ErraticHopper

SPRING COMPETITION NIGHT 7

I'm at home, in my room. It's the holidays and I'm not doing much - just lazing around on the floor, in a T-shirt and shorts and looking out of the window. It's sunny outside.

I receive a delivery of a big box of pastries, from school, for the prefects. There's a note from a teacher explaining that, since we're not at school, she sent them here instead (FYI I'm the head of the prefects). I guess she wanted me to distribute them, but it's the holidays after all, and I don't know where everyone lives. Also I really can't be bothered. I'm in a lazy mood. I eat some - probably more than my fair share - close the box and lay back down.

The next day I wake up to a message in the prefect group chat (from someone who's not even a prefect IRL). She mentions the pastries and that everyone's looking forward to them. I start to feel guilty for not handing them out and remember some other things I forgot to do. I hope everyone won't notice how scatterbrained I've been.

I go into school. There aren't many people, but in the school hall are some younger year girls in the centre of the room. They've built a rather wobbly (I tried to climb it) staircase out of some big plastic boxes and a desk chair, up to a high table. One of the steps is a block of something white and strange - I think they said it was squid - and a blonde girl refuses to go up it. The girl who placed it there complains that her friend doesn't understand the true usefulness of squid. I laugh at the girls and ask what they think they're doing.

I go up to a whitewashed classroom on the second floor, which seems to be our room in this dream. There's no-one in there but plenty of sunlight coming in through the windows. I think that I'd better get the pastries - and then I remember that I threw them out! I have a vision of the box left on top of a broken desk chair and a heap of cardboard boxes in an alley. I panic. What should I do? I know everyone else will arrive soon. I leave the room and run down the hall. In another room, bizarrely, I find the box. Although I don't understand how they could be there, I'm relieved and bring them back to the classroom.

Such a strange dream... At least things worked out in the end. Actually this is the first time I've eaten food in a dream! A milestone - though I don't think it counts for points if the dream isn't lucid. I can't remember how they tasted, alas.

P.S. I like to dress smartly and I would never wear a t-shirt and shorts, even on holiday!

My childhood friend's house. This house is small (ish), old, rickety and crooked. It has some charm to it. There are several articles of furniture in lime green, enough to form a colour theme. From the kitchen, with an oven squeezed against the wall on the uneven wood floor, carpeted stairs rise up twisting round against the walls. The treads of the stairs are sunken with age.*

After we climb some way up the bizarre stairs, we get to the top, our heads almost bumping against the ceiling. The stairs finish in a dead end, the banister folding neatly around to form a balcony of sorts. Beyond, seemingly attached to the ceiling, are a large partly-open leather bag, its zipper facing towards us, and an irregularly shaped red box with a centre clasp opening. He tells me there are two spare rooms at the top of the house and he has the bigger one (his parents have the other). They have high security. To enter his room, which was once his grandma's, one must be his grandma or a trusted individual and say the correct password. I don't know any password and feel uncertain as I squeeze my head and shoulders into the opening of the box. But the next moment I'm inside the room and so is he.

His room has light grey carpet, a heavy old wooden table in the centre of the room surrounded by half-height bookshelves. A tall window in the corner opposite the entrance is framed by heavy floor-length curtains. The view outside is of a bright white sky interspersed with pale clouds.

I don't remember what we talk about but later on he has to go talk to someone else, another girl. I leave the house. But soon after I go back in. I'm jealous. I'm surprised at myself for feeling this way - for in real life, I don't have the slightest crush on him. I creep back up the stairs until I am again in front of the strange double entrance. From the further one (to his parents' room) I hear voices. That's where they went. I once again insert my head and shoulders into that box to enter his room while holding a small, dusty old blue cloth-bound book. I crouch down and place the book on his table trying to be as quiet as possible. I lean against the wall intending to listen in, but I don't hear anything.

From time to time I hear noises. I hear his parents come back home and move about below, and try to hide against the thick curtains unless they hear me. But they evidently don't, so I come out. Then I hear him returning to his room. I start to hide behind the curtains again but I realise I won't be able to stay hidden for long while he's here. So I bravely stand up as he enters. He sees me, is surprised for a moment, but laughs. I tell him, embarrassed, that I'm only there for the book. But his teasing eyes say he knows that's not the truth. Blushing hotly, I say goodbye and leave his house, hurrying away down the road.

*It need not be said that his real house looks absolutely nothing like this.