Blair’s Nightmare Read online

  “Did you see him?” Esther whispered, and David moved the paper to one side and peeked around it. Esther was leaning toward Blair so that their heads were close together, Esther’s sleek and brown and Blair’s blond and curly. Esther’s face was a pattern of circles—round cheeks, round eyes and mouth rounded into an “O” of excitement.

  “No,” Blair said. “Not today. Last night I did.”

  “See what?” David asked.

  Esther looked around quickly, startled, but when she saw it was David she ran to him, pulling Blair after her.

  “Blair’s dog,” she said. “Blair’s dog was there again last night, and this morning the food we gave him was all gone.”

  “What food?” David asked.

  “Oh, some bread,” Esther said, rolling her eyes at Blair, “and some other things.”

  The morning before when David and Amanda had caught Blair coming out of the pantry, David had suggested that Blair put back all except one slice. “Why’d you let him keep that?” Amanda had asked. “Why can’t an imaginary dog eat imaginary bread? It’ll just go to waste.” But apparently it hadn’t exactly gone to waste. Something had eaten not only the slice of bread but “some other things” as well.

  “Where was the food?” David asked Blair.

  “In a pan,” Esther said, answering for her twin, as usual. “In an old pan on the bench by the swing tree.”

  “And this morning it was gone?”

  Blair nodded, and Esther said, “Yes. Yes, it was all gone this morning.”

  “Hmmm,” David said. “Well, I guess a dog could have taken it, but there are other things around at night. Like raccoons and skunks and field mice.”

  “No,” Esther said. “It was the dog. Because Blair saw him. He couldn’t see where the food was from the window, but the dog came and sat by the sundial like he always does. And he said thank you. Blair said he said thank you.”

  “Tesser,” David said, reprovingly. Since she’d started school Esther had decided she didn’t like to be called Tesser anymore, but it was a hard habit to break. Particularly when she was acting especially childish. She’d always gone along with Blair’s wild stories, and a lot of the time she really seemed to believe them, but it didn’t seem possible that she really could believe this one. And besides, Dad said that they should stop encouraging Blair’s fantasies now that he was six years old and in school and everything. “Tesser, what are you talking about? Have you seen this dog of Blair’s?”

  “No.” She shook her head thoughtfully. “But Blair’s told me all about him. And Blair says I could see him. Blair says he’s the kind of dog that I could see, too.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, that’s nice. Dogs you can see are definitely the best kind. Much better than invisible ones.”

  “Blair doesn’t see invisible things,” Esther said. “When something’s invisible, nobody can see it, not even Blair. Blair just sees things that are different.”

  “Yeah,” David said. “I know.” He knew what Esther was referring to anyway. For a long time Esther and Janie had had this idea about Blair being able to see and hear things that other people couldn’t. And there had been times in the past when David, himself, hadn’t been too sure it wasn’t true. But it was the kind of idea that most people grew out of somewhere along the line. David had grown out of it. At least most of the time he was pretty sure he had.

  Just about then there was a clatter on the stairs and Janie’s voice yelling, “Twins! Twins! Where are you?” and a moment later she dashed into the room. “Oh, there you are,” she said. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “We were talking to David,” Esther said, and then she clamped her mouth shut in a way that said, “and not anybody else.”

  Janie looked hard at Esther, and her big round blue eyes narrowed. She stared first at Blair and then at David. Then she squeezed in between the twins and put her arm across Esther’s shoulders. She looked as if she’d just switched on to high beam, the way she always did when she was excited or curious. Dad always said that Janie had antennas for picking up other people’s secrets, and right at the moment you could almost see them quivering on top of her head. “What are we talking about?” she said.

  “My dog,” Blair said, just as Esther stuck her face in front of his and shushed at him. Blair stared at her in surprise.

  “You said it was a secret,” she whispered at him. “You said you wouldn’t tell anybody but me.”

  Blair looked worried. “No,” he said. “You said I wouldn’t. And you told David.”

  Esther put her hands on her waist. “Well, telling David doesn’t count,” she said, “because David already knew.”

  All the time Blair and Esther were arguing, Janie was saying, “What dog? What dog? Who’s got a dog? Where is it?” And finally she yelled, “Shut up, Tesser! Shut up!”

  “Shut up, yourself,” Esther said. “It’s Blair’s dog, and it comes every night and sits out by the sundial. And it’s very, very big.”

  Janie looked at David. “Really?” she asked. “Is there really a dog?”

  David shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t seen it. Maybe there’s a dog, but I think it might be a dream.”

  “No,” Blair said. “It’s not a dream dog.”

  “It’s as tall as this,” Esther went on, holding up her hand about as high as the top of her head, “and it has long legs and its face is all whiskery and it has great big eyes and sometimes they’re red.”

  “Wowee,” Janie said. “If I dreamed a dog like that, it’d be a nightmare. I think it’s a nightmare, Blair.”

  Just about then Molly came in and said that breakfast was ready. So the dog conversation was over. After breakfast David got involved in working on the tree house Dad had helped him design for the little kids, and he forgot all about Blair’s dream, or nightmare, until he was reminded that night, just as he was climbing into bed.

  Blair was already asleep, and David was just getting propped up against the pillows for a little bedtime reading. He’d had to get up once because he’d forgotten to cover Rolor’s cage, but now he was back in bed, and the only sound was an occasional cozy mumble from the crow as he settled himself for the night. David sighed comfortably and began to read just as the door opened and Esther and Janie came tiptoeing in.

  “Hey,” David said, “what’s going on? You guys are supposed to be asleep.”

  “We came to see the dog,” Janie said. “Come on, Tesser.” They ran across the room, climbed up on the window seat and pressed their faces against the glass. When Janie cupped her hands around her eyes to shut out the light from the room, Esther did the same thing, and they went on kneeling there with their faces close together against the window and their bare feet and flowery pajama-bottoms sticking out over the edge of the window seat. David grinned. Several minutes passed in absolute silence. He sighed and went back to his book. Quite a long time later Janie said, “Do you see anything, Tesser?”

  “I see the sundial,” Esther said. “That’s where he sits. Right there by the sundial. But I don’t think he’s there now.”

  And Janie said, “I don’t think so either, but I’m not sure. I think we’d better get Blair.”

  “Okay,” Esther said, “let’s get him.” They got down and ran to Blair’s bed.

  “Good luck,” David said. He didn’t bother to tell them not to wake Blair up because he was so sure they couldn’t, but he hadn’t counted on Janie’s good ideas and Esther’s stubbornness. They tried the usual things like shaking and tickling and bouncing, but when those didn’t work, they tugged him to a sitting position, and then Esther propped him up while Janie pushed his eyelids open and made horrible faces at him. In a few minutes they had him sitting almost straight up on the window seat.

  “Look, Blair,” they said. “Is he there? Is the dog there yet?”

  Blair swayed toward the window until his head was resting against the glass and stayed there—until Janie whacked him on top of the head. Then he jumped and
said, “No. He’s not there yet. Not yet.” And then he curled up in a ball and went to sleep on the window seat.

  David went back to reading, and after a while Esther and Janie gave up and started back to bed—leaving Blair where he was.

  “Hey,” David said. “You come right back here and put Blair back to bed.”

  Janie stopped in the doorway. She looked at Blair all curled up on the window seat and gave David one of her super-sweet smiles. “You’re a lot stronger than we are,” she said. “You could carry him.”

  “Huh-uh,” David said. “You got him out—you can put him right back where you got him. I’m reading.”

  It was only fair, but afterwards David wished he’d just given up and done it himself. It took Janie and Esther so long to wake Blair up enough to walk him across the room that when it was finally over it was too late to do much reading. He’d only managed to read a few paragraphs, but with a seven thirty bus to catch the next morning, he knew he’d better stop.

  It was a lot later when he woke up suddenly and sat up in bed. He’d been dreaming but he couldn’t remember what, except that he’d been running, trying to get away from something, and all of a sudden a dog was running beside him. The dog looked up at him and barked, and suddenly David was awake and sitting up, and feeling that something wasn’t right. Across the room, Blair’s bed was dissolved in darkness but somehow, even before his groping fingers found the lamp switch, he knew that Blair wasn’t there. He wasn’t in his bed, or standing by the window, or anywhere else in the room.

  David went first to the window, and just as he reached it, before his eyes had finished adjusting to the change in light, he thought he saw something in the yard below. It looked like a beam of light, and it seemed to come from a spot near the gate that led from the garden into the backyard. But then it was gone, and in the dark window David could see only the reflection of the room behind him. Running to his lamp, he switched it off and hurried back to the window.

  Gradually, as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he began to recognize the dimly seen shapes in the garden below. The moon wasn’t very full, but there was enough light to see the white gazebo quite clearly. Next to it the gray stone of the sundial’s pedestal was barely visible, and just beyond that the big pine tree near the gate threw its long dark shadow across the lawn. But surely he’d be able to see a big dog, even if it were in the shadow. He’d have been able to see it, that is, if it had been there. But, of course, it wasn’t. No dog, and no six-year-old kid in blue pajamas, either. But Blair had to be somewhere, and somebody had to find out where. As Molly said, sleepwalkers sometimes fell down stairs, or out of windows.

  About one minute later when David was on his way downstairs, he met Blair coming up. He was wearing slippers and carrying David’s flashlight, and if he was sleepwalking, he must have been dreaming that he was wide awake. Before, when he’d found Blair sleepwalking, David had been careful not to speak to him, but this time he decided to take the chance.

  “Blair?” he said.

  “Hi, David,” Blair said.

  David took the flashlight out of Blair’s hand and shone it on his face. Blair blinked and smiled. When you shine a flashlight right on someone’s face, it makes most people look weird and evil, but not Blair. On Blair it just turned his hair into a curly halo and made his Christmas-card-angel face look even more so. “Hi,” he said again in the eager, breathless way he always talked when he was excited. David sighed. He knew what the answer was going to be before he asked the question.

  Chapter Three

  IT TOOK DAVID QUITE A while to get back to sleep. A long time after Blair’s breathing had shifted to a deep steady rhythm and he’d started making occasional little murmuring noises, David lay stiffly on his back trying to keep his mind a blank. A blank mind, he knew from experience, was the best kind at that hour of the night. In the evening when he’d just gone to bed, he never tried to keep his mind from freewheeling. At that time of night he could dream up whatever he wanted to and make it all turn out great, like a video game that he was so good at he could win every time. But late at night, when he’d been asleep and then awake again, it all got out of control. As if the joystick was disconnected and all the bombs were hitting you dead center and the blue meanies were gobbling up your Pac-Man. And Pete Garvey was punching you out in front of the whole school, and Blair’s dog was real and dangerous, or even some kind of a werewolf.

  That night most of the gruesome scenes that kept appearing in front of his closed eyelids had to do with what Blair had told him. When David met him coming back up the stairs, Blair had been very excited. Excited and wide awake. David would almost swear to that. As a matter of fact, David couldn’t remember ever having heard Blair talk so much and so fast, and it didn’t seem likely a person could talk better asleep than awake. One of the first things Blair said was that the dog had licked him on the cheek.

  “He licked me right here,” he’d told David, pointing to his cheek. “And he let me pat him.” Blair’s teeth were chattering and his hands were cold as ice. “I p-p-p-patted him,” he said. “He never let me pat him before.”

  David got him into bed and tucked him in, but he kept popping back up again. His cheeks were so red they looked painted, and his eyes glittered with excitement. He told David all about the dog—how it was taller than his head and how its fur was long and gray, and how big and white its teeth were when it smiled at him.

  “Smiled at you?” David asked.

  “Like this.” Blair lifted his lip in what looked like an exaggerated smile—or what, on another kind of face, might have been a growl. David felt a shiver run up the back of his neck like a cold finger.

  “Okay,” he said. “But don’t go out there at night anymore. Okay?”

  “But that’s when he’s there,” Blair said. “He’s not there when it’s daytime.”

  “I don’t care,” David said. “You shouldn’t ever go outside at night, all alone like that.”

  “I wasn’t alone,” Blair said. “That dog was there.”

  The conversation started going in circles after that and then Blair went to sleep—and David lay awake trying, without much success, to keep his mind a blank. The problem was that at that time of night he found himself taking seriously a lot of ideas that he would probably have laughed at in the daylight. Ideas like ghost dogs, or werewolves. There wasn’t any such thing, of course, but if there were, a kid like Blair might see them when other people couldn’t. A kid who just possibly saw and talked to a ghost named Harriette, who was a real person who once lived in the Westerly House and who some people thought still lived there, even though she was dead. And a kid who seemed able to talk to all sorts of animals, like crows and turkeys—not to mention wild cats that nobody else could get close to.

  Those were the kinds of ideas that kept pushing into David’s mind, sometimes in words and sometimes in vivid pictures that turned the inside of his eyelids into wide-screen horror movies. Pictures of a dark garden where a very small boy stood alone and helpless while something moved closer and closer through the shadows—something huge and shaggy with gleaming red eyes and huge white fangs in a gaping mouth. At some point the waking horror movies turned into sleeping ones, and when he woke up the next morning David could remember a lot of bits and pieces of scary dog dreams. Blair’s nightmare seemed to be catching.

  Dad and Molly overslept that morning, and everything was very rushed and hectic. There wasn’t time to tell Dad about the latest development in the dog story, and by that evening David had decided not to tell. He couldn’t very well admit that he’d stayed awake for hours worrying about Blair playing with a werewolf. And it was pretty obvious how Dad would take it if he only told him—again—that Blair had been dreaming about a dog. It was, David decided, a lot like the story of the boy who cried wolf, or dog, as the case might be.

  “Now, let’s not discuss it any further.” David could just hear it. So he wouldn’t discuss it, and he definitely wouldn’t wor
ry about it. As it happened it was a resolution that was fairly easy to keep, because the next day turned out to be a different kind of nightmare. Afterwards, there was something new to worry about.

  In a way, Mrs. Baldwin, David’s homeroom teacher, was to blame. What she did was to get called away to some sort of emergency meeting. When the messenger from the office brought the note, Mrs. Baldwin read it and said, “Oh drat!” and started looking around the room while she got out her purse and put on her sweater. Almost immediately, even before he had consciously figured out what she was up to, David started having a kind of premonition—a feeling that something terrible was about to happen. Premonitions ran in the family on his mother’s side. His mother had had them, and of course Blair did. Blair’s premonitions usually came true, and David’s usually didn’t. Except for certain kinds. Like now, when he seemed to be getting a warning that fate, or something, was about to pull the rug out from under him.

  He was trying to lie low, squinching down and pretending to look for something in his desk, to get out of Mrs. Baldwin’s range of vision, when she called his name.

  “David,” he heard her say, “David Stanley. Would you come up here, please.”

  “Me?” he said warily. By then he had guessed what was about to happen. It wasn’t the first time. For some reason it had been going on all his life. Teachers who had to leave the room picked him out to be in charge while they were gone. He had never wanted to be. Even in the first or second grade when nearly everyone raised a hand if the teacher asked for a volunteer, he had not wanted to be in charge of the class. And now, in the eighth grade—in the eighth grade at Wilson Junior High with Maribell Montgomery and Holly Rayburn giggling and the Garvey Gang raising their eyebrows at each other—there was nothing in the world he wanted less.