Kalpana's Dream Read Free

enough, a small crack in the world would open and she would see Raj’s face again. She would see that special smile he kept for her alone, the one that brought the tender light into his eyes, and made the hidden dimple show, that secret little hollow at the corner of his mouth.
    Kalpana turned away from the window. The great bird circled once more, slowly, and then flew away, across the river towards the great desert, over the ragged rooftops of the dusty little town.

3
Count Dracula’s Essay
    It was three whole weeks before Ms Dallimore handed out her first essay to 7B.
    WHO AM I? she printed in big bold letters on the board.
    Easy. It didn’t look as if He had set it.
    Because by now most of 7B knew who ‘He’was. They’d heard the rumours the Year Eight kids passed round: how Ms Dallimore’s boyfriend – the driver of the big black car that waited for her every afternoon outside the gate – was Count Dracula. ‘She’s getting paler, ’ the Year Eight kids kept whispering. ‘Paler and paler, every day.’
    They said Count Dracula chose the essay topics for Ms Dallimore. But ‘Who am I?’ didn’t seem the sort of topic a vampire would select. All the same, a chorus of complaint rose from the ranks of 7B.
    ‘But, Miss! That’s baby stuff.’
    ‘Dead boring!’
    ‘Embarrassing!’
    ‘We’ve done it heaps of times.’
    ‘All though primary school.’
    ‘You start off in Prep, with this drawing, and your name–’ ‘Next year it’s in printing.’
    ‘And then joined up.’
    ‘Longer and longer–’ ‘More and more words–’ ‘I want you to forget all that, ’ said Ms Dallimore. ‘All those other times. This time I want you to think –’ and she turned round and wrote the word up in the same big bold letters, so firm and fast you could see the chalk dust spurt into the air. ‘I want you to use your brains, and your imaginations!’ She smiled radiantly around the classroom. ‘Writing can be like flying when you do that, ’ she said.
    Flying??? There was a disbelieving silence from 7B, so thick you could hear the chief school cleaner and her Hoover noisily entering the staffroom at the bottom of the hall. ‘Disgusting!’ snorted Mrs Drayner. ‘What a rats’ nest! A hole! Worse than the kiddies, any day!’The rest of her grim displeasure was drowned in the outraged roar of her machine.
    Kerry Moss spoke up. Her voice was a low ragged growl. ‘My mum says it’s unhealthy to think, ’ she told Ms Dallimore.
    ‘Then you can ask her to see me, ’ the teacher answered calmly.
    There was a gasp from the other kids who’d gone to Short Street with Kerry: Kate and Neema, Big Molly Matthews and Blocky Stevenson. Tough Mrs Moss had been the terror of the Short Street teaching staff. That day in Grade Four, when she’d bawled out poor Mr Pepperel, Mr Pepperel had – left. He’d packed his bags and gone; he was teaching in the country now. ‘Somewhere along the Lachlan, ’ Neema’s doctor dad had told her, for Mr Pepperel’s old mother was one of his patients. ‘Somewhere along the Lachlan, ’ her dad had carolled, ‘at a place called Booligal. Sounds like it should be set to music, doesn’t it? Poor Mr Pepperel!’
    Frail Ms Dallimore would be no match for Mrs Moss, thought Neema.
    Or would she be? Neema didn’t believe the Dracula story – how could you? – but there was something a little unearthly about their English teacher. She was so very pale and her curls were such a dark vivid red, as if her blood was rising up into her hair. Could she be sick? Was that why she was so pale? But Ms Dallimore didn’t seem sick: her movements were brisk and energetic, and when she spoke about writing, and thinking , her big eyes glowed, and her pale face took on a kind of shimmer, like the lustre of a pearl.
    ‘Think, ’ Ms Dallimore went on serenely. ‘Think at strange times.’
    Strange times???
    ‘When you wake suddenly in the middle of the night, and everyone’s asleep except