Toby pushed him off and struggled to his feet. His shirt was hanging out at the back, and his pants were ripped. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face.

“You’re so smart, you think you’re the only person who ever had dreams,” Andy said.

“So when was the last time you had a bad dream?” demanded Toby. “The last time your mother cooked spaghetti, I’ll bet.”

“It was not!” said Andy, hotly. “I had bad dreams last night, and the night before.”

“You had bad dreams?” asked Toby.

“I did too. Nightmares.”

“You shouldn’t have gone to see Star Wars,” said Ben Nichelini. “You’re not man enough to take it.”

“Will you shut up?” said Andy. “I had bad dreams about people having all their hair torn off of their heads. Dozens of ’em. All screaming and shouting, because somebody was tearing the hair right off of their heads.”

“Gee, that’s scary,” put in Debbie Spurr. She was a thin, mousy little girl in a brown gingham print-frock and her hair in bows. “That’s worse than my bad dream.”

“What is this?” asked Andy. “Just because Toby and Petra and me had bad dreams, that doesn’t mean everybody else has to say they had one too.”

“David had one,” said Toby. “That makes four.”

“I did have one,” insisted Debbie. “I thought I was awake, but I wasn’t. I heard someone calling out. It was terrifically scary. They kept on calling and calling, and I didn’t know what to do. It was a woman, and she sounded awful scared.”

Toby looked at Andy, and for the very first time in their lives they looked at each other as people, not as classmates or as children. Their young faces were sober and expressionless, as if they had both recognized that what was happening was unusual and dangerous. Then Andy broke the spell by smirking a little, and saying, “That was nothing compared to my dream. Some woman calling out? I’ll put a thumbtack on Mrs. Novato’s chair, then you’ll hear some woman calling out.”

Just then, Mrs. Novato came to the schoolhouse door and blew her whistle to signal the end of the lunch recess. The talk about bad dreams broke up as they drifted back to the classroom, and Andy Beaver started on his R-2 D-2 impressions again, colliding with the girls and making burbling sounds. Toby walked back to the school door alone, and he was the last to go in. At the door, some feeling made him pause, and he looked back at the schoolhouse fence.

Under the windy sun, a tall man was standing, only about three or four feet beyond the gate. His eyes were shaded by a wide, dusty hat, and he was dressed in worn, dusty clothes. His lips appeared to be moving, and Toby was sure that he could hear the whispered word “Allen…”