What if she’s in trouble, or if she’s hurt?”
“She’s not, Katie.”
“How do you know that?”
Kristen took a gentle hold of the sobbing girl’s hand.
“Simple…Wanda told me.”
“Huh?”
“In a dream I had a little while ago. Wanda told me Cindy is all safe and warm, sleeping down at the Thompson house.”
“The people down at the corner.”
Kristen nodded. “Yep - go back to sleep, and stop crying. Everything will be all right in the morning. I know it.”
“Because Wanda said so.”
“Would she tell us wrong?”
“Kristen…Wanda is a cat. Cats can’t talk, okay?”
“We’ll see in the morning.”
Sure enough, about nine o’clock the next day, as the girls settled in to a sumptuous pancake breakfast there was a knock at the kitchen door. It was Jamie Thompson – carrying Cindy, Katie’s pet of cinnamon-colored stripes.”
“Cindy! They found you!”
Jamie handed the cat over to Katie. “Actually, she sat at our doorstep until we brought her in yesterday afternoon. After we got her fed, she made herself at home, curled up and went to sleep in front of our fireplace. I almost hated to disturb her to come over just now.”
Katie looked to Kristen. Kristen just smiled as Cindy came to her side for a quick nuzzle – like they had known each other forever.
Now Kristen didn’t want this story to become a big deal, but you know how kids are. Katie just couldn’t keep it to herself. She had to let everyone else know about her friend’s “gift”. But the other kids didn’t handle it well at all. Some were actually a little afraid of what Kristen could do, while a few thoughtless ones made it a big cruel joke.
She soon became ‘Spooky’ Kristen, then ‘Krazy’ Kristen, and when you’re ten years old, who wants to be called that?
The jokes got to be annoying.
“Hey – Krazy Kristen – I had a math test yesterday. Last night, did you dream I got an ‘A’?”
Or,
“Spooky, I left my lunch someplace. Will you dream about it tonight, and see where I left it, ha, ha?”
It bothered Kristen at first, but she soon tried to ignore it. It was hard to make sense of it all when you realize you’re a little different. So, after a while she began to change in several ways: the things she did with friends at school - keeping to herself most of the time - and the way she dressed. She became very quiet around others, having little to say. And Kristen never was very much interested in what the other girls wore. But now she became the ‘princess of mismatch’, as her parents called her. In spite of what her mother chose, she begged for the bright, bold opposite colors with designs that even made the other kids blink and roll their eyes at times.
One Saturday afternoon last summer Kristen’s mother took her to a softball game at the local park. Before they left she slipped on a pair of glasses (those fake ones with clear lenses) and this wig of long shiny black hair, some thing of her mother’s from years ago. At the game she told some of the other kids she was Kristen’s cousin, so they wouldn’t realize who she actually was. All this she did so they would leave Krazy Kristen Marsh alone and not make with the stupid comments.
The dreams went on – not every night, but often enough that they affected Kristen’s life during the day. And it was spooky knowing sometimes what was about to happen that day, all because of what she dreamed the night before. Like the night she fell asleep holding her spelling book. The next morning during spelling class she had no problem knowing her words because they all became very clear in her dreams - just from clinging to that book. It almost made it unfair to the others for what she could do with her dream gift, although she had no trouble accepting her ‘A’ for that day.
Other times though, the dreams disturbed her, making her feel she knew too much, to the point that she began to imagine things like what other kids were saying about her. It was hard to tell the dream from what was actually said. Kristen began to shy away from friends and family, for fear of what she knew about them – or thought she knew about them. Worst of all, it drew her away from friends like Katie, her best friend in the world. It made her feel that Kristen didn’t like her any more and she had no idea why.
“Kristen,” Katie said to her one day, “I wanted you to come over yesterday, to see the cool thing I did on our computer, but you didn’t. What happened?”
“I don’t know, Katie. I really wanted to. But, see, I knew we’d have this argument, so…”
“Another one of your silly dreams?”
“They’re not silly. But when they happen it’s just the truth, that’s all.”
“Yeah and they make it very hard to be your friend any more.” Katie sobbed. “It’s seems that everything that goes on in your head depends on your dreams and nothing else. And that’s not for me.”
“But I still want to be your friend, Katie.”
“And that’s what I want too, Kristen…no matter what you dream, or the wild clothing you wear…or anything else about you. But…”
Kristen now realized what a problem her dreams had become for the people around her. Smart girl that she was, Kristen went to her mother about it. Perhaps she had an idea how to make her problem go away.
“I understand, dear. In fact, I’ve also noticed your changes recently and, you know, I think maybe it’s time we talk to somebody about it, okay?”
Kristen nodded, confused by what was happening inside her head.
“Sweetheart, I went to school with someone who - I think - could do you a world of good. Let me set up an appointment so we can just sit down and talk about what’s going on with you.
So they met with Doctor Paul Jansen to discuss Kristen’s problems. Now he wasn’t the kind of doctor you went to, like if you had the flu or something. He didn’t even wear one of those long white coats like doctors usually do. But he was a very nice man, she thought, and when they met he wanted to talk about what was going on in her head and to see how she felt about things. Doctor Paul was an understanding doctor who took great interest in what she had to say about her problems. She liked him from the beginning and just felt maybe he would help her.
“Kristen, let’s talk about what goes on in those dreams at night,” he began. And then she tried to remember what she dreamed the last few days, if anything at all. Sometimes it was good just to talk rather than pretend she never had them, because that just made her troubles worse. It got to the point it was almost fun to get these thoughts out in the open, which made her feel sort of peaceful about dreams at all.
“How do the dreams make you feel, Kristen…happy, sad?”
She thought a moment. “It depends. Neither way, I guess. They just
