The Seeker

Michael glanced at his alarm clock. Ten-thirteen. He'd only been in bed for thirteen minutes. It felt like thirteen days. He wasn't tired. At all. He only needed two hours of sleep a night-one of the cool things about not being human-and he wouldn't even be needing those two until later.

But ten o'clock was his bedtime. His bedtime. He could not believe he had a bedtime. Mr. and Mrs. Pascal thought that structure was the key to making children feel happy and secure. Or some stupid psychobabble like that.

His new foster parents had rules for everything. They had given him a typewritten list with a dorky little drawing on the top-a raccoon that had one of those cartoon balloons coming out of its mouth. The raccoon was saying, 'Rules for Pascals' Rascals.'

The rules were in the form of a poem. 'Please lower the toilet seat. Wash your hands before you eat.' That kind of thing. Alex had practically wet his pants laughing when Michael showed it to him.

But there was nothing funny about the rules when you had to follow them. And Michael did. At least for a while. His social worker, Mr. Cuddihy, would have a hissy fit if he got a complaint call during Michael's first week at a new place. So that meant no sneaking out of the house for a few weeks.

Which meant no late night visit to the Evans house. Michael wanted to check up on Isabel. He felt like shaking her for wasting one tear on Nikolas. But he also felt like holding her tight and letting her cry as much as she wanted. He'd do whatever it took to get his Isabel back-smart-mouthed, sassy, stuck-up Izzy, not that pale sad-eyed girl who'd been sitting next to him at Flying Pepperoni.

Tomorrow, he promised himself. I'll get there first thing in the morning, score some breakfast, and see if Isabel needs me.

He rolled over onto his side. The covers were tucked in too tight. He felt like a mummy. He gave them a yank, but it didn't help. The kid in the next bed-Dylan-gave a high, whistling, wheezing snore. Michael pulled his pillow over his head.

Down the hall he heard the baby begin to cry. A moment later he heard Mrs. Pascal's bunny slippers flapping down the hall.

I would kill, Michael thought, or at least maim, to get out of this house. I could just crawl out the window and go. I don't need to go to Isabel's. I could go somewhere else. I could go… to Maria's!

Yeah, that was perfect. Right now he just wanted to kick back-and Maria's girlie-girl room was the place to do it. He liked the way she had clothes and nail polish and all her little vials of perfume oils scattered everywhere. He even liked the weird way her room smelled-like roses and cough drops.

Even when Maria wasn't home, he liked to hang there. But it was better when she was there. Maria could always make him laugh. A lot of times she wasn't even trying to be funny, like when she was getting all earnest about her aromatherapy.

Mrs. Pascal started to sing to the baby. It cried louder. Michael didn't blame it. Mrs. Pascal's voice… well, she better keep her day job, that's all he had to say.

Michael stifled a groan. I can't take it, he thought. I'm not going to live until morning.

'Sleep, don't peep, don't creep, don't beep, don't seep,' Mrs. Pascal crooned.

Seep?

'Just dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream.'

Dream walking, Michael thought suddenly. That's what he should be doing. Just because he couldn't fall asleep himself didn't mean he couldn't go into someone else's dreams.

Michael closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Mrs. Pascal's singing grew fainter, and so did Dylan's snoring. He took one more breath, and the dream orbs became visible. The glistening, soapbubble-iridescent orbs swirled around him. Each gave off one pure note of music. Big improvement.

Michael didn't dream walk nearly as much as Isabel did. But he'd still spent enough nights channel surfing through the dream orbs to know which orbs belonged to which people at school.

Doug Highsinger's orb spun past. Doug was usually having some kind of sex dream. But watching a football star get off wasn't Michael's idea of fun. Pass.

Arlene Bluth's orb whacked him on the back of the head. He definitely didn't want to go exploring in her dreams. She only dreamed about school. Right now she was probably having a nightmare about taking a test with a number three pencil. Pass.

Tim Watanabe's orb was a pass, too. Big pass. For some reason Tim Watanabe kept dreaming about a big clown with a green tongue named Bobo. It was none of Michael's business, but he didn't think a little therapy would hurt that boy.

Michael caught the sound of a high, sweet note of music. Maria's orb. He grinned. He couldn't go hang out in Maria's room. But he could visit one of her dreams.

Except it was kind of weird going into a friend's dream, like barging in on them in the bathroom or something. Sure, he'd gone into Maria's dreams a few times. But that was before he really knew her. It felt different now.

I'll just tell her I'm there, he decided. Then it won't be like I'm spying on her.

He began to whistle, drawing her dream orb to him. It whirled into his hands, soft and cool under his fingers. Michael drew his hands apart, and Maria's dream orb expanded. When it was big enough, he stepped inside.

Maria lay in a field of wildflowers. Doing some major making out with a dark-haired guy.

Whoa. Not what he expected. Michael backed out of her dream-fast. He'd thought Maria would be dreaming she was a bird or a mermaid or something. Those were the kinds of dreams he remembered her having.

Those were the kinds of dreams she should be having. Maria dreaming about boarding the love train with some guy-that just didn't feel right. And who was that guy, anyway? Michael had only gotten a glimpse of him, but he didn't look familiar. Was he someone from school? Did Maria have some kind of major crush going?

Michael sat up in bed, chewing on his lip. Maybe he should check it out. Maria had no concept of what guys were really like. She didn't know that they-some of them, anyway-lived to scam girls like her. Sweet girls. Innocent girls. Yeah, he should make sure Maria wasn't getting all gooey over some total jerk-off.

Michael closed his eyes and called Maria's dream orb back over to him. He coaxed it into expanding, then stepped inside. Maria and the guy were still going at it. He couldn't quite see the guy's face, though. Maybe that's because half of it was down Maria's throat.

Michael did not like this. At all. He moved closer, circling around Maria and the sex fiend. They didn't notice. They wouldn't notice a nuclear explosion right now.

No guy should be doing that with Maria. Maria was the girl Michael watched stupid horror movies with. Maria was the girl who insisted on teaching him how to bake a cake. Maria was the girl who made him wear an apron. Maria was his buddy. She should not be kissing some guy. It was just wrong. So wrong.

It's a dream, he reminded himself. Dreams are weird. Dreams aren't always about what you wanted. Maria probably has no interest in that guy or any guy.

It's not like Arlene Bluth wanted to take tests with the wrong pencil. It's not like Tim Watanabe wanted to live in a doghouse with Bobo the green-tongued clown. It's not like Doug Highsinger wanted to bed half the girls at-

Bad example.

***

'Do you think guys have some kind of on-off switch in the back of their heads?' Liz asked. 'I mean, I've never seen it in any diagram in a bio textbook, but I'm really thinking it has to exist.'

Liz tried to keep her tone light. Maria was her best friend, but that didn't mean she wanted to listen to Liz cry over Max every moment of every day.

Maria didn't answer. She sat on the low wooden bench in front of her locker, holding one of her sneakers. She kept staring at it as if she'd forgotten what it was.

Liz took the sneaker out of Maria's hand and stuck it in her locker. 'We take the gym clothes off, then we put the street clothes on, then we leave school and go home,' Liz said in her best kindergarten teacher voice. 'At the