Neil looked around the class. Twenty-one young, serious faces. They may have been normal, well-adjusted, boisterous kids, but they weren’t putting him on. There was no sniggering or whispering. They were all sitting there with their hands raised, and not one of them smiled.

“Okay,” said Neil, hoarsely, “you can put your hands down now.”

Mrs. Novato said, “This is most upsetting, Mr. Fenner. I can’t imagine what’s going on.”

“That’s why I wanted to speak to them,” Neil told her. “I believe that something’s happening here that’s more than bad dreams.”

He turned to the children, and he tried to speak as reassuringly and quietly as he could. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time,” he said, “but I’d like you to think about these dreams as a kind of a class project. The more we find out about them, I think the better chance we have of discovering why you’ve been dreaming them, and what they are. I’d like you all to spend a few minutes at home tonight, and write or draw what you saw in your dream. Think hard, and remember whatever you can. If you can think of any names you heard in your dreams, jot them down. What you write or draw doesn’t have to make any particular sense. Just put down whatever comes into your mind.”

Mrs. Novato said, “I’m not at all sure that Mr. Groh is going to approve of this, Mr. Fenner.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he doesn’t want to antagonize the parents. Some of them are pretty touchy about nonstandard projects, you know.”

Neil took in the class with a wide sweep of his arm. “Mrs. Novato, did you see how many hands went up? Twenty-one out of twenty-one. Don’t you think we ought to make just a minimum effort to find out what this is all about?”

The classroom was quiet, except for sporadic coughs and the shuffling of sneakers. Then Mrs. Novato said, “All right, Mr. Fenner. I’ll give it just one try. But I don’t think the children ought to do this at home. They can draw their dreams right here in the classroom, this afternoon, during their drawing lesson. It should improve the results, too. Not all of them have crayons and paper at home.”

She lifted her hands toward the class, and clapped them once, briskly. “Now then, children,” she said, “I want you all to say good morning to Mr. Fenner, and then I want you to open your geography books to the big color map of northern California, which is on page twenty-five.”

The children sang, “Good morning, Mr. Fenner,” and Neil said “Thanks” to Mrs. Novato and left the classroom. On his way out, he gave Toby a quick, secret wink.