Dreamweaver (Part 3)

All throughout the day Lucy had a great big grin on her face. She was still very happy from meeting Rupert Yellowstone and the Professor and getting to play with sheep. The day passed very slowly for Lucy and she could not pay attention in her classes at school, even her favorite English class.  She could only doodle sheep on her notebook. Lucy was also quite the doodler, her drawing of sheep on a farm was given a gold star at school just last week.

After the last school bell, Lucy rushed home and told her mother she would like to take her bath early. As nice a girl as Lucy was, she did not particularly enjoy baths. So Mrs. Adwater was surprised Lucy would ask to take a bath. After her bath, Lucy quickly finished all her homework and set up the table for dinner. Mr. Adwater arrived home at 6 pm as usual and they had their dinner together. Tonight was spaghetti night and Lucy loved pretty much everything her mother cooked, but especially spaghetti, that was her favorite. That evening though, Lucy ate her dinner quickly, but still making sure to chew her food properly. She just chewed and swallowed a bit faster than usual.

After she had eaten everything on her plate, Lucy asked to be excused so she can go to bed. She said she was very tired.  Her parents were surprised because  Lucy would usually ask to play with her farm animal set and read her favorite book 'Farmer Bill's Guide to All Types of Sheep'. But they did not see anything wrong with Lucy sleeping early and asked her to brush her teeth before going to bed. Lucy agreed and ran up the stairs, brushed her teeth and went straight to her room. A moment later Mr. and Mrs. Adwater came in to tuck Lucy and and kiss her on her head good night. Lucy said good night back and smiled.

Her parents shut the door and Lucy sprang up from her bed. She was very excited of going back to meet Rupert and the Professor and perhaps, just perhaps, playing with the sheep in the field again! All the excitement and joy came bubbling up in Lucy as she thought about this. So she lay down again to get to sleep.

Then it dawned on her, what she had wanted to ask Rupert last night before he pushed her through the door. A deep set horror filled her. She had forgotten what exactly she did last night to get to the starry field! She feared doing the wrong thing and she could never return to that place.

After thinking long and hard she decided to give it a try anyways. What had she got to lose. She counted a thousand sheep. She stood on her head and jumped several times. She turned around and laid on the opposite end of the bed and flipped right and left. She did all this and did it again to make sure. She had done everything. Lucy thought she must have done something wrong. She still could not sleep. Finally, she gave up and laid there exhausted. Then she fell asleep.

Lucy opened her eyes and found darkness, all around her. She felt a strange sensation. A sort of weightlessness. But great gusts of winds was blowing on her face and on her whole body. She looked around and her vision started to come into better focus. Lucy started spotting bright objects far away all around but they were moving very fast past her. In front of her a small green dot was growing bigger at an alarming rate. Then it came to her. She was in the sky and falling fast!

Lucy shut her eyes and let out a loud scream and held it for a long time. When she was out of breath, she looked down and saw the green dot which now turned into a cube. But she was still not there yet. So she shut her eyes again, took another deep breath and continued screaming.

All of a sudden the wind stopped and Lucy was hanging in mid air. Then Lucy looked down and saw she had stopped several inches from the green grassy ground. Her mouth not realizing this, had screamed on for a few seconds longer. She turned behind and saw Rupert holding the neck of her pyjamas. Lucy gave Rupert a nervous smile. He in turn rolled his eyes and frowned. Lucy had a feeling that tonight, she might not be playing with any sheep.

Dreamweaver (Part 2)

Rupert shut the door behind them and held onto Lucy's hand. Lucy found herself in a large cylindrical room. The book-lined walls seemed to rise forever upwards. Warm yellow light shone through the many windows built in no particular order all around the walls. Lucy could see even high up there were windows, which looked like tiny floating specks of light. Stacks of books, parchments and all sorts of weird-looking contraptions were scattered on the circular room floor and there were also armchairs all around the place. Lucy looked at the ground and saw layers and layers of carpets overlapping each other, all of them with different colours and designs.

Lucy spotted movement in one of the armchairs. A man was sitting there. He was quite tall and skinny. Normally tall people are hard to miss. Lucy did not notice him because he was wearing a worn-out brown suit, almost the exact same colour as the chair he was sitting in. The man was reading a rather voluminous book that looked like what someone really smart would read. The man spoke without looking away from his book, "Welcome back, Rupert. Very polite of you to knock before entering."

"Wasn't me. We have a guest," Rupert said.

The man looked up and saw the little girl beside Rupert. He was staring at them wide-eyed. He slammed the book shut and moved with a swift pace towards Lucy to have a closer look at her.

Rupert continued, "Professor, meet Lucy. Lucy, this is the Professor. "

 

Lucy extended her right hand and said, "Nice to meet you Mr. Professor, sir. I...muszz...schrbb... dszshs...u...wndfl..plzsc."

The Professor had pressed the long fingers of his left hand against Lucy's mouth.

"What is this Rupert? How did she get here?" the Professor said.

"She did the You-Know-What that you said would NEVER be done by anyone. AND she can stir the stars. I told you not to..." Rupert began.

The Professor held out his right hand to Rupert for him to be silent with the left hand still pressing against Lucy's mouth. He scrunched his chin and looked away from them, deep in thought. Then he  dropped his arms, backed away from them both and started pacing back and forth, back and forth, stopping right in mid stance several times to stare at Lucy and after a while began to pace again.

Lucy was beginning to panic and thought she had done something wrong. She looked up at Rupert who was still holding her hand. He just gave her a shrug.

The Professor finally stopped pacing. And fell back into his armchair. Lucy and Rupert stood there waiting for a response but the Professor had returned to reading his book again.

Rupert rolled his eyes and let out a loud fake cough. "What should we do about the Lucy?"

The man said, "What? Well yes. I haven't decided. Make her go away. I will think about it later. I 'm in the middle of this book, really have to finish it. Can't put it down now."

Lucy looked at the Professor and saw that he was only perhaps a few pages into the very thick book. Rupert  let out a loud sigh and and shook his head to himself. He began leading Lucy back towards the door which they had came through. Rupert and Lucy was about at the door when the Professor said, "Come back tomorrow night, little girl."

Lucy turned to look at the Professor who had again spoken without looking up. The she looked at Rupert.  He gave Lucy very animated nods. Lucy turned back to the Professor and replied, "Yes, sir. I will. Thank you."

With that, Rupert and Lucy stood right in front of the door and Rupert stamped again three times but this time not as hard. He then opened the door to reveal Lucy's room, but they were seeing it from the ceiling. Lucy looked through and could make out through the invisible veil, herself sprawled on the bed sleeping soundly.

Rupert said, "Tomorrow night.. Just do the You-Know-What and you should get to the starry fields again. I will meet you there. Goodbye."

Before Lucy could ask him a question, Rupert had pushed Lucy and she stumbled through the door. She thought she would fall to the other side and land on flat on her face on top of herself on the other side. So she squeezed her eyes shut. Lucy held it shut for several moments. Then several moments more. But she found there was no great big crash. She opened her eyes and found herself in the big starry field again. But this time there were sheep everywhere! And she had a lovely time playing with all the sheep. She played with the sheep for such a long time. Lucy was very tired but also happy. And then she laid down to stare at the stars, with all the sheep laying by her side. 

She opened her eyes and was snug in bed. Sunlight was shining through the window. It was morning.

To be continued...

Dreamweaver (Part 1)

This story is about a girl called Lucy. She is eight  years old. Like any other girl her age, she likes playing with dolls and with her little cooking set. But most of all she likes her farm animal set. She likes the sheep particularly because they are soft and fluffy.

She likes her friends at school and they like her a lot too because she always share her toys and treats. She is very sweet and polite to everyone. Lucy is also very smart for her age. She asks plenty of intelligent questions and is curious about things she sees and people she meet. her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Adwater are very proud of Lucy. They would often show off to their friends what a wonderful child Lucy is and they all agree when they meet Lucy how perfectly delightful she is.

There was however something which would change Lucy's life from being an ordinary girl to an extraordinary one. Here is what it is. One evening, Lucy had a great big supper. Lucy was finding it very difficult to sleep. She flipped left and right, and turned around and laid on the opposite end of her bed. Then she tried jumping up and down several times and then standing on her head. She even counted fluffy sheep. She was very smart and could count to a thousand sheep. Then after that she counted another thousand sheep. She did all this and did it again to make sure. She tried everything. Nothing worked. She could not sleep. She finally gave up and laid there exhausted. Then she fell asleep.

The dream she had that night was a dream unlike any other dream. Normally she would dream of castles and fairies and sheep. Lovely sheep. She loved sheep. No, tonight she did not dream of castles, nor fairies, nor  sheep. In this dream it was night time and she was lying on a plain grass field stretching flat in all directions. She looked up at the sky and the stars were shining and blinking at her. She laid down and looked at the stars and smiled to herself. Normally Lucy was not allowed outside at night, so she was really happy she could see all the lovely stars. But then she was interrupted by a figure standing over her. The figure was blocking her view. Lucy sat up and the figure jumped back when Lucy did so.

"Hi, I'm Lucy. Who are you?" Lucy asked and extended her right hand to the figure.

"I...I...I Rupert," the figure said shuffling away from Lucy. "I mean my name is Rupert. Rupert Yellowstone. What are you doing here? You are not allowed here."

"Very nice to meet you Rupert Rupert Yellowstone."

"No, just Rupert Yellowstone. You just say Rupert once."

Lucy giggled. "Well, you really should just say it once then if you want people to say it once."

Rupert's pale face had now turned quite crimson. "What are you doing here I said. You are not allowed here."

"I don't know. I was trying very hard to fall asleep. I turned left and right and up and down and nothing happened. Then I jumped up and down. And I counted sheep. To a thousand. Twice. And still I could not sleep. Then I did it all again. And I just found myself here."

"Well, that's just great. And the great Professor said no one would EVER do such a ridiculous thing. Obviously he wasn't thinking of ridiculous little girls who could not get to sleep like you."

"What are you talking about. Never mind about that. Have you seen the stars tonight? They're awfully bright, aren't they?"

Lucy looked at the sky again and began skipping around Rupert. Rupert looked up and saw the stars stirring with Lucy's skipping, following her path.

"No, no. This is no good at all. Come with me." Rupert grabbed Lucy by the arm and began walking.

"Wait, where are we going? There's nothing anywhere around."

They were pacing along in what seemed like no particular direction. The flat lands stretched everywhere and there was nothing to be seen over the horizon. Lucy tried to pry Rupert's hands off her arm but he grip was firm. Lucy struggled all the way till Rupert suddenly stopped and let go of her arm.

Rupert reached into his right coat pocket and pulled out a little pouch. He reached into it and his hand grabbed a handful of dark red powder. He sprinkled it onto the ground in a straight line. Lucy stepped closer to look at the line of red powder Rupert had sprinkled. He then stomped on his foot three times. A door sprang up from the ground and Lucy jumped back to avoid being hit square in the chin. The door looked perfectly solid and strong. Lucy knocked on the door to make sure. Rupert held her arm to stop her after her third knock.

"That's quite enough. Let's go."

Rupert opened the door and through it was a great big room. It looked like it was covered by an invisible veil where the door was which made the room on the other side distorted. Rupert held onto Lucy's arm and led her through. Lucy looked back one last time leaving the starry open field, moving through the door. She thought to herself, this would be a wonderful place to have sheep.

To be continued...