Bad Dreams Read Free Page A

Practically everyone in the class was in the school grounds with us. Why did it have to be me ?
    â€˜Listen, Imogen,’ I told her. ‘You know that I was only asked to look after you for the first week, not stick like glue for life. And this is our last day, so I’ll be taking off now, if that’s all right with you.’
    I’d have looked hurt, but she looked devastated.
    â€˜But, Melly. I thought we were—’
    She stopped, and stared down at her feet while the word ‘friends’ echoed, unspoken, between us. She looked as if she’d been slapped. I couldn’t try and pretend that everyone’s first-week minder simply strides off halfway through the last day. And I hate lying. So it just popped out.
    â€˜I’m sorry, Imogen. I really am. But I can’t be friends with you. You’re just too creepy . I’m too scared .’
    If someone blurted something like that out in my face, I’d stare in astonishment, and squawk, ‘ What? ’ But Imogen simply looked as if she’d been half expecting it.
    â€˜All right,’ she said, turning away. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

    â€˜You do understand?’
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I understand.’
    And somehow that made me feel a whole lot worse. Imagine how you’d feel if you refused to be friends with someone who’s only ever been perfectly polite and anxious to please, just because they were different or had something wrong with them. And then imagine they said that to you.
    Like me, you’d feel an absolute worm.
    I stood and watched her walk away. She didn’t look back. She didn’t even try to pretend she had something to do in the cloakroom. She just set off towards the emptiest part of the school grounds, where she’d be alone. I dug my book out of my bag and turned the other way, to head for the lunchtime library.
    And then I thought suddenly: ‘Poor Imogen! Now she can’t even go there.’
    And I felt even worse . You see, all the way through school, I’ve used book corners and lunchtime library to hide away, and spend my break times reading. You know as well as I do that being a bookworm in school is like having a protective shield. It sends a message: ‘Please leave me out of things unless I ask. Act as if I’m not here. It’s not that I’m lonely. It’s just that I’m happy on my own.’

    And it is true. I wouldn’t want to have to get through even one day the way the others do it. I see them, constantly in each other’s company, always cheerful, always chatty. They never get ratty when someone suddenly begins to plait their hair without even asking, or begs to try on their glasses, or pesters them for hours about who is their favourite singer. Twenty different people can come up, one after another, and tell them something they already know, like, ‘You’ve got a cold,’ or, ‘Those are new shoes you’re wearing,’ and they keep smiling. They don’t even mind .
    I don’t know how they do it. I’d go mad. So making someone feel even a tiny bit awkward about hiding away anywhere, especially the book corner, would be, to me, like snatching away a lifebelt.
    I couldn’t do it to my own worst enemy. I certainly couldn’t do it to someone who’d never done anything except try to be pleasant and helpful.
    I had to run after her. ‘Imogen! Wait a minute! Stop!’
    And she turned and smiled at me. So that was that settled.

CHAPTER FIVE
    I t must have been a good long while since Imogen had had a friend. No-one else wanted to be near her. This was the reason, she admitted, she’d left her old school. Only a few of her classmates had gone around whispering that she was ‘creepy’ – the ones she thought must have been talking to me – but all of the rest had kept away from her as much as possible, making giant great fusses if they were even