The Time Traveller and the Tiger Page 18
Mandeep is a fictional character, but his dream is real. I hope you’ll make it your dream too.
Panthera: Panthera’s Tigers Forever Programme is working to increase tiger numbers by at least 50% across Asia.
Find out how you can help at panthera.org
World Wildlife Fund: For great fundraising ideas, including how to symbolically adopt a tiger, go to worldwildlife.org
Wildlife Conservation Society: Learn how WCS works with local governments to protect tigers at wcs.org
Centre For Wildlife Studies: Dig deeper into the science behind tiger conservation at cwsindia.org
The first time Stella Martin ran away, it was in her sleep. The second was by accident. But the third time she did it on purpose, to find out whether she was human or not.
The sleepwalking began when she was eight, soon after her mum died, and at first Stella didn’t get any further than her bedroom door. The moment she touched the handle – which had always been slightly loose – it rattled and woke her. One night, though, the door was left ajar and there was nothing to stop her passing through, into the silent, carpeted corridor beyond.
She padded down the broad staircase, across the hall, into the kitchen where the marble countertops, polished by Mrs Chapman every day, gleamed liquid in the moonlight. Out of the back door she went, on to the patio, moving without hesitation, as if on command.
The grass was wet from the sprinklers, but Stella didn’t seem to notice the chill on her bare toes. She stepped on to the lawn, still fast asleep, passing through the circle of light from the porch lantern, moving into deeper and deeper shadow. When she reached the low stone wall, she swung her legs over, her feet finding the flagstones on the other side.
Ten metres away lay the swimming pool, its water black as flint.
It was lucky Stella’s dad was having another of his sleepless nights. Luckier still that, sunk in his trance of sorrow, he had forgotten to lower the window, and happened to catch sight of Stella’s fluttering white nightgown. Even so, he was almost too late. Stella’s body was tilting towards the water when he caught her around the waist and pulled her to safety.
Stella’s mum had loved the pool. She had been a superb swimmer. It wasn’t just that she was fast, there was more to it than that. It was the way she used to move. As if she was made of water itself.
She had taught Stella how to swim. Stella could remember the feel of her mum’s hand cupping the back of her head. Her mum’s smiling face blocked out the sun, and her hair glittered at the edges like a red-gold crown.
I’ve got you, she had said, as Stella hesitated. I’ve got you.
Stella raised her body and suddenly she was floating. Her fear had gone. For a moment, staring wide-eyed at the sky, she felt as if it would never come back. Her mum had taken it away; the fear Stella had, and all she would ever have, even if she lived to be a hundred years old.
But after the sleepwalking incident, Stella didn’t want to go swimming. The sight of the pool frightened her, and she was glad when her dad finally had it emptied and covered with a heavy tarp.
‘Such a waste,’ Mrs Chapman said, casting a disapproving look at the dead leaves on the surface of the tarp. ‘And all because of a little sleepwalking! Do you recall what you were dreaming about?’
Stella nodded. She had been dreaming she was in the pool. It was daytime. Reflections danced against the white walls and bottom of the pool, holding the water in a shimmering net of light. The net would hold her too, she thought, as she waded further in. But a cloud passed over the sun and the net vanished, and there was suddenly nothing beneath her reaching feet. The bottom of the pool had disappeared and she was sinking, deeper and deeper. She twisted her head and looked up. The surface of the water was already far away, the light dwindling. Below her desperately kicking feet she sensed nothing but a vast emptiness. She was descending fast, unable to stop or cry for help, down, down, to a place so deep and dark that she could never come back …
Stella opened her mouth to explain all this to Mrs Chapman, and then closed it again.
‘Well?’ Mrs Chapman prompted. ‘What was it?’
Stella didn’t know how to describe the feeling of the dream, the panic. ‘It’s a secret,’ she said finally.
Mrs Chapman ruffled Stella’s messy hair. ‘What a strange girl you are!’
Stella didn’t argue. Mrs Chapman ran the house. She cooked their meals, and kept the floors spotless, and knew where everything was. And if Mrs Chapman said she was strange, it was probably true. Stella was filled with a mysterious dread.
It was exactly the same as the terrible, sinking feeling in her dream.
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