drawing the same city as her.
“Yes they will be.” Night reads her mind. “That’s why she’ll be so proud of you if you do something different. Use your imagination; that’s what art is all about.”
“That and making a beautiful picture,” Corbin adds, “And you should probably use shades, a color plus black, and tints, a color plus white, to color it in. You just learned how to mix lighter and darker colors last week. Ms. Almond will be so happy that you remembered.”
“Ok.” Lane’s not so sure about this idea but she’ll try it.
Corbin hands her a new piece of paper from his back pocket and pulls out some oil pastels so she can mix and blend colors. Determined to take their advice, Lane starts by drawing a rocket ship for a car, cutting out the center of it, making a person wearing a hat sit there in front of a steering wheel. This time she makes buildings out of volcanoes shooting out orange slime and flowers with wings. The windows are really large coconuts and the doors are pears. She finishes her creation by blending colors together to make a bright colorful picture. She makes sure to make the rocket ship bright neon pink.
Excited by her picture, Lane is more than happy to try writing sentences for her vocabulary words. She’s always hated doing it. School work at home is sort of a mean and evil punishment. But Corbin and Night are really good at making sentences and they help her use verbs correctly and come up with adjectives that will make her teacher proud. Math is last; she HATES math. Corbin has to bribe her with a large sugar cookie. But once she starts and they help her she actually gets it. Now math isn’t SO bad.
This is the FIRST time Lane has EVER liked doing homework. Suddenly, doing homework is fun when she’s doing it with Corbin and Night.
Wing Number Two
Lane promises to be good if they take her into a memory. She wants to help them find the other wing. But Night reminds her that they must be careful not to wake the dream; he still won’t tell her why.
Since the fur ball monster ate and spat out the penny, they no longer have it to find a person’s memory or dream to sneak into. Night and Corbin have to resort to OTHER methods. Leaving the house is not an option; Lane is on lockdown, she’s not allowed to step a foot out of the house. Her neighbor, old Mr. Fingle will surely tell on her. He is always watching the cars and people go down the street from his front lawn chair. And he’s sitting there now with his coffee mug and the morning newspaper sprawled across his lap.
But Night says that’s ok; they don’t need to go outside and they don’t need another penny. Sneaking out of the basement, Corbin looks through every closet, even the bathroom one with the towels until he finds what he seeks; triumphantly holding up one of her mom’s shoes. A leather purple pump to be exact.
“How is that going to help?” Lane folds her arms and glares him down.
“Your mom, just like you, step where everyone else in this town steps. A part of their shoe imprinted on her shoe. We can find someone by looking at the bottom of her shoe.” Corbin smiles but Lane is less than enthusiastic, especially when he flips it over to look at the sole.
Lane sees nothing but rubber and a couple blades of brown grass stuck in between the grooves. But that doesn’t stop Corbin from shaking it; a pile of dirt drops onto her mom’s bedroom shaggy carpet. Excitedly, Night skips over, drops to his knee and picks some of it; rubbing it into his skin with a wicked smile superglued to his face.
“Ready?” He giggles, taking Lane’s outstretched hand.
“Ready!” She whispers with anticipation, closing her eyes.
There’s a rush of warm air blown around her, replaced by a light warm breeze and the fragment smell of red roses. The ground feels damp like morning dew. She’s sure its grass underneath. She brushes it back and forth with her hand, feeling the pieces move back and forth. It purrs.
Alarmed, she opens her eyes quickly. This is not grass. She’s sitting on a cat’s nose. The grass is its hair and the warm breeze is breath. The cat is slumbering right next to the head of a puppy; both are monstrously huge! Lane is a sitting duck and she doesn’t see Corbin and Night. They must have separated but that doesn’t make any sense, they’re always with her.
Wearily, she stands up and looks around, careful not to step in the cat’s nostril. She looks to her left, she looks to her right and she looks down and up. No Corbin and no Night. Right now she’s on her own with no way to leave the dream.
Climbing up the nose, she slides down the cheek, getting caught up in the whiskers; the cat yawns. She’s almost sucked in. Terrified, she lets go and plummets downward and lands back first into a paw; the claws sharp and deadly. The cat moves back and forth in its sleep; purring loudly, taking a lick. It licks its paw and Lane gets slobbered on.
She has to crawl her way down, then under the foot. The ground is rock hard and made up of gigantic planks of wood with lots of grooves that look like huge potholes in a road. Lane has trouble avoiding them, falling in twenty; barely able to escape three.
She still doesn’t see Corbin or Night.
She continues walking the plank until she encounters a giant sized door with small broken pieces of wood at the bottom. She has to shimmy her way through to the other side; narrowly getting trapped in the space between the door and the door frame.
The new room is even bigger and a lot scarier, filled with mice and birds in cages and dogs in wall cages and hamsters in glass tanks. She is in a pet store and a few of the animals are loose.
A brown and white guinea pig the size of a truck wiggles by – blocking her path - squeaking at the top of her lungs. Five mini guinea pigs waddle close behind, nipping each other’s ears and biting their butts playfully. The smallest one with a jet black coat stares at her and hops up and down, squeaking. But the others don’t seem to care so he stops and hurries to stay with his mom.
Next up is a small bunny with lopped ears that hang down like super long earrings and a brown fluffy tail. She hops up to sniff Lane, giving her a tentative lick but Lane doesn’t taste like rabbit food or a carrot so she runs away, heading towards a nice tight spot under the other bunnies. But those poor bunnies are in cages.
Lane is caught in a memory, not a dream.
But then, something tiny and blue and twinkly catches her eye. She knows instantly that it’s the other pixie wing. It’s in the Leopard Gecko tank high up on the shelf. She’ll need to climb to get there. And that is NOT a good idea. There are snakes and huge lizards underneath the Leopard Gecko’s cage. She just needs to make sure NOT to get eaten. Lane doesn’t know if she can die in a memory or a dream. The twins never told her.
She’s going to get that wing no matter what and she doesn’t need Night and Corbin to help her!
Creeping forward towards the tanks nestled in the far back corner on the other side of the room, Lane tries not to step in the deadly mouse trap or ant motel – she knows that poison’s inside. The hedgehog happening her way, wisely does the same; bowing its head in a greeting before curling up in a tight ball when it hears a loud chime. The front door opens, letting in winter air and a pile of freshly blown snow. Murky white sludge prints are left behind by the shoes as a teen a few years older than Lane stomps in carrying a tiny dog that barks as loud and furiously as a lion.
The terrifying beast, the size of a dinosaur bites the teen and drops out of her arms, bouncing up and down on the floor; sending horrible vibrations through the boards. It feels like an earthquake.
The hedgehog unfurls; scampering quickly away under a shelving unit behind Lane. But that’s in the opposite direction of the Gecko cage; she can’t hide there, she’ll never reach the wing. And there’s no telling when the dream will shift. She might not get another chance to get it.
She watches with careful eyes as the dog runs around in a circle trying to catch his tail. Failing miserably, the dog shoves his nose to the floor and starts sniffing, tracking the scent of a poor terrifie
d bunny hiding underneath the checkout counter. The rabbit wisely darts away, bolting off in the other direction, slithering through the crack under the door; taking refuge in the back room where the cat is sleeping. Ten seconds later the bunny reemerges scared out of its wits; the cat saw it. The dog is less frightening.
Thirty seconds later the rabbit is caught by the owner of the pet store. The poor thing is hoisted up and over into a gigantic black bin and dropped inside; the container as wide as a kiddy pool and as tall as the owner’s hip. The bunny is NOT having a good time.
Unfortunately, the dog is still on the loose and sniffing under everything; barking every time he finds an animal. The guinea pig mommy bites his nose and the hedgehog sticks a quill up his nostril but still the dog is not deterred; continuing the hunt.
When he nears Lane, she scales the side of the nearest storage rack and drops onto his back; grabbing onto the fur, holding on like a leach as the dog lurches backwards and starts shaking. She’s been detected. The dog drops to his butt and starts scratching at her with his paw.
Ducking underneath his collars, she hides, curling up into a ball, waiting for the shaking and scratching to stop. Ten seconds later, it does. Creeping out, Lane takes a seat on the dog’s neck, careful NOT to touch his hair again; that might spell