The Other Side Of Dreams

By Tanya Allan
Take two young people: - John in England and Amy in California. Take a common factor: - both recognised that they had been born into the wrong gender. As they grow up, they realise that their bodies are in imminent danger of changing into something neither wants.
 
Result: - Two very unhappy souls.
 
Their dreams are the only place they can find solace. Then they start to dream of each other, and to get a little glimpse of the other’s life. Over time they learn how to crossover at will and not just when asleep. They start to leave childhood behind as puberty beckons. The lines become blurred, who is where?
 
Solution: - One of them takes the bold step and suggests they try to live each other’s lives. Will it work?
 
Find out……………………….
 

Tanya's Book Shop where she is selling her works in book form is at http://tanyaallan.authorshaunt.com/shop.php . Please Visit!

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Originally written in 2006 - never posted, Reworked & Revised in 2009.
 
I have Dedicated this story to Sephrena Miller, for all of her help and guidance... May all her dreams come true!
 
The Legal Stuff:The Other Side Of Dreams  ©2006, 2009 Tanya Allan
 
This work is the property of the author, and the author retains full copyright in relation to printed material, whether on paper or electronically. Any adaptation of the whole or part of the material for broadcast by radio, TV, or for stage plays or film, is the right of the author unless negotiated through legal contract. Any commercial use by anyone other than the author is strictly prohibited.
 
This work is fictitious, and any similarities to any persons, alive or dead, are purely coincidental. Mention is made of persons in public life only for the purposes of realism, and for that reason alone. Certain licence is taken in respect of medical procedures, terms and conditions, and the author does not claim to be the fount of all knowledge.
 
The author accepts the right of the individual to hold his/her (or whatever) own political, religious and social views, and there is no intention to deliberately offend anyone. If you wish to take offence, that is your problem.
 
This is only a story, and it contains adult material, which includes sex and intimate descriptive details pertaining to genitalia. If this is likely to offend, then don’t read it.
 
 
Chapter 2
 
 
By the time Amy was getting up, John was having lunch.

Like Amy, he was excited by his dream. He was also worried, but wasn’t sure why. He was also a little perturbed at his elder brother’s attitude towards him when they got up. Miles was usually nasty, but he glowered at him dreadfully this particular morning.

“Are you okay?” his dad asked, just before he left for work.

“Yes thanks, dad. Why?” John replied.

“Well after last night, you seemed a wee bit strange.”

“Last night?” John asked, his pulse quickening.

“Aye. You and Miles had a spat. Do ye not remember?”

“A spat?” asked John frowning.

“Aye, a wee fight. Miles was by your bed and he said you hit him. He also said you called him nasty names,” James said looking at both boys.

Miles looked daggers at John, who looked blank and completely innocent. James repressed a smile. His wee boy was somewhat of a shy and rather quiet boy, so he was well aware that Miles was the more aggressive of the two.

“He called me an asshole,” said Miles, who couldn’t resist a dig at his brother.

John looked at him blankly with his mouth open.

“I did not!” he said, quite firmly and emphatically.

“Did too! And you put on a silly American accent.”

John remembered his dream.

He remembered the American lady, the nightdress and the girl bit.

He sat down and went a little red.

James arched an eyebrow. Was this an admittance of guilt?

“John?” his father asked.

“I had a dream, but Miles wasn’t in it. I’d never hit him, he’d only hit me back.”

“Well, what was the dream, son?”

“I dreamed I was in America and I was in someone else’s bedroom,” he said, but left it there.

“Was anyone else in the dream?”

“Just a girl and her mother.”

“No fighting or monsters?”

John shook his head.

“Just a girl,” he said, a little wistfully.

James, knowing when John was telling the truth, let it go there.
 

*          *          *
 
By lunchtime John was still able to remember the dream in its entirety. He sat next to Jacquie, noticing that Kenneth and his brother were keeping their distance.

“Are you okay?” she asked, realising he was even more quiet than usual.

“I had a dream last night,” he said, as he opened his lunch box.

“Oh yes?”

“You know you said I was more like a girl?”

“Only because of your long hair,” she said.

“Well, I dreamed that I was a girl. Only I was in a strange bedroom in America. I was alone and wearing a pretty nightdress with teddies on it. The room was the same size as mine, but Miles wasn’t there. When I looked in a mirror, I saw someone else. I was a strange girl with very long yellow hair. There were girl’s things everywhere, but still in their boxes.

“I even saw the American cars in the street outside the window, and they had Californian number plates.

“A strange woman came in and put me back to bed. She must have been the girl’s mother, but I’ve never seen her before. It was really strange.”

“How do you know you were a girl?”

John went red.

“I lifted up my nightdress, and I had girl’s bits.”

“How do you know they were girl’s bits? You might have had your own bits stuck between your legs.”

John had a little smile.

“It was girl’s bits. I had a crack and everything!”

Jacquie stared at him. He was unusually specific.

“How weird. What did it feel like?”

He smiled. “I liked it. Miles wasn’t there and I was a girl. It felt so right.”

“Why didn’t you stay in the dream?” she teased.

“I wish I had,” he said, with such a sad expression that Jacquie felt sorry for him.

Just after lunch Kenneth appeared and made to strike him. John flinched and Kenneth had laughed and walked off, calling him a sissy.

School came to a close without further incident, but Miles had already left as usual by the time that he and Jacquie made their way home.

“Do you want to come in for a bit?” she asked.

John knew that Miles was home first and would be a pain, so he agreed.

“Hi kids. Are you better today, John?” Jacquie’s mother asked.

“Yes thanks, Mrs Mann,” John replied.

They went up to Jacquie’s room and sat on the bed.

“So, what was this bedroom like?”

John took out a pencil and a piece of paper and drew a floor plan of the room as he remembered it. He told her where the make up head was, the pony and the Barbie in its box.

“It looked as if she never played with any of them,” he said.

Jacquie went to her cupboard and produced a head just like the one he had seen in the other room.

“That’s it,” he said.

“No it isn’t. It’s one like it,” said Jacquie, ever correct.

She showed him how it worked, with the special make up and hair products.

“Have you ever worn makeup?” she asked.

“No, why should I?”

“I just wondered. I think you’d look really pretty with makeup on,” she said.

John was confused. He knew boys didn’t wear makeup, yet he was inordinately curious to know what he would look like. He also didn’t want to appear eager.

Sensing his inner conflict.

“Look, lots of boys wear makeup, all the pop groups do, and they aren’t sissies,” she told him.

Twenty minutes later, she had made him up. Eye shadow and lipstick, nails and clip on earrings. She had been right, as he looked gorgeous.

John stared at his reflection in awe.

“She was prettier,” he declared.

“Who was?”

“The girl in my dream.”

“Oh.”

John was transfixed by his reflection.

“Why don’t you try on one of my dresses?” Jacquie suggested.

John was torn again.

“It’s just some fun, and no one will notice,” she said.

With a small smile he agreed, so she took out a pale blue dress, helped him out of his shirt and shorts and into the dress.

John was transported to another realm.

For the first time in his life (apart from the dream) he felt content with who he was. He had never known why he felt something was missing, or what that something had been. Now he knew.

“Gosh, you look just like a pretty girl. No one would ever know you were really a boy,” Jacquie said, actually meaning it.

“I can’t call you John, so what do I call you?”

John thought back to his dream.

The woman had called the girl Amy.

“Amy,” he said.

“Why Amy?” asked Jacquie, baffled.

“That was the girl’s name from the dream,” he explained.

“Hi Amy, I’m Jacquie,” said Jacquie with a big smile.

‘Amy’ smiled back and John slid into the back of his mind for a couple of hours.

Jacquie was delighted, for the first time in ages she had another girl to play with and they played proper girl’s games. There were six other girls from the village who were in their class at the school, but they weren’t really the kinds of girls that Mrs Mann wanted Jacquie to play with. The other girls, some of who were friendly with Jacquie, lived outside the village, so they only got together when arrangements were made with parents.

Jacquie kept looking at her companion, and was quietly surprised as to how much like a girl ‘Amy’ was.

“Kids! John ought to go home for tea,” Mrs Mann shouted up the stairs, bringing the game to a close. They had lost themselves in Barbie’s world, and John (Amy) had never been happier.

Jacquie helped John become the little boy again, but as he walked home in his shorts and shirt, he felt he was missing something.

Tea was subdued, as Miles was still cautious of his brother. As John showed none of the defiance he had displayed during the night, after tea, Miles started to tease him over anything and everything he could.

“What did you do at Jacquie’s?” his mother asked.

“Nothing much. Just played with some of her stuff,” John replied.

“Girl’s stuff! I bet you liked playing with dolls and sissy things like that,” said Miles, with a nasty tone to his voice. He saw the look his mother gave him and wisely shut up.

Much to his mother’s surprise, John was eager to go to bed, and he required no second telling. Miles, on the other hand, procrastinated and almost had to be physically taken upstairs. As she watched them getting into bed, she wondered how it was possible for two boys of the same parents to be just so different.

Miles was an independent boy, but he was bright and with the exception of his treatment of his brother was actually a nice boy and got on well with nearly everyone. He was keen at sports and was showing particular aptitude for soccer and cricket.

James would offer to take his sons to football matches at the weekend, but usually found that John was reluctant to go. He simply had no interest in those sports that other boys seemed to be so keen on.

John was her baby. And a more placid and delightful child she couldn’t imagine. Sometimes she wished he would display some of the sheer objectionable nature of Miles, just to prove he could. But he was more than content to do what he was told. His only stubborn streak was when he was told to go to bed and he was reading.

He loved his books and he was a more advanced reader than his older brother. But not tonight.

He was in bed, washed and teeth done before she managed to get Miles up to the room.

Eventually Miles was in bed, and she kissed them both goodnight.

“Now, no mucking about tonight. I don’t want any repetition of last night,” she said sternly, looking at Miles.

“It was him,” he muttered and then was quiet. He knew that his record was such that she would never believe that John could start anything.

She turned the light out and left them.

Miles thought about getting a quick strike in before they went to sleep, but decided against it.

John had his eyes closed, and was trying really hard to go to sleep. He so wanted to dream again.
 

*          *          *
 
California is about ten hours behind the UK, so when John was going to bed, Amy was having lunch.

She sat with a small group of friends and, like kids everywhere, they swapped the contents of their lunch packs amongst themselves. What Moms considered good for them and what they were prepared to eat was often poles apart.

The dream had affected Amy more than she would admit. At one point in Math, she was almost unable to concentrate due to her preoccupation with her memory.

“Miss Standen, would you care to join the rest of the class?” her teacher jolted her back to reality.

“Sorry Miss Bruce, I guess I had a moment,” she said, smiling sweetly. Miss Bruce was a sucker for sweet smiles.

“Well, let’s hope the moment has passed. How about the problem on the board?”

So life went on.

Paul was eager to see what drink she had, as his Mom always gave him fizzy water on account of the E numbers in soft drinks.

Amy wasn’t that bothered. In fact she preferred water, so happily swapped her jungle juice.

“Wazup?” asked Paul, clearly aware that something was bothering her.

“I dunno. I can’t help thinking about the dream. It was so real.”

“Hey, wouldn’t it be great if it was a body swap. You could have a movie made of it,” Paul said.

She smiled weakly.

“Fool,” she said, and he grinned.

“So, what was this guy like? The guy you changed into, I mean.”

She shrugged.

“I dunno. I never got to look in a mirror. He was about my age, I guess. The other boy was nice looking, but he was real mean. He was a little bigger than me, so I suppose he was a bit older.”

“So, what ya gonna do if you get in there again?”

She shrugged.

“I guess I could leave a message, or something. I’d like to get to know him. Wouldn’t it be neat if we became pen-friends or something?”

“What if he’s an alien and is after your body?”

“Shut up Paul, don’t be a wise-ass.”

Paul grinned.

“So, if you wanna be a boy, do you reckon he wants to be a girl?”

Amy hadn’t thought about it.

She shrugged again.

“I dunno. I guess, maybe. I can’t think why. Being a girl sucks,” she said, and Paul laughed.

“No one else seems to mind.”

“No one else has my Mom,” she said.

The bell went and they made their way back inside for afternoon classes.

“Oh no, I hate Geography,” she said.

“Just chill, sleep with your eyes open,” suggested her friend. Amy grinned.

They sat down, and Mr Willis wheeled in the TV and VCR for a showing.

“Hey guys, we’re going to look at Hydro electricity. I have a real fine film on the building of some famous dams and how they make Hydro-electric power.”

The lights were extinguished and the class settled down to watch.

Amy lasted five minutes. The mere sight of the construction of the Hoover dam sent her to sleep.
 
 
Chapter 3
 
 
Amy immediately knew she had ‘crossed over’.

This time, she simply lay there in that strange bed, knowing that she could wake up any second back in the classroom. She searched out with her hand, finding the penis inside the PJs. She grinned in the dark. Hoping that John was in her Geography lesson, she sat up and listened to the breathing of the other boy.

As far as she could tell he was asleep, so she slipped out of bed.

She crept past his bed and opened the door. She could hear a TV downstairs, so she tiptoed across the landing and into the bathroom. Luckily the door was open, so she could tell which one it was.

She shut the door and switched on the light. There was a mirror on the front of the cabinet above the basin. She looked into in and a good looking little boy with freckles looked back at her.

She smiled.

Not too bad, she thought.

He had grey eyes and a slight frame. His light brown hair curled down past his ears and collar. Amy judged that he was about the same size as she. She dropped the pants.

She giggled when she saw the equipment, spending a couple of minutes examining them in great detail.

“John, is that you?” the woman’s voice asked, making her jump with surprise.

“Yes,” she replied, with her heart beating rapidly. She quickly flushed the toilet.

“Are you okay?”

She opened the door and smiled, looking at the woman closely.

She was a nice looking lady. The same sort of age as her own mother, but less fussy about clothes. She was wearing jeans and a pullover.

“Can’t you sleep?”

“I’m fine,” she said, trying to copy her clipped English accent.

“Okay. Back to bed, there’s a good boy.”

She then bent over and planted a kiss on the top of the boy’s head.

Amy went back into the room and got back into bed. The other boy was still asleep.

She waited for the footsteps to go back downstairs, and then, sitting up, she looked round the room.

On her bedside table were a clock, a bedside lamp and a flashlight. She picked up the flashlight and, shielding it with her hand, she switched it on. She found a pencil and a small note pad.

Not knowing how much time she had, she started writing.

She managed several lines and then thought carefully about where to put it so no one else would find it.

She hunted through the small drawer and found a little diary. She opened it.

She found that the boy had filled out the front page.

She read that he was called John Robert Brightwell. His date of birth was three weeks ahead of her. He was born on the 7th March 1978, while Amy had been born on the 2nd April of the same year. He went to a school called the Churchill Village Combined School, whatever that meant.

They lived in the village of Churchill and it was in Oxfordshire, England. The house was called the Pines, and it was at number 2 Stowe Road.

She memorised it all and then got back into bed.

She wondered how easy this was going to be, and how often it would happen.

She worked out that the crossover happened after both were asleep at the same time and woke up. They crossed back when they fell asleep for the second time.

She panicked, because she was due to finish the Geography lesson any minute, so if she (as Amy) didn’t go back to sleep, then they couldn’t cross back!

She lay there, but sleep just wasn’t coming.

She started to panic, because she had been here for at least half an hour and the lesson must be ending soon.

She tried to imagine what was happening and it was totally mind-blowing.

John would be awake in her body and in a strange classroom in America. He would be dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, but wouldn’t know to change back into the dress. Then he’d have to get the bus home, have supper with Mom and Dad.

OHMYGOD!

Her pulse quickened, and she felt herself become lightheaded with worry. She had no choice but to lie there and fret.
 

*          *          *
 
John felt odd.

He had been lying down in his bed, but now he was sitting in a chair. It was a very hard and uncomfortable chair at that.

He then noticed a fuzzy TV screen in front of him, but it slowly swam into focus. He was dreaming again, he thought. However, he slowly became aware of the fact that he wasn’t alone, as he was one of many in a classroom and they were all watching a TV show on the Hoover dam.

He had seen a similar programme before, and as there was an atlas on his desk, he worked out which subject was being taught. He loved Geography in any case.

The fact he was back in the girl’s body again dawned on him, as soon as he felt the ponytail swish about when he turned his head. He slowly received full awareness of everything. He looked down, noting that he was wearing girl’s shoes, a pair of jeans, a pale blue tee shirt and that there was a backpack on the chair back.

The TV show ended and the lights came on.

“Okay kids. Paul, wake up! Come on now, this stuff is important. We need to learn about how we get our power, and all the other ways apart from using the oil and gas. Who can tell me some other ways of getting power, apart from oil, gas and hydro?”

John/Amy stuck up her hand, automatically.

“Amy?” said Mr Willis in some surprise. This was the first time she had ever put her hand up in his class.

“Wave, wind, nuclear, solar and fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. Sir”

Mr Willis was shocked into silence, and there were several titters around the class. He walked over to see if she read it from a book, but found nothing open on her desk.

“Very impressive. And can you tell me an example of some of these?”

“Coal, Didcot power station, Oxfordshire, England. Wind, well, there are several, some in Arizona, some in California, north east England, Germany, and Holland. Nuclear, they are all over now, Sellafield for one. I’m not sure about wave, but I saw a programme about them making the things called ducks. They are the things that bob up and down and act as generators. They are called ducks because they are shaped like a duck’s head, and pivot on the broader end.”

There was silence in the class. Amy had spoken with no accent at all. Or rather, she spoke with an English accent, so Paul started getting a creepy feeling.

He looked at his friend, observing that something was very odd. Her usual expression of controlled boredom was missing. She was smiling and there was something odd about the way she held herself.

No one seemed to notice that her accent was different, as most were dumbstruck by her actually taking part in class. This was a first!

“Thank you Amy. Welcome back to planet Earth. I hope you will stay a while before your next trip,” Mr Willis said with a smile.

The bell went, so the class erupted into action.

“Homework. Produce a paper on hydro electricity. As on page seventeen of your books,” shouted Mr Willis over the noise.

John/Amy sat in her place, looking confused and a little nervous. Paul watched her carefully.

Within moment everyone had gone.

Amy stood up and picked up the backpack.

Paul was still watching her as he put his books into his bags.

“Are you okay, Amy?” he said, making her jump.

“Yes…. No….. Oh! I don’t really know,” she said. Her voice trembled and she sounded so English.

Paul walked over to her.

He looked into her eyes.

“I’m gonna go on a limb here. Are you John?”

Amy stared at him in terror and stared round the now empty classroom.

“How… how did you know?” the girl asked very quietly, her lip quivering, so Paul judged her about to cry.

Paul nodded and sat next to her.

“Look. Amy told me about her dream. So, she fell asleep in class, and somehow you’re here. It’s crazy, but we can’t tell anyone, or you’ll both get locked up.”

“Where are we?”

“Glendale, California. L.A. is not far away.”

“L.A.?”

“Los Angeles, where have you been, girl?” he asked, and then remembered.

“Sorry,” he said.

“What should I do?” the girl asked.

“Well, we can’t stay here and we gotta get the bus, so come on,” Paul said, so the pair of them left the room.

They walked down the corridor and Paul stopped.

“This is when you go change,” he said.

“Change?” asked the confused girl.

“Yeah. Amy doesn’t like dresses, yet her Mom always makes her wear a dress to school. She brings jeans in her backpack on the bus and changes before school. So, now you go to the girl’s washroom and change back.”

The girl stared at him for a moment and then at the door marked ‘Girls’.

“In here?”

“You can’t go to the boys’ room,” he said.

She nodded and pushed open the door.

Much to her relief, it was empty. She found a dress folded in the bottom of her pack. Fearing capture, she quickly stripped out of her jeans and tee shirt and slipped on the dress. She stared for a moment at her reflection, smiling uncertainly.

She joined Paul in the corridor moments later.

“Cool. That was almost quicker than Amy does it.”

The girl smiled again, but she was still not sure about anything.

They ran to the bus, which was now waiting for them. They clambered aboard and took the remaining two seats.

“Look, you gotta talk like us, otherwise everyone will get suspicious,” Paul whispered.

“How?”

Paul shrugged.

“I dunno, just copy me, I guess.”

“O-kay,” she said, in a passable accent.

He grinned.

“This is way cool!” he said.

“What happens now?” the girl asked.

Paul shook his head.

“We go home and do what we normally do, I suppose.”

“And that is?”

“Heck, homework, supper, some TV and I guess we get some time to play. You know, kid’s stuff.”

“What do I call you?” she asked.

“I’m Paul, and don’t forget to talk right,” he said and then looked at the girl.

“Are you okay with this?” he asked.

John/Amy thought for a moment and then nodded, with a little smile.

“Yes, I suppose you’d better call me Amy. I don’t want to make trouble for anyone. Also, can you tell me who everyone is?”

Paul spent the next few minutes pointing out the kids on the bus and their names. He also pointed out buildings and places as they passed them.

“This is hard to take it all in,” she admitted, trying really hard to copy his accent.

“Well, your accent is a bit better.”

“Where do I live?”

“Across the street from me. We get off in about five minutes. Don’t worry, I’ll help. We hang out together in any case.”

John/Amy smiled. She looked down at the dress, liking what she saw.

Paul was watching her.

“Hey, Amy. Hair!” he said.

“Huh?” she asked, and Paul smiled. That was a real Amy sound.

“Amy, your hair, you have to lose the ponytail, as your Mom doesn’t like it,” he said, and then helped her remove the scrunchie.

“There should be a brush in your bag,” he said.

She delved into the bag, found a brush and brushed out her hair. It was very long, almost to the small of her back. She grinned, as it felt great.

“You actually like this girl bit, don’t ya?” Paul asked with an expression of undisguised disbelief on his face.

She smiled and nodded.

“Weird!” Paul said, shaking his head.

“What’s she like?”

“Who, Amy?”

“Yes.”

“She should’ve been a guy. She likes all the guy things, football, baseball, bikes, fishing, skateboards an’ everything. She hates all the frilly girl stuff because her mom used to make her go in for these beauty pageants for kids. Used to win too, but she hated it so much that her dad stopped it.”

“She’ll like being me then,” she said.

“So, what’s it like, this body swap?”

John/Amy thought for a moment.

“I’m not sure yet. It’s all so strange. Last time it was for a few minutes. This is longer, but it must be tough for Amy as I was in bed at night. So she will be lying there just worrying about when she could get back. There must be a big time difference.”

She looked at her watch and saw it was four pm. It would be at least midnight in England.

“I have to try to sleep. That way she will come back soon,” she said.

She relaxed and shut her eyes, but nothing happened.

“Not working?” Paul asked.

She shook her head.

The bus pulled up, so Paul grabbed his friend by her hand.

“Come on, our stop.”

They got out and stood watching the bus disappear.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Well usually we go back to one of our homes and have cookies and stuff.”

“Okay. Whose home?”

“Well, we better go to yours, that way you’ll know where you live.”

She followed him as he set off up the road.

He took her up a driveway with a station wagon parked next to a Jeep.

“The Jeep belongs to your eldest brother Jeff. He’s a US Marine; he comes home for a few days a month. I guess the other car is your Mom’s.”

“Oh. How many brothers have I got?”

Paul stopped and thought.

“Uh, there’s Jeff, Martin, Kyle and Steve. Jeff is twenty two, and Steve is fourteen. Steve is at Junior High.” He said.

“Oh. Do I get on with them?”

“Sure. They are way cool. Martin has a real neat bike.”

“Oh.”

“Here we are. Are you ready?”

“I suppose so,” she said, with a weak smile.

“That’s too English, Amy says, ‘I guess’ a lot.”

“I guess?”

“That’s better, but not like a question.”

“I guess.”

“That’s good. Shall we go in?”

“I guess,” she said with a smile. “But, what do I call them?”

“Mom and Dad or Daddy. Usually Dad, unless you want him to do something.”

She smiled and pushed open the door.

The woman she had seen the other night was there.

“Hi kids. Good day at school?”

“I guess,” said John/Amy, so Paul sniggered.

The children walked into the kitchen and sat down as Helen Standen poured them a glass of milk each. She put the glasses on the table with the cookie jar.

“Just two, okay?”

After they finished the milk. Amy took the glasses to the sink and washed them up. Her mother watched her in silent disbelief. Amy never cleared up anything, much to her disgust.

The girl then dried up the glasses and placed them on the side.

She saw her mother was watching.

“What did I do?” she said, as Paul burst out laughing.

Helen went over and gave her a great big hug.

“Thank you Honey, that was real nice of you.”

John/Amy stood there, completely confused.

She just smiled, hoping someone would enlighten her.

“Go and do your homework, then you can watch TV. Paul, are you staying to do your work?”

“Uh, sure, if that’s okay?”

“Sure, I’ll just call Sue and tell her you’re here. Go on, then. As soon as you do it, then you can do what you guys want to do.”

The pair ran upstairs. Amy recognised the room as soon as she arrived.

She stood there, as the dream came flooding back.

“What’s up?”

“I’ve been here before,” she said.

“This is so weird!” Paul said.

Their homework was to list the different types of power, and draw pictures of each example.

Amy sat down, got out her books and had started before Paul realised what was going on.

“What ya doin’?” he asked.

“Homework. Why?”

“Now?”

“Yes, is something wrong?”

“Amy, we never do homework straight off. The idea is like this, you leave it until bedtime and then say it’s not finished, so they let you stay up late to do it.”

She looked at him.

“But if I do it now, I can do what I want later and not worry about it.”

Paul stared at her in disbelief.

“Now I know you should have been a girl!”

Amy looked hurt, so he felt bad.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry. But man, this is so weird!”

“You said that already,” Amy said.

Paul stared at her. She was sounding more like the old Amy again.

He shrugged and got out his books.

The new Amy was better at drawing than the old one, as her pictures were exceptionally neat.

She looked back at Amy’s handwriting, trying to copy it as best she could. Actually, she improved on the original, so she smiled as she looked at her page and the pictures.

“Finished,” she announced.

Paul looked at her in disgust, then at her work.

“Hey, how did you do that?”

She smiled. “It’s my favourite subject. We did it last term at my school.”

Paul copied her work, and was pleased for the first time.

“Amy is a real duh at Geography.”

“I’m not.”

He smiled. “Okay, so what do you want to do now?” he asked.

“I don’t know. What do you usually do?”

“We could ride bikes in the neighbourhood. I could show you around?”

“Okay,” she said, smiling.

They started to go downstairs.

“Uh, Amy, don’t you want to change?”

“Why?” she asked.

“Your dress may get dirty.”

“Do I usually?”

“Yeah, if your Mom lets you.”

“Then I’ll ask.”

Amy went into the kitchen and saw Helen unloading the washing machine.

“Mom, can I change so we can ride bikes?”

Helen looked at Amy. For the second time, her daughter had surprised her. Normally she was petulant and demanding, so this polite approach was a whole new development. She was instantly suspicious and wondered what the girl’s game was.

“Sure, if you want to,” she said cautiously.

Amy smiled. “Thanks Mom,” she said, running out.

Helen watched her and shook her head. Kids!
 

*          *          *
 
Paul ran home to collect his bike. He told his mother that he was going for a ride with Amy. Sue did not wholly approve of this friendship, as Amy was quite a little tomboy and was more likely to get into scrapes than most of the boys in the neighbourhood.

However, she got on well with Helen, feeling she had to support her in her constant battle with her wayward daughter. She looked out of the window and waved at Amy who was sitting on her bike on the driveway.

She was wearing her jeans and a tee shirt, and she waved back with a smile. She was such a pretty little thing, Sue thought it was such a shame she was such a tomboy.

The nine-year olds rode all around the neighbourhood, and even went to the mall at the end of the road, but didn’t go in. Paul was dismissive of the mall.

“It’s just got shops ‘n stuff, we don’t go there.”

He took her to the dell, which was a small gully with trees and shrubs. There was a small clearing at the bottom, where the younger kids would hang out. There wasn’t anyone else there today.

They sat on a stump and Paul looked at Amy.

“You okay?”

She nodded. “Yes. I think I like this, a lot.”

Paul frowned. “What about Amy?”

The girl frowned too, as she was obviously thinking about something.

“I want to try something. Can you help?” she asked.

“Sure, what?”

“I’m not sure. But I don’t see why we have to be asleep to do this. So I want to try and crossover without going to sleep.”

She sat on the ground and placed her back to a tree. She smiled and closed her eyes.

“What do I do?” Paul asked, feeling spare.

“Shh. Just watch, and if she comes back, help her.”

---

 
To Be Continued...