Neither.”
“Ice cream it is.” He pulls her over to the big heavy freezer doors, and ponders the flavor.
He slides the heavy door open, arctic air blows out like a hurricane, slamming her in the face, Lane shivers. Picking up a large carton of strawberry, he carefully pulls back the lid and sniffs, scrunching his nose in disgust. Placing it back on the shelf, he jimmies the container of frozen yumminess in between a bag of frozen carrots and a container of frozen high-concentrate juice. Grabbing a peanut butter and chocolate swirl ice cream from the lower shelf, he does the sniff test again; equally dissatisfied.
He smells the pineapple and the apple and the bubble gum flavored iced treats until he discovers the lone lime green mint chocolate ice cream hiding behind the chocolate and vanilla on the bottom shelf, all the way in the back.
Picking up the lid breathing in the fragrant smell of mint and chocolate, Night carefully, slowly, sticks out his tongue and licks it. His face lights up; excited. He offers it to Lane; she recoils and sticks out