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“I’m serious. My soul does leave my body when I am asleep.”
“Nonsense, Gaby,” my mum exclaims as she turns away from me and walks across the cream coloured tiles in the kitchen toward the counter where the kettle waits for her.
“Why won’t you believe me?” I ask with a definite tone of despair in my voice.
She sighs and even without turning back to me I can tell she is probably rolling her eyes. “Because it is highly improbable. Your soul cannot separate from your body. Your soul only leaves your body once, and that is when you die.”
Feeling a little frightened, I slip off the chair by the breakfast counter and storm out of the kitchen.
Am I dying every night?
I brush past my dad as he comes down the stairs. He is freshly showered and shaved; the spicy scent of his aftershave surrounds me in a pleasant, familiar smell. He beams a cheerful smile in my direction while I grimace. He is a morning person, and it really works on my nerves that anybody could be so happy so early in the morning.
“Good morning, Sunshine.”
“Morning,” I mumble on my way past him. Only he will know why he would call me Sunshine when I obviously look more like a Thundercloud.
He starts to whistle a tune, not in the least bothered by my mood—as always. I am definitely not a morning person, and thus one of the reasons why I believe my soul goes gallivanting at night when it is supposed to be resting. I always wake up tired, no matter how long I sleep, and I always seem to wake up violently, with a jerk, which is probably when my soul rushes back to my body after a night of wandering around.
In my room, I trip over the pile of laundry in front of my bed and knock my knee against the wooden leg of the foot-end of my bed. I curse under my breath and make a sideways flip onto my dishevelled bed. Usually, I do make my bed before I go down to get breakfast, and typically my room is relatively tidy. Not as neat as my mum wants it to be, but I know where everything is and if she makes me clean more than I usually do, I will be lost and looking for my stuff continuously. I like to refer to my decorating skills as organized chaos.
I mumble to the ceiling, “There must be an explanation.”
I am one of those people who are referred to as ‘sleeps like the dead,’ because once I fall asleep, I am gone—like genuinely gone, and I doubt even a bomb exploding right next to my bed can wake me up. I always wake up brutally, with a dry mouth and a sore throat. Most importantly, my dreams are vivid, multi-coloured, mega screen three-dimensional dreams. When I wake up it feels as if I have really experienced the things I dream. I do not dream silly things like suddenly acquiring the ability to fly or turn into candy floss and then proceed to eat myself like Isaac, my brother, did the other night. My mum rushed to her computer that day to Google the meaning of his dream, because it was a weird dream, yet when I try to talk to her about my dreams and the fact that I believe my soul goes roving at night, she scoffs. It is really not fair.
Why does she give more credit to his dreams just because he is eleven years old, and she thinks my theories are silly because I am four years older than him? I am not a child anymore, as they keep telling me, so my speculations should be correct, and they should be concerned when I tell them that I truly, honestly believe my soul leaves my body every night.
Deep in thought, I stare at the ceiling as if the off-white paint will give me the answers I am looking for. “Where does my soul go?”
My mum walks past my room and calls, “Come on, Gaby. Get ready for school now.” She hesitates in front of the door and, with a scowl on her face, she adds, “For heaven’s sake, tidy up your room.”
With a grunt, I heave myself up and off the bed. I tiptoe over the clothes between me and the door and swing it closed.
At my wardrobe, I page through the clothes hanging from the rail. It is civvies day at school, and I feel like wearing a dress, which in itself is peculiar. I am not even sure whether I have a dress decent enough to wear to school.
I find a dress I forgot I had. Pulling it from the hanger and clutching it in my fist, I walk over to the full-length mirror in the corner of my room.
I hold the dress up in both my hands so that it hangs from my shoulders and I turn my head sideways as I contemplate my choice. Choosing the right outfit can sometimes be extremely complicated, especially if a person wants to blend in.
Yesterday I wore my usual uniform of grey school pants, powder blue shirt, navy and gold striped tie, blue jumper, and navy blazer, but yesterday is yesterday. Usually on casual days at school, I would wear my favourite faded jeans and a T-shirt, but after the dream I woke up from only an hour and a half ago, I feel girlie.
I pull my nightgown off and slip the dress over my shoulders. Moving my hands down my body to my waist, I smooth the material and then twirl in front of the mirror. A sock gets tangled on my foot and I fall on my hands and knees. Thankfully, the other clothes collected on the floor cushion my fall. I could have ended up with seriously bruised knees, and the pretty pale blue dress I am wearing comes just above my knees in soft frills.
In one motion, I sweep the entire bundle of clothes on the floor in my arms and dump them into the hamper in the corner of my room, behind the door. I think some of the clothes in that bundle are clean, but no harm will be done to give them a second wash, I justify my actions.
Hurriedly, I fling the comforter across my bed and scatter the cushions. I always tell my mum they are supposed to look spread out on the bed when she comes in to look around. She never actually says it, but I know it is the weekly inspection to make sure I am not hoarding alien immigrants, lost puppies, pet rats or snakes, or, even worse, growing my own strain of bacteria on plates and in cups which I might have forgotten to take down to the kitchen.
At the bedroom door, I glance across my room quickly. It is as clean as I want it to be, and already I have the impression my room is waiting to welcome me back into its comfort and cosiness.