Munmun(6)

“Wow,” I said. “That’s mean and terrible.”

“It was a joke,” Prayer said. “Sorry. I like Usher, okay. And look, he’s not stupid. I’m sure he knows what this trip is about.”

“Well, I’m going to tell him, so, if he runs away crying, your fault,” I said.

Prayer took the second watch and Usher dozed into the dream. I sundried the bills of munmun up to the ceiling, where they cried paint.

“Usher, I hate to tell you this, but Prayer isn’t going to law school to study law,” I said.

“I know that,” he said, unpalsied from the dream. “Prayer can’t read.”

“Tobehonest I would have to say this law school trip is more about her finding a hubby,” I said. “A lawgrad hubby with munmun so she and my mom can scale up.”

“I know that’s her plan,” he said. “But anything could happen.”

“Usher,” I said. “You don’t want hope to make you stupid.”

“Anything could happen if I’m a good enough guy to her,” said Usher, and my heart just broke for this poor stupid idiot.

I took the third watch, listening for Sand Dreamough, and the old middlerich guy was still sitting there.

“Pardon me,” he said, in that deep frummy middlerich style. He was about doublescale and he had a buttcheek in each seat.

“Pardon me,” I said, because what else can you do with middleriches except repeat and hope it’s polite.

“I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your dreaming,” he said. “I dozed off and I have to tell you it was quite beautifull, even moving.”

“Moving, thank you,” I said. “Beautifull, well, thank you again. Please.”

He gave me a smile that was buttclenched with pity or something. His skin was about the lightness of palmwood, sunsplashed with black and gray, and the hair on his head was like trees on a mountain, up to the ears and no higher.

“May I ask where you are headed?” he tried to say quietly.

“Yes, please,” I said. “The law school in Sand Dreamough.”

He snuffled a little and his brows climbed his head.

“Well goodness, what a coincidence,” he told me, he lived nearby up in High Dreamough and could carry us from the station.

“Goodness goodness,” I nodded, “a coincidence for sure.”

I woke up Usher and Prayer and we discussed it quietly, ontheonehand this will save us a bunch of time, ontheother can we trust him, ofcourse we can he seems nice, but what if he eats us, Warner you idiot that doesn’t happen, forstarters middles have way better food to eat than littles, infact what if he gives us some.

So I told the old middlerich that sounded good and a few stations later he scooped us up into the outerpocket of his smoky-smelling leather bag. There was more hardcandy floating around in there, magazines, books, bottles, plastic bendy sheets that were probably screens or cameras or something, no idea how to use them though.

We bounced in his bag, peeking over the pocketlip, as he strode through a middlepoor neighborhood, ducking the awnings and overstepping carts and bikes. I tried looking for a law school. I knew a little what it might look like from other people’s dreaming, basically oldtimey parthenons like stone grills hatted with pyramids. But I didn’t see any, just dusty middlepoor twostorys crowding the parkinglots and cardstock signs and foldingchairs he had to dance around.

It was a different landscape from Dockseye for sure, lots of shops and restaurants and middlemalls, mostly halfscale to middlescale. We zoomed over the heads of old middlepoors playing cards and eating soups, young tatty daves leaning on janky halfcars and also eating soups, giggly sceneteens eating even more soups, what the heck is this, Neighborhood Souptime.

Off the sloping streets above us nowandthen I could see some real palaces nosing over the trees.

Then we got a better look at those palaces when he turned up one wide slopestreet and started bounding uphill and prettysoon it was just super groomed middlerich houses hugging the cliffsides, walled off from each other by forests.

After a while it became hard not to worry about whether we were actually heading toward a law school.

“Oh,” I announced eventually. “You know, I don’t recognize this part of Sand Dreamough, perhaps you could kindly tell me about it, I mean not to be rude, nopressure.”

“Well, now we’re in High Dreamough,” explained the guy.

“Ah,” I agreed, while we all tried not to get too freaked out.

A few minutes later I piped up again, “Well, I guess I’m curious about where law school is from here exactly, and you know what, come to think of it, we can probably just walk the rest of the way, so, what I’m saying here ofcourse is, if you please, thank you.”

“No no no,” he said. “We’re not far. I can’t drop you off here, anyway.”

We traveled another mile or so.

“Are we going to law school or what,” hissed Prayer.

“I guess I am a little curious about whether we can be close to a law school if around here it’s all just homes and dwellings and forests,” I said to the guy.

“You’re quite perceptive,” he purred.

I had no idea what the crap that meant so I just said, “You’re quite perceptive, thanks.”