Dreamland Read Free Page A

honor roll, shots from the mall photo booth of her friends making faces and laughing, their arms looped around each other. There were a couple of us, too. One from a Christmas when we were kids, both of us in little red dresses and white tights, holding hands, and one from a summer at the lake where we’re sitting at the end of a dock, legs dangling over, in our matching blue polka-dot bathing suits, eating Popsicles.
    On the other side of the wall, in my room, I had the same bed, the same bureau set, and the same mirror. But on my mirror, I had one picture of my best friend, Rina, my third-place ribbon from horse-back riding, and my certificate from the B honor roll. Most people would have been happy with that. But for me, with Cass always blazing the trail ahead, there was nothing to do but pale in comparison.
    Okay, so maybe I was jealous, now and then, but I could never have hated Cass. She came to all my competitions, cheering the loudest as I went for the bronze. She was the first one waiting for me when I came off the ice during my only skating competition, after falling on my ass four times in five minutes. She didn’t even say anything, just took off her mittens, gave them to me, and helped me back to the dressing rooms where I cried in private as she unlaced my skates, telling knock-knock jokes the whole time.
    To be honest, a part of me had been looking forward to Cass going off to Yale at the end of the summer. I thought her leaving might actually give me some growing room, a chance to finally strike out on my own. But this changed everything.
    I’d always counted on Cass to lead me. She was out there somewhere, but she’d taken her own route, and for once I couldn’t follow. This time, she’d left me to find my own way.

CHAPTER TWO
    The next morning when I woke up I realized I hadn’t dreamed at all, not even one fleeting image. I took the book Cass gave me out from under my bed, where I’d hidden it, and opened it to the first page. There was a drawing of a full moon, sprinkled with stars, in the corner.
    August 18, I wrote at the top of the page. Nothing last night. And you’re still gone.
    I couldn’t think of anything else, so I got out of bed, threw on some clothes, and went down the hallway to the kitchen. The door to my parents’ room was closed and my father was in his office, on the phone. He had to have talked to a hundred people in the last twenty-four hours.
    â€œI understand that,” he was saying, his voice level, but I could tell he was frustrated. “But eighteen or not, we want her home. She’s not the kind of girl who does something like this.”
    The door to his office was half open, and I could see him standing by the window, running his palm over the small bald patch at the back of his head. My father, as the Dean of Students at the university, dealt with problems every day. He was the stand-in parent for thousands of undergraduates, and was quoted each time a fraternity got caught pulling pranks or a beer bash got out of hand. But this was different. This was about us.
    I pulled the patio door open and slipped outside, where it was thickly hot and muggy, another August morning. But at least it was quiet.
    Next door, I could see Boo and Stewart sitting at their kitchen table, eating breakfast. Boo raised her hand, waved, and then gestured for me to come over, smiling. I took one look back at my own house, where my mother’s stress filled the rooms to the ceiling, leaving a stink and heaviness like smoke, and started across the one strip of green grass that separated their backyard from ours.
    When I was little and got in trouble and sent to my room, I’d always sit on my bed and wish that Boo and Stewart were my parents. They’d never had kids of their own. My mother said it was because they acted so much like children themselves, but I liked to think it was so they could be there for me, if I ever needed to trade my own