Slumber (Part 6 of 10)

Last week at Ideasmith. Dunno if I should be feeling happy or sad now.
I'm just withdrawing from everything, watching people running around barking orders.
Lost in my little world.

SLUMBER (Part 6 of 10)

Jenny kept running, her breath coming out in short, noisy pants, her jelly legs ready to give way any moment.

Still no sight of those Twins. She looked up, and oh no! The trees pointed upwards. Had they gone out of their tree-minds?

Up, up, no other way
Quick, 'fore they get away

"But how?" she hollered at the trees, feeling rather foolish.

They trembled, not a whisper.

She unbecomingly chewed her fingernails. "Lenny! Lenny! LENNY!"

Nothing. Had that creature killed him?

"He's not here."

She looked up towards the booming voice. Bo!

What now?

"Don't be afraid," he smiled. "I'm not taking you to the Scatter Witch, or anywhere."

"I-I don't believe you."

He sat beside her and folded his wings. She backed off, afraid.

"Let me tell you a story. A story you'll find most interesting."

"There once was a little girl, Jenny. Every night she hugged her stuffed dragon Bo to sleep, and he followed her to her dreams."

"Be they faraway wonderlands, frightful fantasies or silly everyday happenings, Bo always, always was there. As years went by, Bo became so attached to her dreams - he realised he knew almost everything about them."

"Soon he found out about this powerful Scatter Witch, who dwelled within the dreams of every child. She knew all the little details; the colours, the smells, the sounds. Most of all, she knew how to create new dreams."

"Every night Bo observed her work, and learnt a little more. He learnt to paint Jenny's dreams even when she was awake, each time adding bits and pieces that would help him stage a takeover. Like a Great Bed, for instance, so that there was no other way she could awake."

"Then one night - this night - Bo designed himself the King of Slumber. When Jenny dreamed...tah! She was his to keep. A deal was made with the Scatter Witch, that she help him keep Jenny asleep forever."

Suddenly his queer smile vanished.

"But now I see - the Scatter Witch doesn't need me. There is nothing I can give to buy her loyalty. And I know - when the time is right, she'll strike and send me back as a stuffed dragon."

"So I have been thinking," Bo scratched his chin in mock thought. "The only way is for us both to re-enter the real world."

But that's exactly what I want, Jenny thought.

"But, aha," Bo snapped his fingers, cueing four flying teddies to descend from the clouds, setting down the presumably Great Bed.

"This time, you'll be going back as the dream, and I the dreamer."