Chapter 14

Dislocation

Everything is white noise. I’ve lost count of how many people have asked me if I’m okay today, but I can’t make myself tell any of them. Saying it will make it too real. And what if making it real means that Lily will—

No.

Another fear to keep locked up. It’s getting crowded in here. Crowded enough to cause another panic attack?

‘Hey, Luke, you dropped something.’

Yusef bends and picks up my notebook, splayed open on the cement in front of the school. As he holds it out to me, two of his mates peer over his shoulder. ‘What’s that?’ Ferris asks. ‘Oh my God, Luke, do you write poetry?’

Lionel sniggers, grabs the notebook and reads aloud:

‘Within a cage of rib and blood,

Breathing my air,

The birds await their time,

Their chance to claw a route to freedom.

Their freedom is not mine;

When they escape, I die

A thousand times each second…’

They are all laughing exaggeratedly in a way that says we revel in your humiliation, Luke. My breath catches, and the sound that emerges from my throat must have been made by one of the birds screaming in my chest. I lunge for Lionel, and he holds the book up out of reach like we’re little kids in a playground. But this is not a game, not for me. This is who I am. Who I don’t dare to be. Who I keep locked inside and they are letting them out and they mustn’t see the light of day—

‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Luke,’ Lionel says. ‘Has your sister got a spare pair of panties she can lend you when you wet yourself with embarrassment?

I’m not even aware I’ve punched him until I feel the pain in my hand. The first time in my life. I’m outside myself, looking in. This is right, isn’t it? This will fix who I am?

I lash out at Lionel’s face again. But he’s got over his surprise now, and the punch doesn’t land. He blocks my arm, pushes it away, and I’m spinning with the force of my unspent rage until I collide with the concrete. Then the rage is eaten by the fear and I’m curled into myself, kneecaps pressed into my eyes so I can’t see myself, fingers twitching in my hair.

I hate Aliya. I was alright before she came along and dug up all my buried bones.

Okay, I know—I was never alright. But I knew how to keep the mess hidden. She’s the reason I can’t any more. She’s so real. So alive. So brave.

Leaving me stripped bare, not even air in my lungs to protect me.

To complete the humiliation: the Head’s office. Another first.

‘That’s an automatic three-day suspension for fighting,’ Ms Henderson tells us.

‘That’s not fair,’ I say.

‘Excuse me?’ she says. ‘Were you not fighting, Luke?’

‘Yeah…but Lionel wasn’t.’

The twitch of expression on her face implies that, for once, she’s seeing something unexpected.

‘Let me get this straight: Lionel made you have a panic attack, but he wasn’t hurting you? Threatening you?’

‘He just…said some stuff.’

‘Discriminatory language is a cause for suspension too. Was he being homophobic?’

‘No. He was being sexist.’

She gives an exasperated sigh. ‘You’re both boys, Luke.’

No point saying anything, then, is there? We are dismissed, me with my suspension papers clutched in my hand. Lionel speaks for the first time: ‘Thanks.’

‘For punching you?’

‘For not getting me in trouble.’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘I’m black: it’s always my fault. Is that why you started with me, huh? You thought I liked fighting? Grow up, Luke.’

Mum is home when I drag my feet through the front door. She stares at me: scraped knuckles, shirt ripped from my fall, hair lank with fear-sweat. I wordlessly hold out my suspension notice.

‘This isn’t like you, Luke,’ Mum says. ‘I know things are hard for the whole family, but you’re not making things easier for your sister by behaving like this.’

Great, even this is about her rather than me. ‘I’m just doing what I’m supposed to do—settling it with my fists.’

‘I’ve never told you that you should do that.’

‘The whole world tells me that all the time.’

I race to my room and slam the door. Another stereotype—tick. Splayed out on my bed, I wish I’d let Mum ice my hand before storming out. My room’s almost cold enough to be an ice pack, anyway. The walls are a chilly shade of blue, the posters on them as dead as icicles. I rip them down. Now the blank wall taunts me.

I go out to the shed at the back of the garden. A solitary blackbird sits on the apex of the roof, yellow eye fixed on me. I pick up a stone, pull my arm back. Let the stone drop and rub my chest instead. It’s only one bird.

I come back to my room armed with half a tin of paint left over from decorating the kitchen last year. As it sloshes into the roller tray it brings a ray of sunlight into the room.

Half an hour later, the paint runs out. I’ve covered about a third of my walls (and some spots on the ceiling, a few splodges on the doorframe). Spread on top of the blue, the yellow has a rather sickly hue. It suits me. Halfway between one thing and another.

I feel like a selfish loser for having a big meltdown now, of all times. Lily’s more important. But what if the only way I can help Lily is to sort out my whole much-too-early-to-be-a-midlife crisis?

The realization creeps up on me like the drag towards the top on a roller-coaster. Aliya dreams other people’s dreams because she’s a dreamwalker. If I’m dreaming her, it must be because I’m a dreamwalker too.

I’m over the top and freefalling.

It’s a ludicrous idea. I can’t be a dreamwalker. That’s not even a real thing, is it? But I can’t deny the truth of my experience: these are not normal dreams. They don’t fade from my memory. They are a gateway to another world.

I have something to offer my sister that no one else can: a whole new world, one filled with shamans and magic. A world filled with things that could heal Lily. If I can find a way to bring that magic out of my dreams.

Neema told Aliya that she has to accept who she is to control her dreamwalking. I get why Aliya’s scared to do that; I’m scared, too. This whole thing is crazy.

But, Lily. There is no choice. I have to take the old shaman’s advice to heart: go deep into myself.

Stop being scared, stop hiding.

I’ve left my stomach behind at the top of the ride, but that doesn’t stop the exhilaration.

Luke will never be able to dreamwalk, but maybe Luca will.