color, turquoise—although that was quite impossible because Dad hated that color.
“Okay, I’m dreaming,” Alison said aloud, in as firm a tone as she could muster. “In that case, I’d like to fly now. Oh, and for Donny Schmitz to be flying alongside me and to give me a huge kiss on the lips!” Nothing happened. So it wasn’t one of those dreams. Something flickered at the edge of her vision and she tilted her head up to look at the moon. There was a huge, dark silhouette flitting in front of it. “Oh, I see, it’s that kind of dream instead,” she said, and began to run and pinch herself at the same time. Pinch, pinch, pinch, ow ow ow, but she failed to wake up in bed. She braced herself for unimaginable pain when the dragon she’d just seen breathed fire all over her. But the only thing that hurt was the cold air roaring into her lungs, and then her knee as she tripped over something and pitched face forward on the impossible wooden sidewalk. She rolled around clutching her knee, crying and wishing she would wake up already.
Instead an unfamiliar but ordinary-looking girl about Arnold’s age appeared, looking down at her with a tentative half-smile. “Alison? Alison Grossbard?”
“That’s my name,” she said, sitting up and drying her eyes with her coat sleeve. “But how can I be dreaming about you? I’ve never met you before.”
“You’re not dreaming,” the stranger said, helping her to her feet. She was dressed more normally than Shaniqua had been, in jeans and a jacket. Her dirty blond hair was tied back in a ponytail and she had a friendly, mischievous gleam in her brown eyes.
“My name’s Jo Purnell,” she said. “Gloria sent me to find you. I had a little help from Ir’befunzu of course.”
“Who?”
“The dragon,” Jo said matter-of-factly. “Most people call her Ashley, though, and I suppose you can too, if it’s easier. She sensed you right away, and she says to tell you that she never barbecues people. Well, hardly ever. Only if they really, really deserve it.” They were walking back the way Alison had come, toward Main Street and the site where the high school should be. Instead there was a small, wood-framed building that said “GLORIA’S GATEWAY BOOKS AND RECORDS.” That must have been the building Alison had walked out of. But what had happened to the high school? More important, what had happened to Shaniqua, and to her house?
“I can tell you’re really confused,” Jo said as they walked into the bookstore. A cowbell jangled, and Gloria looked up, a sheepish expression on her face, from the book she was reading. At least Alison recognized this one: Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, which Dad had a copy of along with the rest of his contraband books in the attic.
“Thanks, Jo,” Gloria said. “Alison, are you all right?”
“Apart from a bruised knee, yeah, sure.”
“Let me see that.” The red-haired lady knelt down, rolled up Alison’s pants leg and put a cool cloth on the knee. Alison blinked in astonishment as the ache rapidly faded.
“I always say Gloria is better than any doctor who I’ve ever met,” Jo said.
“That’s whom, dear,” Gloria said. “Any doctor whom you’ve ever met.”
Jo folded her arms and scowled. “Now you sound like Mum! I thought it was going to be fun when you came and opened your bookstore here. I don’t need four parents!”
“How do you have four parents?” Alison asked.
“Besides Mum and Dad—he’s the only real softie—there’s Gloria here, and my big brother Tom’s girlfriend Teresa. Three mothers constantly scolding and correcting me! I can’t take it anymore! Hey, why are you crying? Did I say something wrong?”
“I’m not crying!” Alison said, clenching her fists. Three mothers! I haven’t even got ONE whole mother! Aloud, she said, “I don’t care if you’ve got a thousand mothers! Just explain to me what the hell is going on here!”
Jo puckered her lips. “Wow, you said a bad word!”
“What, ‘hell’?”
“You said it again!”
“Jo, just tell her how she got here,” Gloria said.
Jo folded her arms again. “Huh-uh. You explain to her how come she’s important enough for you to transport her across the dimensions from her world to this one, even though you just met her, while I’ve known you for ages and you still won’t let me visit any of the other worlds!”
The hairs stood up on the back of Alison’s neck. “Do you mean to tell me I’ve traveled to another world, not on a giant spaceship powered by the High Ones’ fusion drive, but using… a cat?”
Gloria ducked her head. “I’m not really a cat, dear, though I sometimes look like one. And this is your same old Earth, just with a few details of the past different.”
“Yeah, like in your world Ben Franklin wasn’t a little weasel who worked out a dirty deal with that slyboots William Pitt so we all still have to bow to a stupid git of a king,” Jo said, “and Napoleon Bone-a-Fart got his butt kicked and had to go live on a desert island instead of conquering half the world. On the other hand, we don’t have big blue slugs slithering around telling us what to do.”
Alison’s head was spinning. Luckily there was a comfy chair handy. “You can’t say that,” she whispered through a tight throat.
“Oh, so what if I insulted the king,” Jo said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “They don’t even put you in jail for that anymore. Besides, Gloria would never peach on me.”
“No, I mean you can’t talk about the High Ones that way. You can get in really big trouble.” Trouble so big, you might wish you were in jail.
“That’s what they call the echinodermoids from Gliese 581d,” Gloria told Jo, who clasped her hands together and went down on one knee.
“Oh, please, please, Gloria, let me go back to Alison’s world with her. I can’t wait to see a real live alien!”
Gloria cleared her throat noisily.
“Apart from you, that is!”
“You’re an alien?” Alison gasped.
“To me, you’re the alien,” Gloria said nonchalantly. “And I don’t come from Gliese 581d. I’ve never even met a High One in person. That’s not what they call themselves, by the way. ‘Winged-Thinkers’ is a better translation.”
“You’re both changing the subject,” Jo accused. “Which is, how come I can’t go visit with Alison in her world?”
“Because it’s too dangerous, for now,” Gloria said. “The time isn’t yet ripe.”
“Come on, it’s only Chincoteague,” Jo whined. Alison thought it sounded funny the way she said it, more like Jingo Teag. “Nothing ever happens in Chincoteague in any world, except the annual pony swim.”
Gloria shook her head. “No. Not tonight, Jo. I told you I’d think about it, but it’s important that Alison and Arnold visit you here first.”
Jo flounced over to another easy chair and turned her back to Gloria and Alison.
“Oh, very mature. She and Arnold ought to get along just great,” Alison said. “Can you please take me home now? I haven’t got any of my homework done, and by now Dad’s probably trying to cook dinner himself, and if he sets fire to the house again the Volunteer Fire Department might have to hold two pony swims to pay for all the equipment they have to use.”
“Your fire department sponsors the pony swims?” Jo said. “That’s funny. Here it’s the Dragonfire Club. Oh, I forgot. It’s dangerous for me to talk to you.”
“Just ignore her,” Alison suggested to Gloria as they made their way to the back. “That’s what I do when Arnold gets into one of his moods.”
“I’ll