The Girl Who Could Not Dream

CLARION BOOKS

3 Park Avenue

New York, New York 10016

Copyright © 2015 by Sarah Beth Durst

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
[email protected]
or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

www.hmhco.com

Title page and cover illustrations by Andrea Femerstrand

Hand-lettering by Leah Palmer Preiss

Cover design by Sharismar Rodriguez

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Durst, Sarah Beth.

The girl who could not dream / by Sarah Beth Durst.

pages cm

Summary: Sophie's parents run a secret shop where dreams are bought and sold. When Sophie dreams, her dreams become real, so she is forbidden to have any. Sinister events are set in motion when she is accidentally seen by one of her parents' customers, and it's up to Sophie to save her family.

—Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-544-46497-1 (hardback)

[1. Dreams–Fiction. 2. Families–Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.D93436Gi 2015

[Fic]–dc23

2015001324

eISBN 978-0-544-46499-5
v1.1115

For my daughter, with love

S
OPHIE HAD ONLY EVER STOLEN ONE DREAM.

She'd been six and curious, two not unrelated traits. The dream had been stored in a brilliant blue bottle with a gold-flecked stopper. It was the only unlabeled bottle in the batch, and she'd thought that meant it wouldn't be missed.

She'd spotted it on the top shelf after her parents left (one to the grocery store and one to tend to a customer). She had to haul books downstairs from the shop and pile them on top of a stool before she could reach it. Stretching, she touched the bottle with her fingertips, knocked it off the shelf, and then caught it before it could shatter on the old stained counter below. It took precious seconds to wiggle the stopper out, and she chugged it down without hesitating.

It tasted like fresh melon.

She'd thought she'd see a swirl of mist first, like the squiggly fog that always came before a dream in a TV show, but instead she plunged instantly into the dream. One second she was in her parents' workroom beneath the bookshop, and the next she was tucked into a bed with cupcake-pink ruffled sheets. For an instant, she thought it was her bed, even though she didn't have pink sheets, but then she remembered who and where she was.

Sitting up, Sophie looked around curiously at the cotton-candy wallpaper and the shelves of toys. The owner of this room had a Barbie Dreamhouse and liked horses. A night-light in the shape of a pink unicorn cast a rosy glow over the room. Pink shadows stretched.

One of the shadows twitched.

And a shadowy monster crept out of the closet.

Sophie felt her heart beat deliciously faster. Slowly, so she wouldn't startle the monster, Sophie scooted out from under the sheets. She waited.

The monster skittered left. It dodged right. Sophie pretended to look out the window at the moon, stuck between the pale branches of a tree. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that the monster seemed to have several tentacles. She looked at it, wanting to count them, and the monster dived beneath the bed.

Lying flat on her stomach, Sophie leaned over the edge of the bed. She lifted up the dust ruffle. Moonlight swept under the bed. The monster huddled in the shadows. Its fur bristled like a cat's.

“Hi. I'm Sophie,” she said.

It bared its teeth, three rows of shiny, sharp, shark-like teeth, and growled.

“Shh. It's okay. I won't hurt you.” She felt her heart patter inside her rib cage and wondered if it would hurt if the monster bit her dream self with those teeth. She guessed it would, but only until she woke up. “Come on out.”

The monster snapped its tentacles like whips, and Sophie scrambled back. Retreating to the pillows, she took several deep breaths. She told herself firmly that she shouldn't be scared. This was what she'd wanted, after all, her very own dream.

Inching forward, she again leaned over the side of the bed. The monster waved its tentacles at her. “You have lovely tentacles,” Sophie said. “Like a furry octopus. Did you know that an octopus can open a jar with its tentacles? I read that once. I like books. Do you like books? My parents own a bookstore. It's nice. We have lots and lots of books.” She kept her voice soft and even, as if she were luring out a stray cat. The monster lowered its tentacles. “That's a good monster. You can come out.”

The monster scooted forward. Sticking its head out from beneath the dust ruffle, it looked up at her. It had overly large eyes like a lemur's. Its pupils were the size of Sophie's fists and ringed with gold.

“Are you a girl monster?”

It snorted.

“A boy monster?”

It blinked at her. She decided that meant it was a boy monster. He inched out from under the bed. She counted six tentacles. He also had four tiny legs with sharp, curved claws. Squatting beside the bed, he kneaded the carpet with his claws.

“Are you an in-the-closet monster or an under-the-bed monster? The dream bottle wasn't labeled, and we have lots of both. We even have a few on-the-ceiling monster dreams, but those aren't as common.” She wasn't supposed to talk about her parents' dream collection. But since she was in a dream, talking to a dream creature, she decided the normal rules didn't apply.

The monster crept farther into the moonlight. His fur was black with hints of red and blue in it. She thought he was iridescent black. She liked the word
iridescent
. She'd learned it just the other week.

“You have beautiful iridescent fur. That means you shine with different colors,” Sophie said. “You're a very handsome monster.”

The monster purred.

“It's nice that you don't have any slime. So many dream monsters are coated in goo.” She patted the blanket next to her. “Do you want to come up?”

He hopped onto the bed. He was about half her size, though if he stretched out his tentacles, she bet he'd be larger. Instead, he curled his tentacles underneath him in coils of fur. She wanted to pet his fur. She wasn't sure she dared. He continued to watch her with his large lemur eyes.

“I bet the dreamer who thought you up was scared of cats,” Sophie said. “I've never had a cat. Or dog. Or any kind of pet. I've always wanted a pet. I wish you could be my pet.”

The monster nudged her hand with his nose. She felt her breath catch in her throat. He had so many sharp teeth that they couldn't all fit in his mouth. A row of teeth stuck out beyond his gums. He wormed his head under her hand. His fur felt softer than cotton and smoother than silk. Sophie stroked his head and scratched behind his ears.

Sighing happily, the monster closed his eyes.

She lay down next to him, continuing to pet him. He began to snore, and Sophie bit back a laugh that bubbled up inside her. His snore sounded like a toy train. After a while, she fell asleep.

She woke to her parents' screams.

Uh-oh,
she thought. Sophie opened one eye and then the other. Her mother was, oddly, perched on top of a table next to the dream distiller. She held a broom and was brandishing it like a sword. Her father held a fire extinguisher with the nozzle pointed at her.

“Don't move, Sophie,” Dad said.

“It's okay, baby, don't be scared.” Mom's face was chalky, as if she'd used powder instead of blush on her cheeks. Her voice sounded unusually shrill.

Sophie didn't move.

She was lying on the floor. Her head rested against a cabinet, and her feet were stuck in a pile of sponges and mops. She had the open and empty blue bottle in her left hand. Curled against her right side was a furry warmth.

Her mom tightened her grip on the broomstick. “Kenneth, what is it?”

“Some sort of badger,” Dad said.

“It has six tails,” Mom pointed out.

Sophie shifted her head slightly. Her monster was curled up beside her, still snoring, but the cupcake-pink sheets and the rose-wallpapered bedroom were gone. She was home in her parents' dream shop beneath the bookstore. “They're tentacles, not tails.”

“Badgers don't have tentacles,” Dad said.

“Sweetie, you know it's not a badger,” Mom said to him.

“It looks like a badger,” Dad insisted. He inched closer. The floorboards creaked under his feet. He stopped as the monster gave a whistle-like snort in his sleep.

“It looks nothing like a badger. Sophie, did it hurt you?”

“It's a he,” Sophie said. “And he's really very sweet. Can I keep him? Please?” She shifted so she could look at the slumbering dream monster. If you ignored all the tentacles and the sharp teeth and the sheer size of him, he could almost pass for a housecat. Maybe a housecat with an enormous appetite.

“Absolutely not,” Mom said.

“I think it's a wombat,” Dad said. “Or a wolverine. Some
w
animal. Sophie, if you can inch away, I'll spray it with the fire extinguisher, your mother will incapacitate it with the broom, and then we can look up what it is.” His voice was light, but Sophie saw that his hands were shaking. Her parents were scared, and they were trying not to scare her.

Sophie wrapped her arms around the monster. “Don't hurt him!”

The monster woke up.

Lashing out with his tentacles, he snapped his jaws and snarled. Her parents rushed forward, but Sophie jumped up to block them. “Stop!” She shook her finger at the monster. “You stop too!”

Cringing, the monster whimpered.

“Sophie, what's in your hand?” Mom was frowning at the blue bottle that Sophie still had clutched in her hand. “Did you . . . Oh, Sophie.”

“I'm sorry!” Sophie stared down at her sneakers, unable to meet her parents' eyes. They had told her time and again to leave the bottles alone. “It was only a monster-in-the-closet dream.”

Both of her parents were silent.

The monster growled softly and leaned against her ankles. She bent and scratched behind his ears. He bared his teeth at her parents. “Be nice,” she told him. She risked a glance up at them.

Her parents didn't look angry, but they did look extremely worried. Sophie felt her heart thump faster, and not in the pleasant way that it had within the dream. Her father set down the fire extinguisher. Her mother laid down the broom. “Tell me the dream,” Dad said quietly.

Sophie described the room and how the monster had emerged from the closet. She told them how she'd spoken to him and how they'd fallen asleep. “And that was it,” she said. “It was a nice dream.”

“You made it a nice dream,” Mom said. “I doubt it started out that way. This monster was undoubtedly meant to eat you.”

The monster made a chirping sound, as if to deny he would ever do such a thing, and he pressed closer to Sophie's ankles. She caught her balance on the counter. He was heavy. “See, he's sweet!” she said.