Title: Boundless Dreams
Genre(s): Children’s fiction
Rating: U (suitable for all)
Summary: Alyssa James finds herself being rudely woken before dawn.
Author’s notes: I first wrote this as a teenager and it’s been re-written more times than I care to guess at. Still not really happy with it but I’m leaving it as it is. For now at least. At one point I did think about turning it into a novel, but I don’t know if I ever will.
“Ali.”
I kept slipping in and out of sleep, not really sure which side I was on at any one time, or from which side the voice was coming. On one side of consciousness I was dimly aware of warmth and softness and darkness around me, and on the other I was sitting under a tree in the park, the sun touching my skin and a book open in my lap. Well, whichever world it was coming from, it could just shove off.
“Ali… Al…”
I knew the voice but I couldn’t think who it was. Someone shook my arm. I groaned. Nope, nah ah, not moving.
“Aaaliii,” he whispered like a ghost in a movie. “Aaaliii… Ali!”
That was not a whisper. I opened my eyes. “What?!” I snapped.
For a moment I couldn’t see anything. The room was black and the bed felt unfamiliar. I could just make out Jake sitting next to me. What on earth was he doing waking me up before dawn?
“Blimey, you were so far out of it anyone’d think you’d been hit over the head with an anvil,” he whispered, and I could almost hear the huge grin on his face. “Come on, let’s go.”
I had just enough time to make out that he was already fully dressed before he got up and moved away. I looked around me. For a few seconds I couldn’t think where I was. It seemed darker than usual, even for this hour. As my eyes adjusted to the minuscule light, I began to make out a sloping ceiling and wooden beams – Jake’s room. All at once everything came flooding back to me and I was filled with a sudden burst of excitement that put paid to any lingering sleepiness. The end of school, the flight, the drive through the forest, the cabin in the clearing… I was in the attic room of Jake’s uncle’s house. Jake had said last night that we’d be heading out early, but he hadn’t said why, just that there was something he wanted me to see.
I leapt out of the squeaky camp bed, pulled my T-Shirt and jeans off rickety the little chair and pulled them on. It was good to be back in casual clothes after wearing nothing but school uniform since Easter. Jake and I had met at boarding school in England, a place where neither of us had fit at or wanted to go to. I’d grown up in London, but after my father left my mother and I had moved out to the suburbs to be nearer to nanny and granddad. Mother had always believed in boarding schools but father hadn’t, and now that she was the sole authority on the matter, I was quickly packed off to ‘St Mark’s Boarding School for mixed pupils aged eleven to sixteen’.
The boys and girls slept in different dorms but all the classes were held together. I had met Jake in my very first week, a week where I was an easy target for bullies, having both a posh accent and no gaggle of friends to provide safety in numbers. Jake had also been ribbed for speaking differently. He had come over from America because of his dad’s work and his accent was pure Brooklyn. After bonding over a spirited rant about inverted snobbery and overblown patriotism, the two of us had discovered loads of other things we had in common and quickly became fast friends.
Just before the Easter holiday, Jake had told me that every summer he came here to the forest to stay at his uncle’s cabin and had asked me if I wanted to go with him. It had taken the whole of Easter to persuade Mum but in the end she relented (perhaps now feeling a little sorry that she had encouraged independence in me). We had then spent the whole of the last term planning and discussing the summer down to the most minute of details.
Now here I was at last. Away from the school, away from teachers and homework, able to wear what I wanted for a change. No longer Alyssa James, but plain Ali, and ready to go on the first adventure of my formerly prim and proper life.
Jake was waiting for me by the door. As I moved towards him, pulling my coat on, he put a finger to his lips
I pulled my hair into a pony-tail as I moved toward the door, where Jake was waiting for me. As I reached him he put a finger to his lips and then began to push the door slowly open.
The hallway was just as dark as the bedroom. We descended the wooden stairs from the attic and then crept silently along the hall. I could hear gentle snoring from Jake’s uncle’s room. Right outside his bedroom Jake took a larger step than usual. I had a brief second to wonder why and then the floorboard underneath my foot creaked. I froze. So did Jake. There was a grunt from inside and then the rhythmic snoring continued. I emptied my lungs. Jake made an exaggerated tutting noise and we both sniggered silently before continuing towards the stairs.
On the landing Jake stopped again. He looked at me and, once again, put his fingers to his lips and mouthed something which I didn’t catch, pointing at the floor. Then he began to tiptoe down the stairs. I followed, watching his feet this time, careful to skip the same three steps he did. When we reached the bottom, we sped up a bit, into the kitchen, past the softly humming refrigerator and across to the back door. As Jake began to turn the key in the lock though there was a snuffling sound behind us. I spun around and almost jumped out of my skin.
A pair of luminous eyes were watching us from a corner. A moment later I relaxed again. It was only Uncle Henry’s dog, Max, lying in his basket. Max had been the best hunting dog around. Brave and loyal, Uncle Henry had told us a thrilling tale the night before of how Max had once held off a bear long enough for him to escape. I wasn’t sure whether to believe this or not, but looking at his soft old face, it was not hard to imagine his former energy.
Max’s tail began to thump.
“Max, quiet,” Jake whispered softly and Max stopped at once.
Jake unlocked the door and the two of us slipped outside, closing it quietly behind us. The air outside was cool and moist. A thick mist hung around the cabin and the grass was damp with dew. It crunched softly under our feet as we walked around the side of the cabin and crossed the yard towards the black trees. I looked up. A few stars were twinkling in the dark blue sky and towards the horizon the distant mountains were outlined as if by a fine pink pen.
At the edge of the trees, Jake took my hand and led me along a little natural path. It was completely black on either side of us but just enough of the sky was visible through the canopy of branches to allow us to see a few feet of the path ahead. The air was still and quiet except for the twittering song of a few early birds somewhere around us. After a while, Jake took a torch out of the backpack over his shoulder, turned it on and led us off the path. Through the trees and bushes, up slopes and across ditches we trekked. It took a while for me to realise that the ground was sloping steadily upwards. Several times we had to climb up short walls of rock.
We walked for what must have been nearly twenty minutes and I began to wonder, every time Jake suddenly changed direction, if we were lost. But he didn’t stop once, even to look around, and I had to assume that he knew exactly where we were going and I marvelled at how well he knew his way even in torchlight.
We seemed to go round in a semi-circle for a while and then quite suddenly the trees fell away and we were standing at the bottom of a grassy hill. Jake let go of my hand, turned the torch off and began to climb it. I followed. I still couldn’t work out what it was that he wanted to show me but my heart was thumping in anticipation.
He stopped at the top and when I reached him I realised that it wasn’t a hill after all. It was a cliff. The wind was whipping my hair and I wondered how high up we were by now. The mist and the darkness was still so thick everything below us was obscured. All that could be seen was the mountains ahead, silhouetted against a slightly lighter sky.
“What are we doing?” I asked at last.
He didn’t answer, but I saw a slightly smug smile on his face as he sat down and stared out towards the mountains.
“Jake, come on, what are we…?”
“Shh. Just sit. Watch.”
I looked at him curiously. He looked back up at me.
“Sit.”
I sighed and did as I was told, staring out into the same direction as him. I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to be looking at. We sat there for at least another ten minutes and the whole time he didn’t take his eyes off the horizon. I was beginning to get impatient.
“Jake, what are we looking at?”
“Just keep watching. You’ll see in a minute.”
I sighed again and averted my eyes back to at the horizon, the only thing stopping me from becoming thoroughly bored being the tranquillity of the air and the swirls of mist floating around us. But then I realised that while we had been watching, the pinkish tinge outlining the mountains had spread and become deeper in colour. And then it all seemed to fast forward. I stared as the sky grew lighter and lighter before my eyes. Then, quite suddenly, the sun peeked out from behind the giant masses. I shielded my eyes as beams of orange light stretched out over the space below us.
I let out an audible gasp. For a while it was as though we were up in the clouds. And then, before my very eyes, the mist began to evaporate and dark shapes began to be visible below. And then the brilliant beams washed over them, gradually illuminating the whole glorious scene.
My breath was taken away as I scanned miles and miles of woodland, ending in a far away perimeter of mountains. Below me I could see the river winding its way through the trees to a vast waterfall and then continuing, snake-like, to the foot of the mountains and disappearing between them, the water sparkling in the sunlight. I looked behind me and realised we were on an outcrop part way up one of the western mountains, which towered above us imposingly.
I realised my mouth was open and closed it. When I turned to Jake he was watching me, smiling.
“Patience my dear friend, patience,” he said in a voice that was a perfect impression of his Uncle.
I watched him closely. His short blond hair was blowing in the wind, his blue eyes sparkling with fun. Most people at fourteen had lost the wonderment of childhood. They filled their lives with TV and parties and obsessed over their looks and whether or not so and so liked them. But Jake still had the boundless dreams of a ten year old, dreams of high adventure and heroism. The others at school thought he was a baby. I thought he was brilliant. With him, you not only thought that adventure might actually be possible, but you almost expected it, and by keeping at his side you might just get a share in it.
Picture by jioseventeen, who flatteringly decided to do an illustration for this story after I posted it on deviantArt.com.
