Ernest, who must surely have been a firefighter in an earlier life, carried Mia to her bed and laid her carefully down on it. Mom was with her in a moment, clinging to her like a sumo wrestler. Unmoved, her eyes completely empty, Mia stared past her and up at the ceiling.
“What’s going on?” Florence, who had been the last to arrive, was standing in the doorway behind Lottie, Buttercup, and Grayson, rubbing her eyes. “It sounded like the house was falling down.” Intrigued, she looked at all the saucepan lids scattered around the room, and the string still tied to Mia’s ankle. Buttercup began barking excitedly—thank goodness she’d left it until now—and Lottie asked, “Should I fetch the thermometer and take her temperature?”
Grayson cast me a long and very eloquent glance, to which I replied only with a shrug of my shoulders. He went over to the window and closed it firmly.
In Mom’s convulsive embrace, Mia was fighting for air. At last her eyelids began opening and closing again. Then she shook her head, obviously confused. “Mom?”
“It’s all right, darling, we’re here with you,” said Mom, loosening her clasp slightly.
“Did I … did I walk in my sleep again?” Mia sat up. “I can’t even remember my dream.”
“Never mind, your alarm system worked brilliantly,” I said, switching on her bedside lamp.
“Try to remember your dream,” said Grayson, urgently and without a lot of sympathy.
Mia still looked as if she were only half awake. “There … there was the sea,” she murmured. “And a landing. I sat on it and dangled my legs in the water.…” She inspected her saucepan lids. “Was it really loud enough?”
“Oh yes.” Lottie was rubbing her arms. “I thought a garbage truck had rammed the house.”
“But it didn’t wake me. There’s something wrong with me.” Mia sank back on her pillows.
“It’s been a day full of surprises.” Mom stroked Mia’s forehead, looking at Ernest. “When a child’s mother plans to remarry, it can come as rather a shock,” she whispered to him, although at room-filling volume. Then she turned back to Mia. “I’m going to sleep here with you tonight, mousie, okay?”
Mia looked at me. I knew what she was thinking. We hadn’t had a shock this evening—all that was way behind us, months ago, when Mom and Ernest had told us they were moving in together. At the time, yes, that had in fact been a shock—but while the proposal of marriage could be called a surprise, it was a nice one.
All the same, it was fine by me if Mom slept with Mia tonight. She was already snuggling down under the quilt with her, one arm around her waist.
“Mom, it’s all right,” said Mia. “I’m glad you and Ernest are getting married. The wedding will be sensational! Just think of the meeting between Great-Aunt Gertrude and Mrs. Spencer…”
“Not forgetting your great-aunt Virginia,” added Lottie.
“I have a kind of gloomy foreboding,” murmured Florence, and Mom and Mia both chuckled.
“Sleep well, then, both of you.” Ernest looked very relieved when he left the room with us, closing the door behind him. “It’s all right,” he added, repeating Mia’s own words.
But of course it wasn’t. Nothing was all right. But for her alarm system, my little sister might well have jumped out of the window tonight.
I sensed Grayson’s eyes resting on me, but I didn’t respond. Instead I went straight back into my room with a murmured, “Good night.”
To my surprise, I dropped off to sleep again easily, and when I went through my dream door into the corridor, it was as if I’d never been away, although it baffled me to find that Henry’s door was still right opposite it and hadn’t changed at all. Elegant, black, and forbidding, with a fierce lion’s head as a door knocker.
I quickly looked away, and instead examined my own door—I’d really expected it to be rather run-down, like me, paint peeling off, a few notches in it, maybe a different color, one that matched my state of mind better than its cheerful mint green. But my door was in excellent condition. The lizard winked at me before coiling up again into a shining doorknob.
Mia’s door was on the right of mine, and there was no sign of Mr. Wu anywhere. Instead, as I was about to take hold of the handle, someone else came out of the doorway.
“Mom?”
Mom put her forefinger to her lips. “Shh! Mia needs to rest,” she whispered.
I looked at her with mixed feelings. How sweet of Mia to show her confidence in Mom by posting her to protect her dreams—and how useless. I realized that when she opened the door a little wider and beckoned me in. “But of course you’re welcome, Liv darling. If you keep quiet and lie down with us. We were just counting sheep.”
“No, no, that’s not the way to do it. How do you know that I’m the real Liv?”
Dream-Mom shook her head with an indulgent smile. “The real Liv? What nonsense you’re talking, darling! As if I wouldn’t know my own daughter. Oh, there’s Grayson.”