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The Portkey (4)

“Your mum? Have you gone insane, Sam? Stop playing tricks on me! We need that book!” Luke screamed at me. Right then, it looked as if he was the one gone insane.

     Instead of listening to him, however, I did what any other crazy person would do.

     I left him.

     I turned my back on him and started walking across the clearing calmly, but cautiously, towards the strange figure floating in the air, that was my own mum. How could I not recognise my own mother?

     As I was walking, it dawned on me that all of this had happened before. Except without Luke. I brushed the thought off though, and considered it crazy. I mean, all of this would be impossible to happen in real life, right? Then it must have been a dream.

     Dream!

     It all came rushing back. The dream I had been dreaming for the past few months. The late mornings to Miss Graven’s class. The detentions. The detention, where my job had switched to taking the books out. And now, this. My dream had led to my dream coming to life.

     I was in my own dream.

     But was it real? Or was I going to wake up right now?

     All these questions buzzed around in my head, until one big question barged its way through the front.

     If this was a dream, surely something else has to happen. But… what? Is it a…

     A low, grumbling roar sounded from the forest to the left of me. A pair of perfectly circular yellow eyes came into view, standing out from the darkness.

     “Monster,” I whispered. I had a feeling I knew what was going to happen.

     Just as the monster leapt into view, I started to run.

     Well, I tried to run, but I just… couldn’t. It was all in slow-motion. I tried moving my legs faster, but they were stuck moving at the same pace. Tears started forming in my eyes.

     Only when it mattered most, I couldn’t do anything.

     The monster was at least the height of a 5-storey building, arms and legs as sharp and thick trunks, body a mass of intertwined branches. He was going at a pace I could never overtake.

     And straight towards my mother.

     Suddenly, my mum, by an unknown and unbeatable force, slammed onto the ground ferociously, and something started dragging her away from my and the monster. There was a cliff nearby. And she was going straight for the cliff edge.

     “No, mum!” I reached out to her, tears streaming, but she was rigid, and couldn’t move.

     She was far away from me, and I couldn’t get to her.

     Tears blurred my vision, but soon enough, I heard Luke’s fast footsteps behind me.

     The monster, seeing now that everything was going according to its plan, turned to Luke and I, and opened its black, gaping tunnel of a mouth. He swung his arm back, but, before he could grab us both, Luke shoved the book into my hands, and everything disappeared right before my eyes.

     This time when a blinding light enveloped us, our eyes had to adjust to the normal fluorescent lights in… Miss Graven’s classroom.

     “Where are those naughty boys?” we heard a familiar voice say. I sighed and Luke rolled his eyes, but we both smiled. We were back.

     We climbed out from underneath Miss Graven’s desk.

     “What on earth were you both doing underneath my desk?” It looked as if her eyes were about to pop.

     We just smiled and shrugged.

     “Well, at least you both did your jobs well,” Miss nodded in approval.

     I looked at the book shelf. All of the books were in the correct order. Except for the big, brown, leather book. And it wasn’t in either of our hands.

     It had completely disappeared.

     “Thank you, Luke. I will ask the caretaker to flip these tables the right way up to save your time.” Miss Graven winked at Luke, who looked in awe at the completely gum-free tables.

     After we had left the school, and were walking home together, we talked about the book.

     “Do you think it really happened, Luke?” I asked him. “Like, it wasn’t really a dream, or was it?”

     “I’m still trying to figure that one out, to be honest. Do you know what happened to the book though?”

     “No idea. Probably was destroyed after we got out of that ‘dream’. In fact, I think I kept on having that same dream just because that book existed. Now that it’s destroyed, I won’t have it again,” I said with a dawn of realisation.

And I was right.