Joe Britecote
Free Writing
Some
kids swear they never dream. Maybe
they’re liars, I don’t know. Maybe they
dream only things they don’t want anyone else to know about, and so they just
swear they never dream. Sort of like
self-defense.
Or
maybe their dreams are just boring. That
could explain it, too. I’ve found that
boring kids have boring dreams. That
doesn’t seem fair, does it? If you’re
boring when you’re awake, you at least ought to be exciting when you’re asleep.
We
learned in science one year that everyone dreams. When you’re sleeping, your eyes start
fluttering, and that’s when you’re dreaming—like your eyeballs are going crazy
trying to see what really isn’t there . . . well, it’s there, it’s just not there,
you know? Sleep-scientists have
experimented on people who swore they never had a dream. The scientists wake these people up when
their eyeballs start dancing, and you know what? Those people, those ones who swore they never
dreamed? They report that they were just
having the greatest dream ever …
I
bet you’ve heard the one about how if you dream you’re falling (which everyone
does) and you hit the ground in your dream, then you die. Haven’t you heard that one before? But think about it. It’s stupid, really. If you died in your sleep, how would anyone
know what you were dreaming about? I
mean, just before you die, do you yell out, “I landed! I landed!
So now I’m gonna die!” Sometimes
people just don’t think too much. They
just keep passing stories along, like counterfeit money or something. Never recognizing how fake it is.
Here’s
another example of how people don’t think.
Have you ever heard this one? “If
you eat a lot of food just before you go to bed, you’ll have sick dreams.” That’s not true. Your food dreams are no more sick than any
other dreams. What happens, see, is that
all that food makes you sleep more lightly, you wake up more often, you
remember your dreams. That’s all. Just think about it.
Sometimes
people remember only parts of dreams—or parts of several dreams. Because, you see, you usually dream more than
once. And they say that if you don’t
write down your dream, or tell someone about it, it will go away and you won’t
remember it any more. They’ll fade away,
like something you left in the sun too long.
This is pretty true, I guess—at least for most dreams.
But
there are some you never forget, not even when you try. I have that kind all the time. I’m full of dream stories, as you’ll find
out.
Here’s
something else you might not know: Other kids come and tell me their
dreams. All the time. I’ve gotten pretty good at telling what they mean. But here’s a secret. I don’t really know what dreams mean. And I don’t think anyone else does either.
Like
an example. Lots of kids tell me about a
dream where they’re naked somewhere, somewhere in public, usually—like in
school, or at the mall. Sometimes
they’re really embarrassed, and they run around trying to find clothes to put
on, and other people are staring at them like they’re sick or something. Or they yell stuff at the naked kid. And start chasing them, even. But sometimes people don’t even notice the
kid is naked. And the naked kid sits
right there in class doing whatever it is they usually do. Or shopping, or playing baseball, or dancing
in the gym. No big deal.
Now,
what are you supposed to think about that? Here’s there kind of thing I tell kids who
tell me their dreams of being naked. You’re afraid of being naked because you’re
afraid of people finding out what you’re really like. Who you really are.
One
time, in the library, when we were supposed to be working on social studies
reports, I looked up and saw Jennifer Queen standing beside me. This has never happened before, except by
accident, like in the lunch line or something.
“Can
I sit down a minute?” she whispered. The
air around my table completely changed. Even
her breath smelled like perfume.
Maybe
I answered her, maybe not. I was so
shook up that it seemed that a guard dog in my throat was not allowing any
words to get out. I made some kind of
noise that sounded like both a growl and a bark. But she sat down anyway. And I just sort of breathed her in for a
while. And hoped I wasn’t dreaming.
And
then she told me about one of her dreams.
She was naked while acting in a school play in front of a big, huge
audience. (I tried like crazy not to
imagine that, not right then. I didn’t
want to pass out.) And everyone in that
audience was somebody at school who didn’t like her. (She didn’t give any names, and I didn’t
ask—but I didn’t realize there was anyone who didn’t like Jennifer Queen. She’s so gorgeous. Man, who wouldn’t like her?)
Anyway,
after she told me her dream, she said, “What does it mean, Joe? I hear you’re good at knowing what dreams
mean.”
I
tried to clear my throat. Did you ever
drag a heavy trashcan down the driveway?
Well, that’s what it sounded like.
But I told her what I already said about naked dreams.
And
when I did, she got this goofy look on her face, like I’d just told her the
meaning of life or something. She got
all red, and then she did something that surprised me so much I nearly fell out
of my chair. She leaned over and kissed
me—not on the mouth. (Too bad for
me.) No, but a kiss, right on the cheek,
right in the library, right where some other kids saw it, like Carny Voar, who
nearly choked on the cupcake he was eating behind the notebook he propped up so
the teacher wouldn’t see him pigging out in class.
And
then Jennifer Queen said something that shocked me even more. She said, “Joe, from now on, you’re my dream
boy.”
I
sat there in a goofy daze the rest of the period and didn’t bother writing down
anything else about the House of Burgesses, which is what I was supposed to be
doing.
Later,
of course, I realized what she meant by “dream boy,” and I was kind of
disappointed. But I was hoping Jennifer
Queen would start having weird dreams every night. Every single blessed night.
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