When I was asleep I had a pretty weird dream. Although part of the dream was stuff that actually happened. Like a memory, I guess. But some parts of it were just made up, like a dream. I was in this very cold town. Like so cold there was snow and ice all on the streets. And frost on the windows in the hotel we were staying at. I had gone there on a trip with my parents and this other husband and wife, with their two kids. I didn’t really want to go along, because I didn’t know those people at all. But I had no choice, because I was pretty young at the time.
We had all decided to go out for a walk together. Even though it was nighttime and freezing cold, everyone thought it would be a very good idea. My dad helped me get into all my jumpers. I wore about three jumpers and then this big puffy jacket over top of it all. My dad helped me pull them all tightly over my head to get them on. And I had on a little orange beanie, and some gloves too. I was a big puffball after that. You should have seen me. I looked very silly. I think if I tripped over, I would have just rolled around like a ball and bounced around on the walls and things. But when I was all wrapped up, we went outside. It was freezing out there. I think it was probably the coldest place I’ve ever been. Even colder than a freezer.
We weren’t going anywhere specific; we were just walking around. I remember it was very dark there too, and the street lamps had this very nice light coming off it. You could even see all the mist and stuff in the air beneath the lights. There wasn’t really anyone outside at that time, and so everything was pretty quiet except for us. All the grownups were talking, and the other two little kids were running ahead and kind of hitting each other. They were boys, so they did that sort of stuff quite a lot. I had to spend most of the trip telling them I didn’t want to play, because they kept trying to play all these games with me. Like wrestling and tag and it got very annoying. I was walking behind everyone a little bit, but not too far back. Because my dad kept looking back at me and giving me this certain look. I knew that it meant he didn’t want me to get too far away from them. I don’t know how I knew that. I just did. Sometimes I can read minds. So I stuck pretty close behind them.
I got pretty interested in all the ice and snow that was around us. I’d only seen snow once before that, so it was a pretty exciting experience for me. But all the really good snow is up on the mountains, where everyone goes skiing. All there was on that street was mostly ice. It was sort of like snow but not very fun to play in. You couldn’t really pick up big handfuls of it. It just kind of stuck to the ground in chunks. But I still had quite a lot of fun with it.
I saw a pretty good ice pile and kicked it with my little boot. I picked up a piece that came off and tried to hold it with my gloves. But it was pretty tricky. It sort of started melting and breaking apart, and so I just threw it away quite quickly.
We eventually got to this part of the street where there were a few shops and things. And there was a cafe. My parents really wanted to go inside to get some coffee and maybe some cake, and so we did. Everyone went and sat at a table, but for some reason, I didn’t really feel like it. I think maybe it was because I was wearing all those very warm clothes, and it felt pretty hot inside the cafe. I told my parents I was just going to go play outside in the snow. They didn’t really want me to, but I kind of started nagging them, just because I really didn’t want to sit inside. They eventually said okay, but that I had to stay by the window, so that they could see me.
I was just playing around in the parking lot, looking at the grass. It was all frosty. It didn’t even look green. I thought it was pretty cool. I could see everyone through the glass even though it was steaming up quite a lot. I must have gotten pretty distracted, because eventually, I wandered around the side of the building. And I found the coolest thing around there! It was a huge pile of snow, almost as tall as me! I wondered how it got there, but I didn’t even know. I was just too excited, because it was the first good pile of snow I’d seen on that trip. It wasn’t really perfect; it was still pretty icy. But it was good enough. I decided I would get some revenge on those two boys for always trying to wrestle with me. I started making a lot of snowballs. It worked pretty well, too. Only a couple of them fell apart. The rest were actually pretty good. I was around the side of the building packing all those snowballs, and I was planning my attack. I was going to go back to the cafe and tell the boys to come outside and play some games with me. I knew they would say yes, because they always wanted to mess around playing games and things. Then I would run around to my secret stash and start chucking a lot of snowballs at them. But when I was planning it all, I heard a whole lot of voices start yelling, “Franny! Franny, where are you?”
I knew it was everyone coming out to look for me. I had an even better idea then. I crouched down behind the pile of snow. I decided I would wait for the perfect sneak attack. Pretty soon, someone would come around the corner, and I’d get them with a very good snowball. I heard them keep yelling my name, but I played it very cool. I didn’t move a single muscle. I was just holding my position, waiting for the perfect time to strike. I was very young, I didn’t realise that hiding from them like that was a very bad thing to do.
After a while, I didn’t really hear them anymore. I kept on waiting though, because I didn’t want to ruin my plan. But when I hadn’t heard them at all for quite a long time, I came out of my hiding spot. I went around the front of the building, but no one was there. They weren’t at their table inside the cafe, either. There was just nobody around anywhere. I started getting a bit worried then, because I thought I had done a bad thing. I thought my parents might be worried about me. Or maybe even angry. So I started walking back to the hotel.
It got very cold on that walk. I was really shivering then. I think it was because I had been hiding by the snow for so long, not moving or anything. It had really cooled me down. Then I realised something very stupid. I had left my gloves back at the cafe! I took them off so that I could roll up the snowballs better, because it was too tough with the gloves on. I must have left them lying right there next to all my ammo. I didn’t even get to throw a single one of them, either.
My hands started getting very cold. I decided to put them in my jacket pocket, to try warm them up. But when I did, I found some ice in there! There was ice in my pockets! That’s how cold it was. I couldn’t believe it. My hands felt even colder after that. And then even my ears started getting cold, too. It felt like such a long walk back to the hotel, and my ears were getting frozen on the way. It was just one big long road, so I figured I had to get there eventually. I tried to pull my beanie down over my ears, but it wasn’t big enough. It was this silly little beanie that only covered about half of my head. I don’t even know why I had it. It didn’t really keep me warm at all.
I got very upset during that whole walk back. I was worried I might get frostbite, and my fingers and ears might fall off. But I eventually found my way to that stupid hotel. I don’t know why it had to be so far away. It was this big ugly red tower, and I went inside. Then I accidentally went to room 502 on the fifth floor, even though we were in room 402, on the fourth floor. I didn’t realise until I had already knocked on the door, and this old man answered it.
“Where are my parents?” I said.
“Who?”
Then I saw the wrong number on the door, so I left. I went down the stairs and finally found my door. When I knocked though, my mother answered. It was just her alone in the room. She pulled me inside very quickly. The dream had been pretty normal up until then. But when I went inside, it started getting a bit freaky.
“Where have you been?” she said. She sounded quite angry.
“I was just playing.”
“They’re all out looking for you, you know. You’ve ruined this whole trip.”
I felt pretty bad then and kept trying to apologise. But she just walked around the room, looking back at me every now and again with this pretty evil stare. I tried to say that I was sorry, but she kept saying, “You’ve ruined everything,” and walking around the room. She stopped and said, “You know what I have to do, don’t you?” But I didn’t know what she meant. She went over to the bathroom door and opened it. Then something crazy happened. What came out of the bathroom was a pig. A giant pig. This huge, big, fat thing. The fattest I’ve ever seen.
It started waddling into the living room, and my mum just started saying, “It’s all your fault. You’ve ruined everything.” The pig was walking right over to me, and I started getting pretty worried. It was even bigger than me. I started getting kind of trapped in the corner of the room, trying to back away from the pig. But it kept coming towards me, sort of grunting as it walked. I had my back right against the wall, and I started sliding down, so I was crouching on the floor. The pig was drooling all over the place, leaving a horrible trail along the floor, heading right for me. I was almost lying down then, with my feet out, to try to keep the pig away. It walked right up to me and then smacked against my legs with its head. I started trying to kick at it to keep it away from me. I don’t know why, but suddenly, I wasn’t wearing any shoes any more. The pig kept trying to get to me, and I was trying to kick it away. Then it started snapping at my feet, trying to bite me. It was trying to bite my toes off! I was just kicking at its head as hard as I could, but it kept trying to bite my toes off!
Then I started saying, “Please, Mum! Help me!” But she was just staring at me with those very evil looking eyes from the other side of the room and saying something. I could see her mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying, because the pig was squealing and screaming right next to me. I was so terrified that it was going to eat my toes and then maybe even eat my whole body. It was snapping at me, trying to get me. I was kicking and wriggling as hard as I could, and then I woke up with a pretty big fright.
I looked at my watch and realised I was running a little late, so I had to rush a bit. I was very lucky that the bus was there right when I arrived at the bus stop.
The house I was babysitting at was kind of near my parents’ house, where I grew up from a very young child. The bus went past a lot of places that I used to go when I was living at home. We went past this one street where I used to go for a lot of walks. It was very odd though, because I would quite frequently find birds on that street during my walks—birds that had been injured and couldn’t fly anymore or young birds that had lost their parents. I’ve found maybe ten there in my whole life. Some people I know haven’t even found one bird before. The birds would always be sitting around on that street, waiting for me. And I would find them and start crying because I was so sad that they were hurt and probably scared. I was still very young at the time, which is why I cried so much. But my dad taught me a fantastic trick. He taught me to take my hat off and use it to scoop the bird up into for safety. I would always wear a hat outside, because I didn’t want to catch cancer from all the sun, and also, I could use that hat to collect the birds in. I would very carefully pick them up in my hat, so that it was like a nice little nest for them. Then I’d take them home, and my mum and dad would help me look after them. We would feed them bread and milk and keep them warm until they were better and could fly away. Sometimes, they didn’t get better though. Sometimes, they just died instead.
I got to Charlie’s house at almost exactly 6:00 pm. I knocked on the front door, and Debbie opened it almost as I was still knocking.
“Oh, Franny!” she said very loudly and with a huge sigh. “It’s great to see you.” Debbie always talked very loud, as if she were performing for an audience or something. She would always hold her chin up high and use these huge sweeping hand gestures. She also kind of stuck her chest out very far. She had very large breasts. “I still remember how worried I was when I called you earlier today and I couldn’t get a hold of you. But that’s all ancient history now. Charlie’s just been an angel today; he’s hardly made a peep. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble at all.”
I just stood there smiling at her. I learned a long time ago that she loves to talk a whole lot, and it’s best to just sit quietly and nod when she’s talking to you.
“How are you? How’s university going? Oh, exam time must be a complete nightmare. I just remember how overwhelming it all was when I was younger.”
I just nodded but then realised I should probably say something to calm her down. She gets quite excited. “It’s all okay,” I said.
“That’s good, darling. Charlie’s ravenous today; he’ll probably be asking you to cook him dinner the second we leave. Come in, come in.” Debbie was quite a large woman. Fat, I mean. But I know it’s not polite to say that. So I just say large, instead. She took up most of the doorway. She kind of pulled me inside the house, but she had to turn at the same time, because she was blocking most of the entrance. We did this little spinning dance around each other and swapped positions, so now I was in the doorway and she was standing outside. She leaned right over my head and yelled for her husband to hurry up. I told you about how she was quite loud. He came to the doorway. He’s this kind of small man and quite skinny too. People at school used to make very mean jokes that he was the woman and she was the man, since she was so big, and he was so small. They both taught at the high school I used to go to, and she was always bossing him around and calling for him to hurry up when they were leaving together at the end of the day. But I think they’re both very nice people.
“How are you, Franny?” he said as he was passing me in the doorway.
“I’m good.” He really is a very nice man. He always asks me how I am.
“All right, we have to rush off,” Debbie said. “Sorry the house is a mess, we’ve just bought some new furniture, and we’re still re-arranging.” She ushered her husband down the driveway. “Goodbye,” she called back at me. “See you at ten.”
I waved at them, but they weren’t looking in my direction. I closed the front door and went to look for Charlie.