IN SAM’S DREAM, HE was back at the Bloor Street platform, in front of the M&M’s advertisement. He was there because he was going to find Mr. de Vere. He stretched out his hand to the advertisement, and as he touched the big bright red M&M, the poster swung open, like a door.
At first he thought it was a closet. He could see a cleaner’s mop and a bucket of smelly water. Then, as he listened to the noise of water dripping, he knew he was at the entrance to a long dark hallway. He could smell wet earth and see spiderwebs, but he knew that he had no choice but to go in there. He knew he was the only one who could find Mr. de Vere.
At first he had to fight his way through a forest of brooms and mops, and then he had to push aside a great pile of cleaner’s rags.
After he got past the rags he found himself in a long smooth hallway with low soft yellow lights. There were small neat cubbyholes set into the wall at regular intervals. They were like display cases in a museum, and in each one there was a small silver bowl filled with M&M’s.
Sam took a single M&M and ate it.
Someone said, “It’s magic.”
Indeed this M&M did not taste like any M&M’s he had ever tasted. It was filled with something sweet and runny and golden, like honey, but much, much nicer.
When he looked again the light in the corridor had become golden, and beautiful paintings had appeared on the walls. The carpet on the floor was deep and soft. He knelt down to feel it. When he stood again the hallway had changed once more.
The paintings had disappeared. Where the paintings had been there were small round windows like portholes in a ship. As he peered into a porthole he realized that he could see Mr. de Vere’s secret mansion.
On the other side of the little windows he could see Mr. de Vere himself. He was dressed in a red smoking jacket and gold slippers and he was looking at a beetle with a magnifying glass.
Sam began to hurry along the hallway, looking for an entrance.
“I’m Sam!” he shouted. “Vanessa Kellow’s son.”
Mr. de Vere seemed to have forgotten his beetle. He was walking along beside Sam, on the other side of the wall. He was nodding his head and his long mole-like nose was creased in a smile. “The door is just ahead,” he called. “Go down the slide and into the tunnel.”
And then suddenly it was dark.
“What slide?”
“Just keep walking, you’ll find it.”
Sam took another step, tripped, and then he felt himself falling. He was in a dark, soft, gloomy place. It felt like the cleaner’s closet again, but now a television was playing.
“That’s right,” Mr. de Vere’s voice called. “Now just walk in the door.”
Sam could not find any door He was in a sea of cleaner’s rags. “What door?” he called.
“For heaven’s sake,” Mr. de Vere snapped impatiently, “are you an imbecile? Do you want the money or don’t you?”
“My father wants it, too,” Sam said. “It isn’t just me.”
“Can’t even find a door!”
“I can,” said Sam. “I really can.” And it was at that moment that Sam found a door handle. He grasped it. He turned it. He pulled, and the big brown door swung smoothly toward him.
It was with a feeling of enormous relief that Sam walked into the long, luxurious, carpeted hallway with little yellow lights along the wall and a big arrangement of dried flowers and a huge gold mirror at the end.
Sam blinked and looked around. It took a good minute for him to realize that he had been dreaming. Indeed it was only after he had heard the door swing shut behind him that he realized that he had sleepwalked out of his hotel room.
He was locked out.