Fic: Lost Boys - Chapter 4
“Did you like the policeman, Sam?” The little girl tilted her head. “Do you want to be a policeman just like him?”
Sam crawled backwards in bed, clutching the covers around him. He looked around the room for Other Sam, but didn’t see him.
Sam was alone. With her.
“You can go visit him, Sam. When you’re all grown up. You’ll be policemen together. Won’t that be fun?” She scooted closer.
Sam backed up against the wall. “Where’s Other Sam? What did you do to him?”
“He made a bad bargain and he wants to be nowhere. But don’t worry Sam. You won’t get lonely. I’ll send you to play with the policemen instead.”
“Stop it!” Sam shouted. “Just stop. All of it. Go away!”
“Don’t you want to play policeman, Sam? It’s easy. Just go to sleep.”
She was really close now. Sam grabbed his pillow, and held it up as a shield. “Stop it! Leave me alone!”
“Oh, you don’t want to be alone, Sam. I’ll make you lots of nice friends. Lots of nice dreams. Just sleep.” She reached out, and brushed her fingers over Sam’s eyes, closing them.
Sam couldn’t open his eyes again, could scarcely move at all. He could feel the strength draining from his body. He let out a last, desperate scream.
Then the lights flicked on, and he could move again, and his mother’s arms were around him.
“Oh, Sam,” she said, clutching him, “you were having a nightmare. It’s okay, darling. It’s just a bad dream.” She stroked his forehead and rocked him. “Just a dream. Don’t worry.”
Sam buried his face in her shoulder and clung to her. It was just a nightmare. It must have been.
“Want to tell Mummy about it, darling?” she asked, stroking his hair.
Sam did want to, but he couldn’t find words, couldn’t work out how to explain it so it made sense. And he was a bit big for a cuddle from Mum after a nightmare. He pulled away, and sat up straight. “Just a bad dream. I’m fine now.” He smiled.
Mum put her hands to the side of his face, and stared at him. “You’ve been having a lot of bad dreams, haven’t you, Sam?”
Sam shrugged. “A few.”
“About the crash?”
Sam shook his head. “No, Mum. It’s nothing. Just a dream. I’m fine, really. You can go back to bed. I know you have work tomorrow.”
“Oh, Sam.” Mum swept him up into a hug. “You know if something’s wrong, you can tell me, right? Whatever it is. Don’t worry about my job, or money, or whatever. Just tell me. We’ll work it out.”
“It was just a dream, Mum. Really.”
She let go, gave him one more look, then stood up. “If you’re really okay, then. You get some sleep, too. Growing boys need their rest.”
Sam nodded and smiled as Mum flicked the lights off. He drew a deep breath, and pulled the covers back over himself.
The closet door creaked open. Other Sam poked his face out. “Is she gone?”
---
“I don’t know how she got in. She was just there. You were asleep. I hid. I got scared.” Other Sam looked down at the blankets. “It’s not like I can do anything about her.”
Sam tilted his head. “Do you know who she is?”
Other Sam shook his head. “No. I just...in the hospital. The other hospital.”
“The bad one,” Sam supplied.
“Yes, that one. There was a girl there next to me. She was in a coma. She couldn’t wake up. They had machines strapped to her, and bandages all over her, and lots of doctors and nurses fussing with her. I thought it might be her.”
“There was a girl in my hospital, too! In a coma! At least they said she was. When I went to look, there was only a man.”
“Looked a bit like you?” Other Sam asked. “Same color hair, same eyes?”
“I can’t really remember his eyes.” Sam stared at the wall. “I thought he looked like my dad.”
“Where is your dad?” Other Sam asked.
“Don’t know. He left when I was small. Mum said he loves me, and he’d come back if he could. She won’t explain, though. And he never did come back.”
“Think it could have been him in the hospital?”
“My hospital, or yours?”
“Either one.”
Sam shrugged. “Could have been.” He’d looked about the right age. Shorter hair than in the pictures, but he could have had it cut. And it would explain why Mum never talked about him, if he’d been off in a coma somewhere all these years. “This is too weird. What does that girl want with me, anyway?”
Other Sam looked away.
“She said you made a bad bargain, and you wanted to be nowhere. What does that mean?”
When Other Sam spoke, it was in a very small voice. “Back home, when I’d been bad, I used to hide in cupboards. Close my eyes and wish that I was nowhere. No one. Wish that someone else could be me, so I could just be nobody. When I was really bad.”
“Did you do something bad?” Sam asked. “Is it to do with the bad bargain? Did you promise something really bad?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not? She won’t leave me alone, either. If we work together, we might fix it. Beat her.”
“It’s too late to fix anything.” Other Sam turned and looked Sam in the eyes. “And if I tell you, she might come back.”
---
“I don’t know,” Auntie Heather said. “A child psychologist? That might be a bit much.”
In the kitchen, Sam went still. He hadn’t meant to overhear any of this; Mum was having a grown-up chat with Auntie Heather, which meant Sam was supposed to stay out of their way for a bit. But he’d nipped in to sneak a biscuit, and heard them talking in the next room.
It wasn’t nice to eavesdrop, Mum said. She also said it wasn’t nice to talk about people behind their backs, though. And she didn’t seem to have any trouble doing that.
“I know,” Mum said. Sam could hear her sip her tea. “But I don’t know what else to do. He’s not sleeping well. He has nightmares. Almost every night, I think. I can hear him yelling in his sleep. And he won’t talk about them. Just shakes his head and says he’s fine.”
Ears burning, Sam slowly shut the cupboard. He did have bad dreams, yes. If they were dreams. Sam wasn’t sure. Other Sam saw some of them, so those ones might be real. Dreams or not, they happened every night. Mum must not have heard them all. But he didn’t think a child psychologist could do anything about them. Not unless he could make the little girl go away. And Sam didn’t think anyone could do that.
He was starting to get quite frightened. Not just from the dreams, but from how Other Sam acted. The little girl must be really scary if Other Sam wouldn’t even talk about her.
“Poor little mite.” Sam heard Auntie Heather take a sip of her tea. “It must all be so hard for him. The crash. His arm. And twelve is such a difficult age for a boy.” There was a pause. “Are you sure it’s nightmares? There’s more than one reason a boy that age might make noises in his bed at night. And I don’t imagine he’d be eager to discuss that with his mum.”
Sam closed his eyes, and wished he could sink through the floor. He couldn’t believe Mum and Auntie Heather were wondering if he did that.
“I didn’t think of that,” Mum said. “That’d be a relief. If it were only girls on his mind. There’s this...friend business, though.”
“Right. Who is he again? Sam Two?”
“Other Sam. Sam’s very particular about that.”
“Didn’t the doctors say to give it a few weeks before worrying?”
“I know, but...”
“It hasn’t even been a fortnight. And he looks cheerful enough, running around. Really, if he’s not having nightmares, then it’s only this little game of his you’re worried about, isn’t it?”
“There’s...drawings.” Mum’s voice shook. Sam immediately knew which drawings she meant. “I found them, tidying up his room.”
Sam could hear some paper shuffling, and a gasp from Auntie Heather. Then the sound of the papers being set down.
“Well,” Auntie Heather paused, “it might be good that he drew this. Getting it out of his system, like. Was everything he drew like this?”
“No. He had some of the usual stuff. Superheroes. Policemen. Dogs. He wants a dog, but we don’t have room. Do you think he’d be better if...I could get him that dog he wanted? If we were somewhere with more space, not crammed up in the city like this? I worry...” Mum sounded like she was about to cry. “I worry I can’t do what’s best for Sam. Can’t provide...”
A knot of guilt formed in Sam’s chest. Slowly, he opened the cupboard and put the biscuits back. He wanted to run out and hug his mum, but she’d think he’d been eavesdropping on purpose.
“Now, Ruth. You’ve done your best, and Sam’s turned out well. Things are a bit rough at the moment, but I reckon it all looks worse than it is. I’ll have a word with him, see how he is. I’ll bet you anything, he’ll pull right out of it.”
---
“How’s my lovely boy?” Auntie Heather asked, ruffling Sam’s hair.
Sam smiled up at her. “Fine. You want to sign my cast?” He held it up. “I’ve got Billy, and Mark, and Jack, and Harry, and Brian Smith from up the street, and Brian Wainwright and...”
“Quite a lot of names,” said Auntie Heather, looking down at the cast. “All friends of yours?”
Sam nodded. “Brian Smith did the fighter jet. You can draw something as well, if you like.”
Auntie Heather took the pen and scrawled a signature. Underneath, she began doodling. “Your mum told me you made another new friend. His name’s Sam as well, isn’t it? You met him at the hospital.”
Sam nodded again. He watched Auntie Heather draw a big circle. He hoped she wouldn’t do anything too girly, like flowers. Normally, she was quite cool, but you never knew with aunts.
“Is he here?” Auntie Heather drew two smaller circles inside the big one. “Can I meet him?”
“He’s out.” Sam swallowed, and glanced guiltily at Other Sam. Mum already wanted to take him to a psychologist. Probably best not to act daft. And if people saw you talking to someone invisible they thought you were mad.
“Pity. Another time, then.” Auntie Heather put little diamonds in the small circles, making them into eyes. “Arm not hurting too much?”
Sam shook his head. “It’s fine.”
“You’re a very brave lad, Sam. I’d rather you told me the truth, though.” She put a funny round nose in the middle of the face.
Sam shrugged. “Hurts a bit. Sometimes. Not too much, though.”
“At night?” The face acquired a banana-shaped mouth. “Your mum said you haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Yeah, well...”
“Bad dreams?” Two lines and she’d added a pointy hat. She drew a set of round balls down it.
“Sometimes.” Sam tried not to look at the drawing, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He hoped it would somehow turn out to be a wizard, but he didn’t think that was too likely. “Some of them are bad."
“About the crash?” She added triangular eyebrows over the eyes.
“No.”
“What do you dream about, then?” Stringy hair sprouted under Auntie Heather’s pen.
“Sometimes, I dream about this girl...” Sam broke off. It wasn’t lying, he told himself, if he only told the truth.
He wasn’t sure he believed that.
Auntie Heather looked up and smiled. “Say no more. My lovely boy’s growing up, isn’t he?” She ruffled his hair again. “Girl at school?”
“Saw her in the park. Don’t really know her.”
Auntie Heather laughed. “Eyes met across a crowded playground? Well, don’t let her haunt your dreams too much. Buy her an ice-lolly or something.” She started to put the cap back on the pen, then stopped. “Almost forgot.”
Sam watched as she drew a zig-zag over the clown’s mouth, giving him sharp, pointy teeth.
“Never did look proper without teeth.” She capped the pen. “Hope clowns aren’t too childish. No idea how to draw a fighter jet.” She looked up at Sam. “Well, what do you think?”
Sam couldn’t stop staring at the drawing. It was the clown doll.
The little girl’s clown.
---
“Sam,” Mum asked, “are you still having bad dreams?”
Sam stopped, his spoon halfway to his mouth, and looked up from his porridge. He shrugged. “Some, I guess.”
“About the crash?”
“No.”
“Is...Other Sam having dreams about the crash then?”
Sam looked over at Other Sam, who stared down at the table and nodded.
“He says yes.”
“I don’t blame him.” Mum nodded. “Must have been scary. I know I was scared.”
Sam nodded. “And he was in a really bad crash. Lots worse than ours.”
“How do you mean?”
“His mum and dad died. That’s why he’s here. He’s got no place to go.”
Mum pressed her hands to her face. Then she asked, “Are you sure?”
“What?”
“Is he sure they died? Maybe he was mistaken. If he got a bad fright during the crash, he could have been confused.”
“No!” Other Sam jumped up. “I know they were dead! I saw it! I saw!”
“He says he’s sure, Mum. He saw.”
Mum patted Sam on the shoulder. “If he thought they looked dead, and got frightened and ran off, he could have been wrong, couldn’t he?”
“No!” screamed Other Sam. “No, no, no!” He ran out of the room.
“Hey, wait!” Sam looked back at his mum. “I better go talk to him.” He turned back a moment and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re really clever, mum. I think you’re right.”
---
“She doesn’t half talk rubbish, your mum.” Other Sam rubbed at his eyes. Sam could see he’d been crying. “I’m not stupid. I know what I saw.”
Sam sat down on the bed. “When I was in the crash, I thought Mum was dead. Just for a second. We’d just stopped moving, and she was just lying there, and I was so scared. I just thought...she must have died. Then she sat up and I knew she was okay. I’m thinking, if she had hit her head, had been really hurt, and hadn’t got up when I saw her just then, I’d have been sure she was dead. Did you go off right after the crash?”
“You don’t know!” Other Sam buried his face in his hands. “You don’t know anything.” He started sobbing.
Sam patted Other Sam on the back. It was so normal, him crying like that. It made Sam feel less scared over the whole creepy mess. If Other Sam was just another boy, sad and frightened, then maybe the whole thing was simple enough to sort out.
“They were bleeding, all tangled up, screaming and bleeding, and I couldn’t get out, and I wanted to go anywhere else, be nowhere instead of right there, watching Mum and Dad scream like that, but I was trapped between the seats, and they just kept screaming, and I closed my eyes and wished they would stop, and they...did.” Other Sam crumpled. “I didn’t mean to wish them dead! I was just scared.”
“You can’t wish people dead,” Sam said. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it? I wished myself away, and I wished you here, and I wished myself invisible, and I don’t know what else I can do.”
“Look,” Sam took a deep breath, “did a doctor tell you they were dead?”
“No,” Other Sam, said in a wobbly voice, “but I saw.”
“Then you can’t know, can you? It happens loads of times, people get sick or hurt, and they look like they’re dead, but a doctor comes along, and finds out that they’re still alive, and fixes them right up.”
“Does it?” Other Sam looked up and wiped his eyes.
“All the time! I read a book about it. In the olden days, before they had good doctors, they used to put a bell on the grave just in case they buried someone who really wasn’t dead, and they woke up again. Doctors can tell now, but regular people can’t.”
“Really?” Other Sam had stopped crying completely. His eyes were still red, and his nose dripped a bit.
Sam grabbed handkerchief out of his cupboard. “Yeah. Here.” He handed Other Sam the handkerchief.
Other Sam wiped his nose. “I just...what if they are dead? What if I go back, and they’re not there, and I’m all alone?”
Sam shrugged. “Can you come back here? Go look, then come here again?”
Other Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t work like that.”
“You can stay if you like,” Sam said. “I don’t mind. But my mum might be right. She’s really clever like that.”
Other Sam blew his nose loudly, and didn’t say anything.
---
“Bad boy, Sam,” said the little girl. “You shouldn’t have told him lies.”
“Go away!” Sam snapped. “I’m tired of you. You’re stupid, and creepy, and I don’t think you know anything, really.”
“You don’t want me to go away, Sam.” She smiled. “You don’t want me to go away and leave you all alone. You’ll be lonely without me, Sam. All alone, in the white room that’s too warm, and all you’ll do is sleep. If you have to sleep all the time, don’t you want friends in your dreams?”
“Not you.”
She shook her head, and looked down at the clown. “You scared your mummy, Sam. That’s bad. You made her cry.”
And Sam could hear his mum sobbing, loud, like it was coming through all the walls at once.
“Oh, my Sam,” she said. “My boy. I’d have done anything to help you. Given anything. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Stop it!” Sam put his hands to his ears. “Stop it! That’s your fault. You’re scaring her, giving me bad dream! Everything would be fine if you’d just go away!”
She vanished.
Sam took his hands down. The sobbing had stopped. Other Sam lay in the bed next to him, breathing slowly and steadily. There was no other noise.
Sam lay down, rolled over in bed, and slept quietly the rest of the night.
Sam crawled backwards in bed, clutching the covers around him. He looked around the room for Other Sam, but didn’t see him.
Sam was alone. With her.
“You can go visit him, Sam. When you’re all grown up. You’ll be policemen together. Won’t that be fun?” She scooted closer.
Sam backed up against the wall. “Where’s Other Sam? What did you do to him?”
“He made a bad bargain and he wants to be nowhere. But don’t worry Sam. You won’t get lonely. I’ll send you to play with the policemen instead.”
“Stop it!” Sam shouted. “Just stop. All of it. Go away!”
“Don’t you want to play policeman, Sam? It’s easy. Just go to sleep.”
She was really close now. Sam grabbed his pillow, and held it up as a shield. “Stop it! Leave me alone!”
“Oh, you don’t want to be alone, Sam. I’ll make you lots of nice friends. Lots of nice dreams. Just sleep.” She reached out, and brushed her fingers over Sam’s eyes, closing them.
Sam couldn’t open his eyes again, could scarcely move at all. He could feel the strength draining from his body. He let out a last, desperate scream.
Then the lights flicked on, and he could move again, and his mother’s arms were around him.
“Oh, Sam,” she said, clutching him, “you were having a nightmare. It’s okay, darling. It’s just a bad dream.” She stroked his forehead and rocked him. “Just a dream. Don’t worry.”
Sam buried his face in her shoulder and clung to her. It was just a nightmare. It must have been.
“Want to tell Mummy about it, darling?” she asked, stroking his hair.
Sam did want to, but he couldn’t find words, couldn’t work out how to explain it so it made sense. And he was a bit big for a cuddle from Mum after a nightmare. He pulled away, and sat up straight. “Just a bad dream. I’m fine now.” He smiled.
Mum put her hands to the side of his face, and stared at him. “You’ve been having a lot of bad dreams, haven’t you, Sam?”
Sam shrugged. “A few.”
“About the crash?”
Sam shook his head. “No, Mum. It’s nothing. Just a dream. I’m fine, really. You can go back to bed. I know you have work tomorrow.”
“Oh, Sam.” Mum swept him up into a hug. “You know if something’s wrong, you can tell me, right? Whatever it is. Don’t worry about my job, or money, or whatever. Just tell me. We’ll work it out.”
“It was just a dream, Mum. Really.”
She let go, gave him one more look, then stood up. “If you’re really okay, then. You get some sleep, too. Growing boys need their rest.”
Sam nodded and smiled as Mum flicked the lights off. He drew a deep breath, and pulled the covers back over himself.
The closet door creaked open. Other Sam poked his face out. “Is she gone?”
---
“I don’t know how she got in. She was just there. You were asleep. I hid. I got scared.” Other Sam looked down at the blankets. “It’s not like I can do anything about her.”
Sam tilted his head. “Do you know who she is?”
Other Sam shook his head. “No. I just...in the hospital. The other hospital.”
“The bad one,” Sam supplied.
“Yes, that one. There was a girl there next to me. She was in a coma. She couldn’t wake up. They had machines strapped to her, and bandages all over her, and lots of doctors and nurses fussing with her. I thought it might be her.”
“There was a girl in my hospital, too! In a coma! At least they said she was. When I went to look, there was only a man.”
“Looked a bit like you?” Other Sam asked. “Same color hair, same eyes?”
“I can’t really remember his eyes.” Sam stared at the wall. “I thought he looked like my dad.”
“Where is your dad?” Other Sam asked.
“Don’t know. He left when I was small. Mum said he loves me, and he’d come back if he could. She won’t explain, though. And he never did come back.”
“Think it could have been him in the hospital?”
“My hospital, or yours?”
“Either one.”
Sam shrugged. “Could have been.” He’d looked about the right age. Shorter hair than in the pictures, but he could have had it cut. And it would explain why Mum never talked about him, if he’d been off in a coma somewhere all these years. “This is too weird. What does that girl want with me, anyway?”
Other Sam looked away.
“She said you made a bad bargain, and you wanted to be nowhere. What does that mean?”
When Other Sam spoke, it was in a very small voice. “Back home, when I’d been bad, I used to hide in cupboards. Close my eyes and wish that I was nowhere. No one. Wish that someone else could be me, so I could just be nobody. When I was really bad.”
“Did you do something bad?” Sam asked. “Is it to do with the bad bargain? Did you promise something really bad?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not? She won’t leave me alone, either. If we work together, we might fix it. Beat her.”
“It’s too late to fix anything.” Other Sam turned and looked Sam in the eyes. “And if I tell you, she might come back.”
---
“I don’t know,” Auntie Heather said. “A child psychologist? That might be a bit much.”
In the kitchen, Sam went still. He hadn’t meant to overhear any of this; Mum was having a grown-up chat with Auntie Heather, which meant Sam was supposed to stay out of their way for a bit. But he’d nipped in to sneak a biscuit, and heard them talking in the next room.
It wasn’t nice to eavesdrop, Mum said. She also said it wasn’t nice to talk about people behind their backs, though. And she didn’t seem to have any trouble doing that.
“I know,” Mum said. Sam could hear her sip her tea. “But I don’t know what else to do. He’s not sleeping well. He has nightmares. Almost every night, I think. I can hear him yelling in his sleep. And he won’t talk about them. Just shakes his head and says he’s fine.”
Ears burning, Sam slowly shut the cupboard. He did have bad dreams, yes. If they were dreams. Sam wasn’t sure. Other Sam saw some of them, so those ones might be real. Dreams or not, they happened every night. Mum must not have heard them all. But he didn’t think a child psychologist could do anything about them. Not unless he could make the little girl go away. And Sam didn’t think anyone could do that.
He was starting to get quite frightened. Not just from the dreams, but from how Other Sam acted. The little girl must be really scary if Other Sam wouldn’t even talk about her.
“Poor little mite.” Sam heard Auntie Heather take a sip of her tea. “It must all be so hard for him. The crash. His arm. And twelve is such a difficult age for a boy.” There was a pause. “Are you sure it’s nightmares? There’s more than one reason a boy that age might make noises in his bed at night. And I don’t imagine he’d be eager to discuss that with his mum.”
Sam closed his eyes, and wished he could sink through the floor. He couldn’t believe Mum and Auntie Heather were wondering if he did that.
“I didn’t think of that,” Mum said. “That’d be a relief. If it were only girls on his mind. There’s this...friend business, though.”
“Right. Who is he again? Sam Two?”
“Other Sam. Sam’s very particular about that.”
“Didn’t the doctors say to give it a few weeks before worrying?”
“I know, but...”
“It hasn’t even been a fortnight. And he looks cheerful enough, running around. Really, if he’s not having nightmares, then it’s only this little game of his you’re worried about, isn’t it?”
“There’s...drawings.” Mum’s voice shook. Sam immediately knew which drawings she meant. “I found them, tidying up his room.”
Sam could hear some paper shuffling, and a gasp from Auntie Heather. Then the sound of the papers being set down.
“Well,” Auntie Heather paused, “it might be good that he drew this. Getting it out of his system, like. Was everything he drew like this?”
“No. He had some of the usual stuff. Superheroes. Policemen. Dogs. He wants a dog, but we don’t have room. Do you think he’d be better if...I could get him that dog he wanted? If we were somewhere with more space, not crammed up in the city like this? I worry...” Mum sounded like she was about to cry. “I worry I can’t do what’s best for Sam. Can’t provide...”
A knot of guilt formed in Sam’s chest. Slowly, he opened the cupboard and put the biscuits back. He wanted to run out and hug his mum, but she’d think he’d been eavesdropping on purpose.
“Now, Ruth. You’ve done your best, and Sam’s turned out well. Things are a bit rough at the moment, but I reckon it all looks worse than it is. I’ll have a word with him, see how he is. I’ll bet you anything, he’ll pull right out of it.”
---
“How’s my lovely boy?” Auntie Heather asked, ruffling Sam’s hair.
Sam smiled up at her. “Fine. You want to sign my cast?” He held it up. “I’ve got Billy, and Mark, and Jack, and Harry, and Brian Smith from up the street, and Brian Wainwright and...”
“Quite a lot of names,” said Auntie Heather, looking down at the cast. “All friends of yours?”
Sam nodded. “Brian Smith did the fighter jet. You can draw something as well, if you like.”
Auntie Heather took the pen and scrawled a signature. Underneath, she began doodling. “Your mum told me you made another new friend. His name’s Sam as well, isn’t it? You met him at the hospital.”
Sam nodded again. He watched Auntie Heather draw a big circle. He hoped she wouldn’t do anything too girly, like flowers. Normally, she was quite cool, but you never knew with aunts.
“Is he here?” Auntie Heather drew two smaller circles inside the big one. “Can I meet him?”
“He’s out.” Sam swallowed, and glanced guiltily at Other Sam. Mum already wanted to take him to a psychologist. Probably best not to act daft. And if people saw you talking to someone invisible they thought you were mad.
“Pity. Another time, then.” Auntie Heather put little diamonds in the small circles, making them into eyes. “Arm not hurting too much?”
Sam shook his head. “It’s fine.”
“You’re a very brave lad, Sam. I’d rather you told me the truth, though.” She put a funny round nose in the middle of the face.
Sam shrugged. “Hurts a bit. Sometimes. Not too much, though.”
“At night?” The face acquired a banana-shaped mouth. “Your mum said you haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Yeah, well...”
“Bad dreams?” Two lines and she’d added a pointy hat. She drew a set of round balls down it.
“Sometimes.” Sam tried not to look at the drawing, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He hoped it would somehow turn out to be a wizard, but he didn’t think that was too likely. “Some of them are bad."
“About the crash?” She added triangular eyebrows over the eyes.
“No.”
“What do you dream about, then?” Stringy hair sprouted under Auntie Heather’s pen.
“Sometimes, I dream about this girl...” Sam broke off. It wasn’t lying, he told himself, if he only told the truth.
He wasn’t sure he believed that.
Auntie Heather looked up and smiled. “Say no more. My lovely boy’s growing up, isn’t he?” She ruffled his hair again. “Girl at school?”
“Saw her in the park. Don’t really know her.”
Auntie Heather laughed. “Eyes met across a crowded playground? Well, don’t let her haunt your dreams too much. Buy her an ice-lolly or something.” She started to put the cap back on the pen, then stopped. “Almost forgot.”
Sam watched as she drew a zig-zag over the clown’s mouth, giving him sharp, pointy teeth.
“Never did look proper without teeth.” She capped the pen. “Hope clowns aren’t too childish. No idea how to draw a fighter jet.” She looked up at Sam. “Well, what do you think?”
Sam couldn’t stop staring at the drawing. It was the clown doll.
The little girl’s clown.
---
“Sam,” Mum asked, “are you still having bad dreams?”
Sam stopped, his spoon halfway to his mouth, and looked up from his porridge. He shrugged. “Some, I guess.”
“About the crash?”
“No.”
“Is...Other Sam having dreams about the crash then?”
Sam looked over at Other Sam, who stared down at the table and nodded.
“He says yes.”
“I don’t blame him.” Mum nodded. “Must have been scary. I know I was scared.”
Sam nodded. “And he was in a really bad crash. Lots worse than ours.”
“How do you mean?”
“His mum and dad died. That’s why he’s here. He’s got no place to go.”
Mum pressed her hands to her face. Then she asked, “Are you sure?”
“What?”
“Is he sure they died? Maybe he was mistaken. If he got a bad fright during the crash, he could have been confused.”
“No!” Other Sam jumped up. “I know they were dead! I saw it! I saw!”
“He says he’s sure, Mum. He saw.”
Mum patted Sam on the shoulder. “If he thought they looked dead, and got frightened and ran off, he could have been wrong, couldn’t he?”
“No!” screamed Other Sam. “No, no, no!” He ran out of the room.
“Hey, wait!” Sam looked back at his mum. “I better go talk to him.” He turned back a moment and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re really clever, mum. I think you’re right.”
---
“She doesn’t half talk rubbish, your mum.” Other Sam rubbed at his eyes. Sam could see he’d been crying. “I’m not stupid. I know what I saw.”
Sam sat down on the bed. “When I was in the crash, I thought Mum was dead. Just for a second. We’d just stopped moving, and she was just lying there, and I was so scared. I just thought...she must have died. Then she sat up and I knew she was okay. I’m thinking, if she had hit her head, had been really hurt, and hadn’t got up when I saw her just then, I’d have been sure she was dead. Did you go off right after the crash?”
“You don’t know!” Other Sam buried his face in his hands. “You don’t know anything.” He started sobbing.
Sam patted Other Sam on the back. It was so normal, him crying like that. It made Sam feel less scared over the whole creepy mess. If Other Sam was just another boy, sad and frightened, then maybe the whole thing was simple enough to sort out.
“They were bleeding, all tangled up, screaming and bleeding, and I couldn’t get out, and I wanted to go anywhere else, be nowhere instead of right there, watching Mum and Dad scream like that, but I was trapped between the seats, and they just kept screaming, and I closed my eyes and wished they would stop, and they...did.” Other Sam crumpled. “I didn’t mean to wish them dead! I was just scared.”
“You can’t wish people dead,” Sam said. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it? I wished myself away, and I wished you here, and I wished myself invisible, and I don’t know what else I can do.”
“Look,” Sam took a deep breath, “did a doctor tell you they were dead?”
“No,” Other Sam, said in a wobbly voice, “but I saw.”
“Then you can’t know, can you? It happens loads of times, people get sick or hurt, and they look like they’re dead, but a doctor comes along, and finds out that they’re still alive, and fixes them right up.”
“Does it?” Other Sam looked up and wiped his eyes.
“All the time! I read a book about it. In the olden days, before they had good doctors, they used to put a bell on the grave just in case they buried someone who really wasn’t dead, and they woke up again. Doctors can tell now, but regular people can’t.”
“Really?” Other Sam had stopped crying completely. His eyes were still red, and his nose dripped a bit.
Sam grabbed handkerchief out of his cupboard. “Yeah. Here.” He handed Other Sam the handkerchief.
Other Sam wiped his nose. “I just...what if they are dead? What if I go back, and they’re not there, and I’m all alone?”
Sam shrugged. “Can you come back here? Go look, then come here again?”
Other Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t work like that.”
“You can stay if you like,” Sam said. “I don’t mind. But my mum might be right. She’s really clever like that.”
Other Sam blew his nose loudly, and didn’t say anything.
---
“Bad boy, Sam,” said the little girl. “You shouldn’t have told him lies.”
“Go away!” Sam snapped. “I’m tired of you. You’re stupid, and creepy, and I don’t think you know anything, really.”
“You don’t want me to go away, Sam.” She smiled. “You don’t want me to go away and leave you all alone. You’ll be lonely without me, Sam. All alone, in the white room that’s too warm, and all you’ll do is sleep. If you have to sleep all the time, don’t you want friends in your dreams?”
“Not you.”
She shook her head, and looked down at the clown. “You scared your mummy, Sam. That’s bad. You made her cry.”
And Sam could hear his mum sobbing, loud, like it was coming through all the walls at once.
“Oh, my Sam,” she said. “My boy. I’d have done anything to help you. Given anything. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Stop it!” Sam put his hands to his ears. “Stop it! That’s your fault. You’re scaring her, giving me bad dream! Everything would be fine if you’d just go away!”
She vanished.
Sam took his hands down. The sobbing had stopped. Other Sam lay in the bed next to him, breathing slowly and steadily. There was no other noise.
Sam lay down, rolled over in bed, and slept quietly the rest of the night.