with her was damaging to his own reputation and he did his best to distance himself from her inside of school. Daisy had taken his hints rather well, being contented in her own company and seemingly impossible to offend. They still saw one another occasionally outside of school, which secretly pleased Ryan. He knew her not to be a particularly odd person, rather one with different values and interests than most. Deep down he was reluctant to throw away the many years they had shared together, but school was a tortuous place at times. First impressions usually stuck and labels were difficult to shake. Ryan had no desire to become an outcast.
They wandered down the lane enjoying the sunshine and the freshness of the morning.
‘How was your weekend?’ asked Daisy as they went.
‘All right,’ grunted Ryan, flicking through a list of messages on his phone.
‘What did you do with the bank holiday?’
‘Uh, not a lot. Computer games and stuff. Eating and sleeping. The usual.’
‘That’s cool,’ said Daisy.
Ryan could have said that he’d started a nuclear war and she would have probably said the same thing. Incidentally, that was pretty much what Ryan had been doing, but Daisy did not share his enthusiasm for gaming and he did not have the energy for any long-winded explanations.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I did?’ asked Daisy, watching in delight as a peacock butterfly flitted between them, almost entangling itself in Ryan’s locks of curly brown hair, which writhed like tendrils in the breeze.
‘I guess,’ he replied. ‘What…’
‘I visited the Dream Isle,’ blurted Daisy, before the question had a chance to leave his lips.
‘Where’s that? Cornwall or somewhere?’ asked Ryan, feigning interest.
‘No silly, it’s not in England, or even in this world. At least, I don’t think it is. Not really.’
Ryan looked up from his phone with a frown. This was just the sort of thing that had earned Daisy her reputation in the first place. Like on the first day of secondary school when she had introduced herself as Daisy Rose, claiming that her parents had thought her so beautiful that they had named her after two flowers.
‘Please don’t look at me like that,’ said Daisy in earnest. ‘I’m telling the truth.’
Ryan didn’t doubt it. He wondered if Daisy even knew what a lie was, let alone what to do with one. It was just that with her over-active imagination the truth was sometimes a little tricky to get his head around.
‘Okay, sorry,’ he said, deciding to humour her for the time being. ‘Some sort of island, you said?’
‘The Dream Isle,’ repeated Daisy. Her eyes shone with such piercing intensity that it was clear she was very excited by what she was telling him. ‘It’s a place somewhere between here, the waking world, and the world you enter when you are asleep. It’s the place from which all dreams originate.’
‘Right,’ said Ryan carefully. As much as he liked Daisy, she did come out with some really bizarre stuff sometimes. ‘That makes sense, I guess.’
They crossed the bridge over the dual carriageway and followed the road that led down the hill and into town.
‘I’m not sure how I got there,’ continued Daisy. ‘It only happened last night and I was not there for very long.’
‘Oh, so you dreamt it,’ said Ryan, finally cottoning on.
‘Well I guess you could say that. I was asleep at the time. But it is a place outside of your dreams where you end up when a dream finishes. It’s difficult to explain.’
And even more difficult to understand, thought Ryan.
He looked back down at his phone and started composing a message. Daisy had clearly been inspired by the dream she’d had, but to Ryan it was just that; a dream. Nothing more.
There was a period of silence as they headed down the hill into town.
‘There were other people there,’ said Daisy suddenly, not wishing to give up on Ryan so easily.
Ryan looked up again.
‘Other people?’ he repeated. He was not sure why this came as a surprise to him. There were always other people in his dreams. He shuddered again at the thought of the faceless mob and the vagrant who had not been able to get away from them.
‘Real people,’ said Daisy mysteriously.
‘Everyone in dreams seems real,’ replied Ryan.
‘No, no, I mean REAL. As in; other people who were asleep at the same time as me and sharing the same experience. People in London. People in the UK. Everywhere.’
‘Look, I’m sure it seemed that way at the time,’ said Ryan, unwittingly finding himself being drawn into the conversation. ‘I’m always dreaming about other people.’
‘So am I,’ replied Daisy, enjoying his input. ‘But this was different. I spoke to them and they told me all about it. They said that I should try and remember the place and not dismiss it as just a dream.’
‘That sounds all a little too deep for this time in the morning,’ said Ryan. ‘Hey, we’re nearly there now.’
‘Oh, right, of course,’ she replied, as if remembering an appointment that for some reason had slipped her mind. ‘How silly of me. Here I’ve been babbling on about my weekend and I’ve barely given you a chance to tell me about yours. You’ll have to fill me in on all the details later.’
They had almost reached the school gates now.
‘Sure, fine, okay,’ said Ryan, growing agitated. ‘Later.’
‘Later,’ said Daisy, walking through the school gates and seemingly unaware that Ryan had stopped several paces back, next to one of the horse chestnut trees that lined the road.
He watched her go and breathed a big sigh. That had been a close one.
‘BOO!’
The voice was accompanied by a pair of hands coming down swift and hard on his shoulders. He should have been expecting it; Jack Thomas did it to him at every opportunity, but it still caught him by surprise.
‘Ha ha, got you,’ said Jack as Ryan turned to face him.
‘You wish,’ Ryan replied, throwing a punch at Jack’s arm. ‘You do that every single day and you haven’t got me yet.’
‘Yeah right,’ said his friend, returning the punch. ‘You jumped like a big girl. You always jump like a big girl.’
‘Dream on mate.’
Their scuffle ended with Jack, who was much the taller and nimbler of the two, getting Ryan in a headlock and forcing him into submission. Red faced and panting, Ryan straightened himself and picked up his bag, which had dropped to the ground.
‘I could have had you,’ he said as they headed through the gates and into the courtyard that the main school buildings over-looked.
‘Maybe if you worked out for a year or two,’ replied Jack. ‘Hey, what were you doing with Dizzy Rose? You two going out or what?’
‘Get lost,’ said Ryan indignantly. ‘Something about maths homework. You know what she’s like.’ He spun his finger around his ear and went cross-eyed. ‘Hey look, there’s Sophie.’
They looked at one another and then rushed over towards a pretty blonde girl who was walking towards the doors to the main building on her own.
‘Hey Soph,’ said Ryan, pushing Jack aside at the last minute and falling into step beside her.
Sophie Richards had been in the same form group as Ryan and Jack since their first day in the school, and both of them had fancied her from that moment on. She was smart and athletic, as well as extraordinarily attractive, which made it all the more surprising that she gave either of them the time of day. Both boys put it down to their irresistible charms and her enjoyment of the double act they played around her, but the truth of it was that success was not always looked upon kindly in the classroom. Naturally the teachers were always full of praise for an exemplary student, but it was not something that sat well with the other pupils. The girls could be especially vicious and, though Sophie continued to shoot for the stars, she often found it tough to be accepted.
Ryan and Jack had no problems accepting her however, and Ryan was a
lways jealous of his friend, who was in the top sets for English, History and French, which allowed him extra time with Sophie.
‘Hey Ryan,’ said Sophie distantly as they started to climb the main steps.
‘How was your weekend?’ Ryan asked. He felt Jack cuff him on the back of the head as he caught up, but tried to maintain his composure.
‘All right thanks,’ Sophie replied. ‘Netball tournament on Saturday, which we lost, of course.’
‘I’m sure you were great though,’ said Jack, appearing suddenly on her other side.
Suck up, thought Ryan. You’ll get a dead-arm for that later.
‘To be honest, we were all crap,’ replied Sophie. ‘It’s a team game after all.’
‘Well, the rest of the team are all fat and slow,’ said Ryan, seeing his own chance to score some points.
Jack gave him a look, hinting that Ryan was a fine one to be pointing the finger about such things. In response, Ryan took one of his fingers and pointed it at Jack in a very different way.
Sophie giggled.
1-0 to Ryan.
Just as they were nearing the top step, a tall, gangling figure with a thick mop of blondish hair brushed past them.
‘Look, it’s your idiot brother,’ said Jack, grinning at Sophie.
‘Hey! Bambi!’ called out Ryan, and almost on cue Billy Richards tripped over the edge of the large doormat that lay across the threshold.
Sophie laughed again. ‘He’s such a moron.’
2-0 to Ryan.
Following registration, Ryan and Jack headed their separate ways as double English was the first thing on their timetable. It was as dull and pointless as ever, and Ryan