Amaranta Read online

  “Ah!” said Gran, smiling, “It might not seem so, but dreams are very organised. I’m sure they have a little list to tell them whose turn it’ll be to go first.”

  “You mean like a register in school?”

  “I’m sure of it, Amaranta. Either that, or some other system. All you have to worry about is getting yourself back to sleep.”

  The chat with my Gran that day left me very thoughtful. From then on I asked for my hair to be brushed very carefully.

  “Don’t pull too much, Gran. The dreams might get all mixed up.”

  Obviously I had blind faith in Gran’s theory, and thinking about it cheered me up. Whenever I looked in the mirror and saw my wild hair, I thought about how one day the mystery that made each night a misery would be solved and then, logically, I would go back to sleeping like a log. But the mystery had to be solved first.

  6

  **

  My Friends Give Me My First Clue Towards Solving The Mystery

  When I was out playing with my friends in the square I told them I’d been taken to see a doctor again.

  “Have you?” said Valeria, “Is that why you haven’t been in school?”

  “Exactly,” I replied.

  “Perfectly logical,” said my three friends at the same time.

  “She kept making me draw what I see at night.”

  “And how did you draw it?” asked Andrei.

  “Well, just like it is: a cloud of smoke with a bit of red around the edges.”

  “I think the doctor wanted to know what’s behind the cloud,” said Valeria in a serious voice.

  “I know,” I said, “but if I don’t see it myself, I can’t draw it.”

  “Perfectly logical,” added Andrei.

  “It’s a dragon,” said Bo, suddenly. Up to that moment he’d been quietly looking through the trading cards he always carried in his pocket.

  Valeria, Andrei and I all looked at each other in silence and then looked at Bo.

  “I’m telling you it’s a dragon,” he insisted.

  “OK. But how do you know?” asked Andrei.

  “Very simple. If there’s a black cloud with a bit of red and it feels hot, it’s a dragon and it’s breathing fire. Everyone knows that dragons breathe fire.”

  Andrei nodded, convinced by Bo’s explanation.

  “And everyone knows that dragons don’t exist,” said Valeria.

  “Of course they exist!” Andrei protested.

  “You can think what you like, Valeria,” said Bo, “but if you don’t believe us you can ask all the other Chinese kids.”

  “Or the Romanians,” added Andrei.

  “Exactly! Anyone who knows anything about dragons will tell you that the thing getting into Amaranta’s bedroom at night is a dragon,” said Bo, in his usual calm voice.

  “It’s not possible,” I said, “my room is really small and a dragon wouldn’t fit in it.” But Bo and Andrei had me intrigued. “Besides, how could it get in? I always sleep with the window closed.”

  “I have no idea how it gets in. It’s your dragon so you have to find that out yourself. And about the size... Well, it’s obvious you don’t know very much about dragons. They come in all sizes. They can be tiny or huge.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to them, Amaranta, they’re pulling your leg,” said Valeria, tugging my arm for us to leave.

  “Wait... Just a minute.”

  I didn’t want to leave yet. I needed Bo and Andrei to tell me more. What if it was true? Whatever was getting into my room every night was no monster, I was certain of that. Monsters don’t exist. I would have to be a baby to believe there were monsters under the bed or in the wardrobe. But a dragon... That was more likely. It would explain all the heat and smoke.

  “One thing I don’t understand, Bo. Why did you say it’s my dragon?”

  “Because if it wasn’t yours it wouldn’t go into your room. Simple. Dragons seem very fierce, but they’re shy really, and they only go into the rooms of people they know or have some kind of connection with.”

  “I still don’t understand it. If it knows me, why does it attack me?”

  “Aargh!” exclaimed Andrei, who found it all completely logical, “I can’t believe you don’t get it! It attacks you because you scare it.”

  “Now that’s unbelievable!” exclaimed Valeria with a giggle, “A dragon afraid of a little girl.”

  “Why not?” asked Andrei, “Amaranta doesn’t greet it when it gets there, or give it anything to eat - she flings her arms all over the place and screams. Wouldn’t you be scared?”

  I had to admit that this made sense.

  “I think you could be right,” I said. “But what if it’s not a dragon? What if it’s something else? It’s jumped out and hit me in the face a thousand times now and it’s never seemed dragon-shaped to me.”

  “What else could it be?” chorused Andrei and Bo.

  At that moment a group of other kids arrived with a ball and the boys ran off to play with them. As far as they were concerned there was no more to be said: it was evident that what I had was a dragon.

  7

  **

  My Carpet Is Magic

  It was one of those dull and boring days when it won’t stop raining and you can’t go down to play in the square. I lay on my bed and read for a while, and then I sat at my desk to draw. I lay down again and stared at the frog prince, thinking how much I would love to actually meet one of those animals that are really a person but have been cursed by some kind of magic spell. It must be fun to be an animal and a person at the same time because then you could live in two worlds and never be bored. If I had two worlds, I could choose between my room and another room in a different world. While it rained in Madrid, in my other world it would be a lovely sunny day and I could go out to play. I would have two houses, two groups of friends, and two languages like Bo and Andrei. I would still only have one school, because one school is already enough. If I could have two lives I would be like Linda and have two names. Here I would be called Amaranta, because that’s the name they gave me when I was born, but in my other world... That’s it. Yes. In my other world I would be called Tamaran and I would be a princess (because everyone can choose what they want to be in their other world). I was very content imagining how my other world would be, even though it was annoying not to be able to go out and play.

  I got up from my bed and began to jump around on my rug. First I only stepped on the green squares, then just on the pink. Then I challenged myself to do pink-green-pink-green without breaking the pattern, and I won my challenge. Then I stood in the middle of the rug on just one leg. I closed my eyes and imagined I was a flamingo – you know, one of those big pink birds. Suddenly I had a thought: can flamingos fly? It would be strange to see, with them being so big. I closed my eyes tightly so that I couldn’t see anything and slowly, carefully, extended my wings (because discoveries are made slowly, bit by bit)... And I flew. Yes, I flew. It was a very short flight, but I flew. I flew all the way from the rug to the floor, landing with my head against the leg of my headboard.

  “Amaranta Airlines hopes you’ve had a pleasant flight,” I said raising my hands up to my head.

  “Amaranta, sweetie, are you all right?” I heard from the corridor.

  “Yes, Mum.”

  Still on the floor, I opened my eyes. What I saw then was the last thing I ever expected.

  Underneath my bed there was a tiny little door that I’d never ever seen before. I was absolutely sure. I had leaned down there a thousand times to pick things up from the floor and that door was never there. I shifted around to a kneeling position so I could move in and get a closer look at this mysterious door.

  The handle was so puny that it was really difficult to turn; I could only just touch it with the very edges of my fingertips. I leaned right in and peered through it with one eye to see if I could see anything, but all there was behind the little door was an infinite darkness. I went to poke my finger through to see i
f I could feel what was there and suddenly... Suddenly something tremendously strong pulled me in. I don’t know how it happened, but I soon realised I was slipping downwards on a huge spiral slide like a helter skelter. It went round and round at lightning speed. At first I went face-forward, sliding on my belly. The wind whooshed past so quickly that my curls flew upwards and waved about behind me. Then, with a bump of the slide, I flew upwards and came down again like a ball. I rolled two or three times; it was great fun. Then came another bump, and then another. Then I landed backwards and face up, with my head and arms on the lowest part of the slide. I was falling head-first and so fast that it was impossible to see what there was around me – all I saw were splodges of colours. I knew without a doubt when the journey had ended, and I knew exactly where I was. And it wasn’t because I’d bumped my head, I assure you; it was all just perfectly logical. I was in my other world – the one I’d wished for. The rug in my room was really magic! All I had to do was stand on one leg, close my eyes, and wish for things with all my heart - I had been so fed up with the world where it wouldn’t stop raining!

  I looked around me. I was in a forest where (obviously) it wasn’t raining. But something was missing! It was very nice but, frankly, it needed a bit of colour. I thought it would be much nicer with some big flowers, and some small ones, too... I wish there were little flowers, I thought, and stars... purple ones. Yes, purple stars in the sky, even though it’s daytime... and pink clouds. Fantastic! Everything I thought about appeared right at the moment I thought it. A cherry tree. Bigger. No, smaller. It was brilliant; the cherry tree that appeared in front of me grew taller and smaller in time with my thoughts. As well as all the purple stars I want a gigantic green star - luminous green. Perfect! And children... I want there to be other children...

  “CHILDREN!” I shouted, “But why aren’t they appearing?”

  “Freedom of decoration is the right of all citizens of The Forest, but not freedom of population,” said a small voice behind me. “Don’t you go to school? Hello. Hellooooooo. Has the dragon got your tongue? I’m answering your question about there being no children. You can add and take away anything you like, but you can’t populate. By that I mean that you can’t add animals, and certainly not mythological creatures like children.”

  “Excuse me?” I exclaimed, completely astonished.

  “Oh, good! You talk!”

  “A-a-and you... you...” I couldn’t help stammering.

  “And I do too, well what a surprise! But of course I talk. I’ve never seen you around here, where have you come from? You’re new, I know. I see everyone here and I know when someone is new in The Forest. Oh, I must go and tell everyone. I’m sure I don’t know what I’m doing wasting time here instead of going to spread the news. This is big news, you know. No one new ever arrives, so this is big news – it certainly is. Now let’s see how I can make it sound really exciting. It all depends on how you tell things, you know. An artistic approach is essential...”

  What was standing in front of me, chattering away without stopping for breath, was a squirrel. It looked at me attentively with its caramel-coloured eyes, examining me, with a little paw raised up to its chin.

  “Let me look at you. Turn your head a little bit to the right. No, to the left. Perfect, yes, that’s your good side, don’t forget it. Whenever you see a camera pointed at you, give it your left side... I am a news artiste! Oh!” said the squirrel with a sigh, “What it is to be born with talent!”

  I stood gawping, unable to say a word.

  “Well! You don’t talk much, do you? You’re keeping very quiet,” said the squirrel. “You’re not trying to be mysterious now, are you? Please don’t be difficult because, as I said, you’re big news. Go on, tell your friendly squirrel everything - tell me all your little secrets. Let’s begin at the beginning: where have you come from?”

  “From the slide,” I said quietly.

  The squirrel leaned in very close so that we were nose-to-nose and blinked very quickly.

  “There,” I said pointing behind me, but the slide had disappeared. “I promise you there really was a slide.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear. Too much sugar is a terrible thing. Very bad. And not just because I say so. No, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. You stuff yourself with sweets and suddenly you start seeing slides? But don’t you worry,” it said with a friendly hug, “I can be discreet. You’re with friends here, and as proof I can tell you that in my family there’s a similar case. You see,” it said, lowering its enormous eyelashes, “every family has a DHS.”

  “A what?” I asked, not understanding a thing.

  “Disproportionately Happy Squirrel is the medical term. It means a squirrel who doesn’t know when to stop with sugary things. A lot of people find it embarrassing but not me - squirrels in glass trees shouldn’t throw nuts! The DHS in my family would really stuff herself with sweets. Sweets, lollipops, whatever she could find. Then she would imagine things from the effects of all the sugar. And she would talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and- oh, she never stopped! Very fast, too!”

  “Definitely a relative of yours,” I commented.

  “Pardon?” the squirrel looked confused.

  “I mean... I mean because I’ve noticed that here all the squirrels can talk.”

  “Claro, mi amor. And in several languages –although not everyone. Only the squirrels from a good tree, like me.”

  I was a bit baffled by everything the squirrel was saying, but in truth it was really quite funny.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Squirelle,” it said, puffing out its chest with pride. “Well,” it added, shyly, tracing a pattern in the ground with its foot, “really my name is Squirrel Tattletail, but Squirelle is my stage name. It’s a lot catchier and it’s much more glamorous.”

  “True,” I agreed.

  Squirelle’s face lit up with a beaming smile from ear to ear.

  “Really? Do you think so? You really like my stage name? Some people have criticised it – animals with no taste, you know...” The squirrel’s eyes opened wide and it stared at me without blinking. “And what kind of animal are you?”

  “I’m not an animal, I’m a girl.”

  The squirrel burst into laughter.

  “Well you have a sense of humour,” it said.

  “I am a girl,” I insisted.

  “Really?”

  “Honestly. Cross my heart.” I replied.

  “I thought you were a bit strange. I’ve heard talk of girls and boys, but... But aren’t you supposed to be mythological creatures? In school they teach us that children are mythological creatures and they don’t exist. That squirrel relative I told you about swore she’d seen a child once, and that was the moment they spotted her illness and diagnosed her as DHS. Poor squirrel cousin. And poor me, because now I’m seeing children so I must be a DHS, too. But if I only had that one little sweet – and just the one – then why...”

  “You don’t have DHS, I assure you. I really am a girl. What else could I be?”

  Squirelle looked at me sadly. She seemed convinced I was a figment of her imagination.

  “Ask me whatever you want, and you’ll see I’m a girl.”

  “No need, no need. I accept my tragic destiny. From now on I will see nonexistent creatures and that’s just how it is. Though... Perhaps... Pinch yourself to see if I’m dreaming!”

  “Pinch myself? Why don’t you pinch yourself?”

  “Because it hurts,” said Squirelle, pinching me.

  “Ow!” I squealed, and pinched her back.

  “Ow!” complained Squirelle, and then hugged me tightly. “Yay! We’re not dreaming, we’re not dreaming!” she exclaimed, jumping for joy. She was still hugging me as she jumped so I had to jump too. “Fantastic,” she said, letting me go at last. “And what’s your name?”

  “Ama...“ —wait, I said to myself. You’re in your other world – you can be whoever you want to be. “Tamaran. I am Princess
Tamaran.”

  “Princess! Oh, what a shame! Such a waste of big news!” Squirrel Tattletail looked sad again. “Never did I think that this could happen to me! To meet a girl and then it turns out that she’s a princess as well and I have to keep the news all to myself.” With a click of her furry fingers, Squirrelle made a tiny little violin appear and began to play a sorrowful tune on it.

  “But what’s the matter? Why can’t you tell anyone about me?”

  “Because I’m very fond of you, my dear Tamaran. My tender little squirrel heart is sorry to tell you that, much to my regret, I won’t be able to take you to the dizzying heights of fame. I cannot utter even one little word about your existence, and it’s all for your own good.”

  “I don’t understand at all. Why?”

  “Oh! Dear child, what little power of deduction. Now you wouldn’t want me to go around telling everyone you’re a princess, would you?”

  With another click Squirelle made the violin disappear, and then stood looking at me with her hands on her hips.

  “Well to tell the truth... Yes, actually. I would very much like it if you did. What’s the point in being a princess if no one knows? And besides, what’s wrong with it?”

  “What’s wrong with it? But there’s already a princess in The Forest.”

  “And?” I asked, disconcerted.